One thing you’ll immediately notice is the visual style of the show, which is very much reminiscent of series from the 90s, but just recreated using 2018 technology and nails it.The aesthetic oozes character with its detailed and recognizable character designs and its worn, lived in backgrounds that gives each environment its own sense of place in this world; with direction that shows us what each environment is like and how the characters interact in it. Each fight illustrates each fighter’s unique way of fighting with their gear and well choreographed to make up for any less than stellar animation cuts from the rest of the great ones.
If the aesthetic of show got your attention then the music will get you invested. Each piece of music encapsulates the characters, settings and emotion throughout its entire runtime. Like how the slums area uses more hip hop and rap or how Yukiko’s theme is mostly orchestral instruments given her higher status and how Yuri’s theme uses a lot techno beats with his integrated gear and deadly efficiency in the ring. A great OST on its own merits that is strengthened by the series its attached to. The sounds for each fight sound crisp with the squeaks of the fancy footwork and the satisfying ‘pop’ with each punch with more powerful punches sounding like it could KO you in real life. Sound is even consistent outside of fighting with the training equipment and mechanical movements of the Gear.
Story structure is pretty straightforward to follow. Each arc starts with the introduction of the new fighter, we learn more about the fighter, MC trains for fight, fight happens, repeat a couple more times. There able to repeat this structure because the writers are able to create interesting out of the ring conflicts that eventually build up to the actual fight. Aragaki is a particular highlight for me. Something I felt was a bit of a wasted opportunity was with the Gear. Gear seems to just be used to turn boxing into a bloody extreme sport, but I wanted to see real world applications of people using Gear in everyday life. It does get brought up towards the very end of series but did very little to satisfy this thought.
“Joe.” - Joe 2018
Our main character finally has a name, hooray! Yeah… there… isn’t really to much to the characters. Not to say they were poorly written. When a new character is introduced you definitely get an idea what they are like from the couple lines of dialogue and their design; there isn’t too much more to them outside of that first impression. Of course the main opponents are more fleshed out so we understand their purpose for participating in Megalonia; to the point where they have more going on with them than the main cast. However, what kept the characters interesting for me was how a majority of the cast are characterized as animals. Joe being a stray dog, Nanbu a scorpion, Fujimaki a snake, Yuri as a trained dog and how he refers to Yukiko as ‘owner’. Some fighters who aren’t given enough screen have an animal as part of their ring name which pretty much defines the type of person they are. Kind of ironic how Yukiko doesn’t approve of Joe for being a stray yet all the megalobox fighters are animals themselves.
Megalobox doesn’t try to do anything new or innovative with the story it’s trying to tell, but instead serves as a reminder for why we love these types of stories. An underdog rising through the ranks in order to fight on the ultimate stage to show their worth. With recognizable characters that you get at an instant, detailed, sketchy art to give its rough look and music to get your blood pumping. A tried and true way to create something that is the genuine article.
