Megalo Box

"To be quiet and do as you're told, that's the cowardly choice." These are the words of Junk Dog, an underground fighter of Megalo Box, an evolution of boxing that utilizes mechanical limbs known as Gear to enhance the speed and power of its users. Despite the young man's brimming potential as a boxer, the illegal nature of his participation forces him to make a living off of throwing matches as dictated by his boss Gansaku Nanbu. However, this all changes when the Megalo Box champion Yuuri enters his shabby ring under the guise of just another challenger. Taken out in a single round, Junk Dog is left with a challenge: "If you're serious about fighting me again, then fight your way up to me and my ring."

Filled with overwhelming excitement and backed by the criminal syndicate responsible for his thrown matches, Junk Dog enters Megalonia: a world-spanning tournament that will decide the strongest Megalo Boxer of them all. Having no name of his own, he takes on the moniker of "Joe" as he begins his climb from the very bottom of the ranked list of fighters. With only three months left to qualify, Joe must face off against opponents the likes of which he has never fought in order to meet the challenge of his rival.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Joe Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Nanbu, Gansaku Supporting

Saitou, Shirou Japanese

Yuuri Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Sachio Supporting

Murase, Michiyo Japanese

Shirato, Yukiko Supporting

Mori, Nanako Japanese

Aragaki, Tatsumi Leonald Supporting

Tamura, Makoto Japanese

Shirato, Mikio Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Fujimaki Supporting

Kinoshita, Hiroyuki Japanese

Shark Samejima Supporting

Ogami, Shinnosuke Japanese

Higashi, Potemkin Supporting

Egawa, Hisao Japanese

Abe, Kengo Producer

Katayama, Yuuki Producer

Tsuchiya, Junichirou Producer

Sugiyama, Yuuko Assistant Producer, Background Art

Reviews

Sep 28, 2024

Dompa112

Recommended

They say first impressions is important. For an anime that would usually count for the visuals since thats the first thing youll notice when you start an anime. And for me this is where Megalonia starts its success. Immediately i found myself attached to this show by looks alone and just felt i was gonna like it. Dont know how to describe it but it kinda had that early 2000 feel to its animation but with a more modern standard. Cant remember any show from around 2020 that managed to do this as good as Megalonia Box.

Ofcourse with only that you wont get very ... far. Luckily thats only the beginning of it as the inside was as tasty as the outside looked. Really enjoyed all the characters. Writing and characters felt more mature than your usual anime with screaming and quirky teenage characters.

Oh the music. While the Op and Ed didnt stand out to me the original score was incredible.

Also you dont need to be a boxning fan for this. Ive ignored Hajime no Ippo for a long time as im not a boxing fan. I usually go tge full lenght also when i start the show and with 70+ episodes i never got around giving it a chance. But this was 13 so it was easier to give a chance. And immediately upon finishing this i said to myself to give Hajime a look in the future. Thats how good this show ended up being. Oh and goes without but i will ofcourse watch the second season of Megalonia.
Highly recommend this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 21, 2021

spncrbghmn

Mixed Feelings

I actually don't think that the first season of Megalobox is all that good. I think they have a lot of things going for them conceptually. I love the setting of a dirty underground boxing competition. I think the architypes of characters were pretty entertaining, but they don't really grow much emotionally by the season finale. Motivation was pretty basic, and basic stories can be good! But there isn't much there to keep someone entertained who's looking for more critical substance past the surface of the show. Soundtrack wise, I found the show to be pretty cliche in spots, but surprisingly strong in others. A ... maddeningly inconsistent experience that results more in yawns than you'd want.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 22, 2022

RebelPanda

Not Recommended

Funny

Despite all the hype that Megalo Box created from its first few episodes, it became one of the biggest disappoints of the season. At first, it presents a familiar inspirational sports story with a vague setting to get you interested in the well-directed boxing matches. But by the end, the writing is still incredibly shallow. Megalo Box is just a carbon copy of the generic underdog boxing story but slightly worse than the classics it desperately tries to imitate.

Aside from the addition of Gear (exoskeletons to enhance the boxers fighting), Megalo Box tells the familiar tale of a misfortunate boxer, Junk Dog. He had long ... since given up his dream to become the champion of the boxing world Megalonia because he lacked the documentation to enter the tournament. This theme accurately reflects inequality due to the current US immigration crisis. Junk Dog wastes his talent away, throwing matches for cash, a diamond in the rough who thinks he has no chance at making it big because of discrimination. When he crosses paths with Yuri, the current Megalo Box champion, they enter a heated rivalry that makes him feel enough passion for boxing. Of course, in their first fight, he's crushed. But now, he must climb to the top of Megalonia and prove himself worthy of a rematch. Throughout his journey through the ranks, he faces many foes and learns to trust in himself and others… you can guess how the rest goes even if you haven't seen it.

