The creator of the popular manhwa The Boxer has returned with a new work, three years after The Boxer has ended.
Umbilical features drama and action as it follows two girls with opposing world views. One girl wants to “cut herself off from the world” while the other wants to “affirm the meaning of human existence and life.” The title in Korean 유제, 有臍 in Chinese which translates to “umbilical,” explores the inevitability of human existence. The webtoon was released on Kakaopage on December 30, 2025. An English version is not yet available.
As translated by Anime News Network, creator Ji-hoon Jeong said, “After The Boxer, I’m glad to return with a new story for readers in Korea. Umbilical is the result of a long and intense contemplation about existence and what it means to be human. I hope this work becomes a journey where readers and I search for those answers together.”
The Boxer was launched on Naver Webtoon on December 15, 2019 and concluded on June 16, 2022 with 12 volumes. The series follows a young boy who looks deceptively weak but hides a powerful physical and athletic prowess that comes out when he’s fighting. When a boxing coach offers to train him in the sport, he seems disinterested at first until he asks whether hitting people is fun.
The series has inspired an aeni adaptation and was supposed to be animated by Xtorm and released in the second half of 2025 but there has not been any news about the release since then.
Jeong has also written the critically acclaimed and award-winning manhwa The Horizon which earned the Yellow Kid Comic of the Year award at Lucca Comics & Games in November 2025.
Both The Horizon and The Boxer are available to read digitally on WEBTOON. Both titles have also been licensed by Ize Press.
Source: Anime News Network, Kakao Entertainment
