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

Abuhachi Supporting

Sasaki, Mutsumi Japanese

Higashi, Potemkin Supporting

Egawa, Hisao Japanese

Abe, Kengo Producer

Katayama, Yuuki Producer

Tsuchiya, Junichirou Producer

Sugiyama, Yuuko Assistant Producer, Background Art

Reviews

Oct 7, 2025

RickyGgG

Recommended

Megalo Box is an interesting thriller that needs more recognition. While I do find Hajime No Ippo as my favorite boxing anime, this one may just take the cake depending on how good Season 2 is. It follows the same path but teaches you different things. Both portray underdog behemoths but one is wanting opportunity while one is finding purpose. One had significantly more difficult path though.

Megalo Box pretty much shows how much determination and fearlessness can propel a man to his dream. The dream of having opportunity in the largest stage. Despite having the odds stacked, Joe defied it all but still sacrificed so ... much. He is also one of a kind, making him the Gearless Joe after all. This anime is very creative in crafting a rollercoaster ride that isn't cliche at all. In fact it's surprising how the pacing is so good. The characters are also great especially Nanbu and Yuri.

With that gritty animation and jerky soundtrack, you get a memorable Boxing anime. It actually succeeded my expectations because of how little it had but so much quality was shown. I don't really mind the controversial ending but it's certainly unexpected. Pumped for Season 2

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jul 10, 2025

Supersonic_Pain

Mixed Feelings

More or less the anime starts with Joe driving his bike, interlaced with credits and a few "teaser" shots as well as a bit of monologuing from Joe. That scene ends with him driving off a cliff, his Gear and bike broken.

I find it a rather fitting tribute to the trajectory of this show because, for the first 6 or so episodes, I find it to be an enjoyable sports show. The next few episodes aren't as great but it's really the last couple that really sour the experience for me.

This is a modern reinterpretation of Ashita no Joe from what I can tell but ... I haven't seen that show so how well it translates the show, I can't tell, but what I can say is it doesn't feel outdated at all for being a 50th anniversary gift to the manga.

One of my biggest problems is a lot of the opponent boxers don't really feel all that well-developed.

I get in a 13-episode series with 5 fights more or less written, some of the boxers are going to be bigger jobbers than others but to be honest, the only one I could confidently say I liked was Aragaki. They dedicate a lot of time to his storyline but the boxing match doesn't suffer for it, unlike Mikio's, for example. I thought the first boxer, Samejima, was a good boxing match but not all that great of an opponent while I thought the boxer before Yuri was a very underwhelming character in general.

After Aragaki, I never felt like the boxing matches were all that well-written and they skipped entire rounds just to skip to the next plot beat. I do think a good sports series is more about the characters than the sport itself in most cases but on the other hand, if you're not writing the sport to be all that great, what are we doing here?

Overall, I thought the boxing scenes degraded and went from genuinely good boxing action with character-focused battles to more of character set dressing, an obligatory climax to the character arcs they were setting up.

Maybe in a longer series, they'd have room for both character development and good boxing action but in the pursuit of making a short series, they lose track of both.

Even with the good opponents, you only really get a couple episodes before you have to move on to Days of our Lives featuring Joe and the Tomorrow Gang.

Speaking of them, generally speaking, they're fine, but Nanbu (the old man) was too unreliable and disloyal for me to care for him like I feel like I should have.

However, the thing that took this from a light 8 or a strong 7 to a decent 6 was the last couple episodes.

Yuri makes a decision so boneheadedly STUPID that I can't fathom why they'd do this. In terms of his character development (which... see what I wrote above, I don't really care enough about Yuri for this to matter since Yuri's mostly been written as Yukiko's bitch or "The Top Guy Who Joe Really Wants To Beat"), it's a fine, even good, decision.

In terms of the themes? What are we doing here?

It's a pretty big spoiler so I won't say exactly what he does but he disrespects Joe and pisses in Yukiko's face and all over her pretty little dress all in the name of a "fair fight" (which isn't a fair fight, it arguably gives Joe an ADVANTAGE).

The final fight, from there, goes plenty of rounds but that means nothing when they skip the vast majority of them. It doesn't FEEL like a marathon fight like it is proposed to be. If you want us to feel the exhaustion Yuri and Joe must feel at the end of the battle, dedicate more time to your battle. Write more of it out.

The ending after that continues the trend of being worse. For some reason, they don't show you how the fight ends, then they show Joe and Yuri in drastically different situations which seems unfair given how "honorable gladiator"-pilled they both were, and then they just reveal who wins after the credits anyway.

Is this show good? I guess it's alright. It starts off strong, has some good boxing scenes, gets across the unfair world Joe comes from well, has some great music, writes one good antagonist. But by the end, the boxing takes a huge backseat to the character drama, even DURING the boxing, and the characters aren't really all that interesting?

It's not the worst thing you can watch but it's not great. It's a 6/10, it sure is Fine, MAL.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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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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