It's an underdog story of the most generic mold, and it plays out exactly as you expect. Never was I surprised by any development, whether a twist in character or an outcome of the many boxing matches. Any nuanced themes the show has are only superficial and do nothing to elevate the conventional plot structure. Unfortunately, the social commentary is surface-level and window dressing for a bland plot. It seems like including the exoskeletons all the boxers wear and other sci-fi elements were not to strengthen the story. It's more just for the sake of making things look cool. The only nuance the Gear adds is that it represents a system the protagonist defies by removing. Sure this makes him seem like a badass for fighting against mechanically powered fighters and challenging the world's standards for the sport, but we already knew what the outcome of his fights would be anyways. Not to mention the Gear doesn't make much sense. It's sci-fi without the science.

There's an argument that predictability is not inherently wrong and is sometimes beneficial in a story that sets out to emulate the classics. Being a reboot of the classic Ashita no Joe (which I haven't seen), it is expected to share some similarities to the older boxing stories. However, Megalo Box does not add to the formula previously established. It simply uses it to present a series with good production values but writing that does nothing to surprise. It takes more than just imitating the best to become great. But it could help to be at least on the same level of quality as what you're trying to emulate. That's what Megalo Box is, desperate to be seen as one of the classics that it forgets to create an experience that can stand on its own merits.

If it was the writers' intention to make the show look like a classic anime similar to Cowboy Bebop, they failed. Deliberately downgrading the resolution only made the show seem fuzzier and less refined. A muddy, washed-out color palette covers the whole series, suited to the dystopian setting. A grimy, washed-out color palette covers the whole series, with a low resolution making lines fuzzier. There's no respite; even the supposedly advanced sci-fi city is unremarkable. Megalo Box doesn't get violent until later in its run, but it lacks the bite a gritty boxing series should have. The lines should be sharper and eye-catching, but the art is soft and gray; its tiresome style would fit a show with less tension like a slice of life.

I spent more time trying to engage with Megalo Box than being engaged because the action it so heavily emphasized is nothing special. Even the fighting typically only consists of the basic punches and blocks despite the sci-fi-tacked-on elements. The animation isn't fluid enough for them to have the impact of the real thing, and they're not exaggerated enough to stand up against the current shounen. For many fights, Joe is typically beaten up and on the brink of defeat, struggling through most of the fight, only to turn it around at the last second with a single punch. This formula for the fights is repeated until they lose any spark of excitement seen in the first episodes. Megalo Box quickly becomes predictable and, frankly, boring, which is a death sentence for a show literally about sci-fi exoskeleton boxing.

I get that many of the stakes in boxing stories come from what's happening with the characters involved. But the people Joe fights are typically one-dimensional ciphers that are seen once and rarely again. Even the main character, Junk Dog (eventually Joe), has very little to him. He's your typical underdog who's lost confidence in himself because the world denied it to him but gradually gains it back in combat. Whenever he's out of a fight, it's typically apparent what's going on in his head because the situation he's in is already one you can recognize. At many points, the series clarifies how he's reacting to the fights with close-ups and the exhilarating music.

I wish the side characters could have made up for what Joe lacked, but they're equally shallow with predictable arcs. Joe's manager Nanbu frustratingly jumps back and forth in progression, which to the show's credit, is suited to his emotionally damaged character. He's molded by the fixed boxing system to divide himself from the fighters he trains, struggling to put faith in Joe's journey to Megalonia because he has seen how much power those in control have. Then there's Sachio, the token little kid with big dreams who follows Joe around ever since he saved him and his group of friends from the slums. His friends can be combined into one character because they offer an equal amount of development: none. Simply being there to cheer Joe on during matches is the extent of their impact on the show. They're not terrible as characters, they fit in the setting and have motivations and arcs, but they're so archetypal I couldn't muster up a reason to care for either of them. Except for Yuri, the main rival who gets no motivation to fight other than 'he likes to fight.' Watching him fight didn't excite me because I never knew anything about him. Even his manager Yukiko had nothing to her other than inserting evilness into the plot; she's selling Gear to the military? There was so much potential for commentary, but the show drops her side plot entirely by the second half; much like the rest of its compelling themes, Megalo Box simply uses them as window dressing to appear intelligent without bothering to develop them.

Aside from the arena boxing, the rest of the time is spent in the wasteland setting. There isn't much else occurring in Megalo Box's world other than boxing, which is why everyone gets so excited over Joe entering Megalonia despite being from the slums. Frankly, the amount of people who love the sport feels a little hamfisted. The setting is never explained enough for it to be believable. There's no MadMax-style apocalypse that has left everyone bloodthirsty scavengers; it's all for the aesthetic. It's just the sandy slums and the big city which controls the sport. I wish the series had at least explored more of the implications about Joe not being a citizen and therefore not being allowed to join the tournament; it's an interesting theme, considering the current state of immigration in Japan is not good. Sadly, expecting Megalo Box to add modern nuance was too much, and that theme is resolved entirely by him simply receiving citizenship after fighting a few times. There's a bit of fanfare on the plot development, but like most conflicts in the show, it is easily resolved and predictable.

Attempting to watch Megalo Box the way it wants you to, as a classic, is such a struggle. You can't love it without constantly making concessions. The visuals are deliberate of mediocre quality, the story is deliberately very cliched, and the characters are deliberately barebones. Even if it just wanted to be an enjoyable homage to the classics, drawing such close inspiration from them was a mistake. This led to me unconsciously comparing it and inevitably disappointed because this anime simply doesn't do enough to rise above its inspiration.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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