As mentioned in S1's review, I haven't seen Ashita no Joe so I have no idea how much, if any of this, is the fault of its predecessor and it's just following the script but having an excuse doesn't absolve you of poor writing decisions.
In the previous season, I said I didn't think the majority of the boxing matches were well-written and S2 solves this issue by making the boxing matches even less prominent and having even less memorable boxers.
For what it's worth, the boxers that DO matter feel less like battle shounen/sports anime opponents and more like characters but on the other hand, there are only really 2 outside of Joe himself that I thought were really all that relevant (3 if you want to count Liu but idk, man, are we really counting LIU?).
And, ironically, the 2 boxers represent the big characters of the, like, completely different 2 arcs that are in this show. The first few episodes feel like a sucker punch, especially if you're fresh off S1 like me.
You're kinda thrown in the deep end and Joe's in deeper shit than he ever was in S1, even if he doesn't have the Mafia breathing down his neck.
And there's this distinct Hispanic flavor to the show which is cool but it's weird that the first few episodes are Joe helping a group of immigrants (speaking of which, is this show not set in Japan? I guess I assumed it was considering all of the scientists are Japanese and there are quite a few Japanese characters in the boxing world including Aragaki, Samejima, and Nanbu and this trend continues into S2... is there a wave of Hispanic immigration into Japan that I didn't know about?) and they just become background characters for the rest of the show.
I guess it was the best part of the season even if I didn't like Joe's arc this season but, like, it didn't even feel like the same show to me personally. Even Chief, the one character who actually matters from this arc, he just dips and like, okay, sure.
If this were the entire season, maybe I'd give it a point or two back, but it's such a weird place for the story to go.
And then they just go back into Megalo Box S1 world and I feel like we should talk about Joe's arc now.
We see Joe and he's Da Nomad(: Megalo Box 2) and he's on cheap pain pills and he's fighting with Gear in underground fights again because he's such a Tortured Soul and the kids from the first season hate him because he did something stinky and like, what the fuck, dude?
You would think crippling his opponent/rival, apparently for life since he's still in the wheelchair in S2, would be the catalyst for this downfall but no, apparently that's all peaches and cream. Obviously not going to say what triggered this downfall because that's a spoiler but idk man, it wasn't that big a deal. In fact, Sachio being such a dickhead dweeb about it only served to make me strongly dislike him this season. Really, I don't like any of the kids this season. There's one who is just "the freelance reporter" and that feels like his whole gimmick. I guess I was feeling kind last season for not criticizing Bonjiri for being Fatass: The Character but he still is that but now he's a chef because he's fat.
We also get arguably the biggest new character in Mac Rosario and it leans into the more technological aspects of Megalo Box (and brings back the Shirato siblings, Yukiko getting a stylish hair cut) and this arc also has interesting things to say about brain damage and CTE but because they spend a few episodes on the immigrant thing and a couple more unrelated episodes about Joe and his relationship with the kids from S1, they only get a few episodes to do ANYTHING with it and it's more "oh, this new guy [not the Shiratos, a different guy] who is responsible for the brain chip in Mac is actually a big dickhead and the brain chip is making him crash out."
They even tease Joe having health effects from his boxing + pain pill abuse but other than leading to the wet fart of an ending for the one somewhat decent boxing match in the season, they don't get enough time to do anything with this either since they introduce that concept way too late.
I get why they wouldn't want to write Mac pulling a Chris Benoit but it's a victim of the biggest culprit of this season (and given a different issue, Megalo Box in general).
Similar to S1, this show is also 13 episodes. Maybe they could have given both arcs more time to breathe if it wasn't 13 episodes but as is, they should've cut one and let the other one cook. I would've respected the show more if it was all about the immigrant arc and we got to see Chief and the others for more than 4 episodes because I think that is by far the stronger arc. It would have been more tonally consistent if we just stuck with the latter arc.
As is, I did not really care for any of the new characters, I thought a lot of the older characters were either just There (Aragaki, Yuri, I guess Yukiko?) or made actively worse (Joe, the kids), the show feels like 2 different shows glued together (or, arguably, clickbait since it keeps the Hispanic theming post-immigrant arc despite not really doing a whole lot with it after E4), and the boxing is even less prominent and good than it was in S1.
I'm probably being generous giving it a 4 but, like, I don't know man, it didn't piss me off or anything. Maybe it's because I didn't end up caring for Megalo Box S1 that much in the end but this one was just kind of not very good and that's about it.
I don't really see why you'd feel the need to watch this. The first 4 episodes are kind of intriguing so you can watch those maybe but it's just kind of for the best to imagine it doesn't exist and the show ended with Joe vs. Yuri.
