Welcome to the Spring 2018 anime season! I am proud to present to you the Ashita no Joe 50th Anniversary project, Megalo Box. Easily the most stylish anime of the season. Lets jump in!
With just 2 episodes, Megalo Box has become my favorite for the season. Everything about it feels like it comes from a different age of anime, the time of Hajime no Ippo’s first series, Cowboy Bebop or Trigun. Even the story, so far, is Ashita no Joe with robot arms, with certain shots coming straight out of original 1970’s anime. In today’s anime landscape, Megalo Box is a breath of fresh air. Its thick, rough line work contrasting the all to clean and thin art we normally see. The vibrant color pallet that gives us bright greens, blues and oranges instead of muted browns and greys of regular highschool life. The only negative I can think of with Megalo Box is that, at least the Crunchyroll version, seems to have some resolution issues. Like it was upscaled to 1080p. Luckily with its style, Megalo Box doesn’t suffer for it much.
As far as the music goes, the only thing I can say is that it’s on point. The beat/piano mix used during the fights is rhythmic and perfect. It swells as our lead Junk-Dog goes in, relaxes as Yuri speaks and cuts off entirely as he throws a single punch at JD. The fights themselves seem to revolve around these tracks. Pacing themselves to line up punches or important moments with the music. It really draws you in to what’s happening. The environmental or transition tracks also stand out, with the rap sequence reminding me of the recent Devilman Crybaby. Combined with the background art Megalo Box does a good job depicting the ghetto’s of this world our characters come from. Showing us small snippets of day to day life down there. Really you can feel the passion behind this project in every scene.
Speaking of our characters, the characterization each one gets this episode is simply great. Showing Yuri’s dog while he is talking to the Owner, to show how trapped in his role he is. The slow buildup with Mr. Fujimaki making broth, with screams in the background, really selling the “Yakuza Boss” aspect. JD’s twitching feet during his fight with Yuri, showing how nervous/excited he was. These small details, these directorial decisions, add so much to what would otherwise be simple dialogue scenes in any other anime. I have found myself looking for meaning in every shot. For instance when JD is trying to convince Nanbu to let him join Megalonia, the graffiti on the wall in the back reads “ENTER IF YOU DARE”. It makes sense its there for an underground fight ring, but also speaks as to what JD is trying to do in that scene.
As for the story, it’s a simple underdog routine, we have seen it before all the way back in the original Ashita no Joe. It can only be as good as its characters, which so far shows promise. However there are some worrying aspects. First, JD has to go from nobody to a top ranked boxer in 3 months. The turn-around time on this is going to be blistering and I’m concerned how well the opposing boxers will end up. It would be very easy for Megalo Box to start strong and end strong while flagging in the middle. That said Yuri is a good “villain”, and I say “villain” because really this feels like just as much his story as JD’s. The two crave the same things, they complete each other, yet come from two completely different worlds. It’s a classic MC/Rival relationship if there ever was one.
Then there is Joe, namely who had the name before JD. For those that haven’t read/don’t know how Ashita no Joe ends, lets just say that I expect Megalo Box to end much the same way. If done right it could be a very powerful ending, but it would be incredibly easy to screw it up. It’s possible Megalo Box will try to flip it around, but I am not sure that would be welcome. What right would JD have to swoop in, with only 3 months of real training/effort, and win everything. Its going to be interesting to see what Director Moriyama You will do with Megalo Box. Until then, all we can do is wait.
So, to long didn’t read, Megalo Box is amazing and everyone should watch it. The characters are interesting, the art/animation is beautiful and the passion is there in droves. I would be hard pressed to think of a series I seen recently that I have enjoyed as much as I have Megalo Box. So go watch it. Go to Crunchyroll, or HorribleSubs, or what have you. I don’t care. Go see what is going to be the standout of the Spring 2018 season.
See ya next week.
Favorite of the season, I agree.
This is how I love new installations of old series. Neither clones nor completely modernized stories with adapted current drawing style and sterile lineart either but rather something like this here.
Also, music, colors and rough outlines do they job it seems – the scenes whenever Yuri looked at JD or threatened him in the ring got me fucking hyped.
While it’s had a strong start, there are a few things I’m worried about with Megalo Box.
By far the largest is that the mechanical/robotic bits so far seem pretty tacked on. The boxing is relatively down to earth by the standards of anime boxing, and while the fight between Yuri and JD had some excellent moments of visual storytelling that didn’t need lengthy play-by-plays to convey the nuance of the conflict, there ended up being relatively little to nothing that the shiny metal bits contributed, besides Yuri potentially throwing a punch from out of position.
In practice, the most obvious benefit to giant metal hydraulics on your arms is to hit a lot harder, but boxing anime and film (and it’s hard to imagine this being different) tends to stress the virtue (and often the self-destructive nature) of resilience, of boxers standing back up again after any number of blows. You can’t really sell that if you also try to say that their heads aren’t robotic and that they hit even more powerfully and destructively than normal boxers do, as normal boxers can already ruin your day pretty hard with a few hits.
The first two episodes haven’t really shown a use of this per say. Nothing that we saw really needed the gimmicky robotic bits to convey an excellent conflict. Which kind of begs the question as to why include them at all. Cyberpunk dystopian class-warfare boxing is already more than interesting enough as a concept that just works on its own, and the needless flashy bits start to leave me worried we’ll get one of two things.
1. A conspiracy around Yuri’s tech that kind of takes away from JD’s arc and the conflict between the two ‘dogs’.
2. Needless incredibly gimmicky fights to fill out the time that move away from the brilliantly economical fights we’ve had so far.