The first few episodes were great, personally. The soundtrack alongside the art made the first few episodes seem badass and hype, and I was really rooting for Joe to win his goal of...not losing matches I guess? I mean, the main "story" doesn't start until a few episodes in, but even by then you're already given several good setups at least.
-The protagonist, Joe, who is an underdog type character without too much unique to his personality. He's cool and all at least, enough to get you rooting for him if nothing else. Plus he rides a motorcycle 3 or 4 times.
- An antagonist, Yuri, who doesn't actually seem like a generic douchebag but an actual person who respects the sport and the fighters, and is rather likable as far as antagonists go, even by the end.
-An idea of what exactly Megalo-boxing is and on what scale of appeal the sport is.
It's enough of a setup within the first few episodes to give a sports anime a nice start, a promising start. I sure thought so, at least.
The show was pretty good up until the main story started, whatever episode that was. I don't think I'm in the minority opinion for that statement seeing as how the MAL score around that time started slowly going down from a mid-8.4 to what it is now. The problem that starts around this time is the problem that the show inevitably ends with: predictability.
Being a sports anime, you're kind of expected from the get-go to assume the protagonist will win a lot of the time and be all badass and stuff. But Megalo Box doesn't even try to be subtle about it. Every match is the same thing over and over again. You're given an "antagonist" for that match who gets some semi-interesting backstory and maybe some relevancy to other characters, and then they get in the ring with Joe and they both have at each other. Joe gets the absolute crap beat out of him for several minutes, while Sachiko (an annoying and 100% useless kid who does a really cringey rap in one of the last few episodes) and Nanbu (a generic coach) yell at him to do this and that and not give up. Then, through the power of absolutely nothing, Joe is able to K.O. the opponent in one hit, ending the match with a win for him. I never mentioned this, but Joe is "gearless" during all of these fights meaning that basically he doesn't have these boxing-aid-machines on his arms. Logically, he should lose all his battles against his opponents who DO all have gear, since they literally have machines on their arms whereas Joe has his arms bare, however, he never loses. This means that Joe is literally the most overpowered character in this show, because not once does he get KO'd even though by all means he should, especially when you see how badly his ass gets beat in the ring. Each match starts and ends the same way, with a lot of flashbacks and other things going on being thrown into the fray WHILE the matches are going on, which often times messes with the momentum of the fights. Most of that stuff could've been mentioned before the fights at least, then I'd at least go into each fight with a good understanding of the opponent, regardless of how generic their backstory is.
That doesn't happen, of course. The fights are pretty cool though, and well choreographed imo.
Asides from the matches being done in such a bad way (asides from the actual fighting, for the most part), the main story is also really lame. A woman, who also could be considered an antagonist of sorts, is basically the founder of megalo-boxing as we see it and hosts the competition for which everything takes place. I think what her goal was was to show-off how interesting megalo-boxing was and how viable it is as a military weapon. At least, that's what I could remember from the ending. Frankly, whenever the fights weren't happening I found myself bored a lot of the time, which is another point to bring up. Sure the music's good and the art is unique, but the characters either have no depth or are straight-up bad. Why should I care about the story anyways? I already know Joe is going to win all the matches just because he can, why not just skip to the fights? I mean, they show the meat of who the opponents Joe face are mid-fighting, so it's not like I have to spend the other 15 minutes getting to know who they are and whatever the hell else is going on. The only character I can say was genuinely interesting was Yuri, although he reminds me too much of the one character from Ping Pong to say he's original. On the other hand, there's some story going on with Nanbu and some loanshark type guy who's just an asshole but is also kind of cool. Nanbu has to have Joe win the Megalo Box tournament at first so that the mean man can make money, then he has to lose it so the mean man can make money. It's probably the most interesting thing going on story-wise but that isn't saying a whole lot.
So all-in-all, you've got a run-of-the-mill nothing story, several obnoxious/shallow/boring characters, and fights that are as predictable as they come. Frankly, I can't say there's much reason to watch this show asides from the artstyle and soundtrack. If you strip those two things away this show has nothing else going for it really. That's not to say you SHOULDN'T watch it, that's your choice obviously and there's some pretty cool stuff that happens in the show every so often, but there's nothing to gain from watching it. No messages besides generic underdog stuff and blah blah blah watch Rocky instead if you want something more interesting that's also boxing related (can't comment on Ippo or Ashita no Joe, so). Frankly this show is just disappointing and has nothing worthwhile in any of the major departments. Can't really recommend it for anyone who wants a sports anime with substance as I can with, say, Ping Pong. Give that a watch instead, there's a good chance it'll be more of an experience than this show would be.
