Another week another good episode of Nomad. It’s wild how a show ostensibly about boxing can be so good with so little actual boxing. But that’s just the nature of good character dramas huh? So without further ado lets jump into this weeks episode of Megalo Box: Nomad!
Starting off lets talk about the wonderous world of greyscale, because Nomad used a lot of it. Now I’m not inherently against greyscale. It can often be used to great effect in movies both new and old, 2019’s The Lighthouse for example. With proper or harsh lighting and no color to distract you it can add a lot of gravitas to a scene. In anime this is much more difficult though because you don’t inherently get any extra detail. You have to manually add it in and Nomad doesn’t. If that was my only problem however this wouldn’t be worth mentioning. Because in addition to this, the greyscale also robs Nomad of one of its greatest strengths: The coloring of its backgrounds. These backgrounds are often fantastic! But with over half the episode in greyscale we don’t get to see that this week. And I think that’s a damn shame.
Moving on to the actual narrative, this week we finally get the whole picture as to what happened to Gansaku! It was no great event or tragedy, though a typhoon did hit later on. It was something much more human: Time. And I have to say I love this. I love that Joe isn’t directly responsible for Gansaku’s death and that it was more of a neglect thing. In fact it wasn’t even neglect, rather he was still in the denial stage of grief until just last episode. Signing up for a fight to make money for a surgery he, and everyone else, knew wouldn’t save him. Spending all of his time training and boxing instead of caring for the kids and seeing Gansaku in the hospital. Inspiring the young kids with dreams that he should have known wouldn’t come true. Like Sachio said, Joe had his priorities all wrong.
This is such an incredibly human problem, one that everyone will have to experience at some point. Whether it be a family member, a friend, hell even a family pet. Some day someone close to you will die. And you will have to work through that, however long a road that is. For some like Sachio, he was prepared for it. He spent every day with Gansaku, never knowing which would be his last. So when Gansaku’s time came he had already prepared himself for it. Meanwhile Joe spent Gansaku’s final days denying reality until the end. And so when it finally happened… he ran. Like Sachio said, Joe ran away to the ring. He ran from his responsibilities. We can’t really judge him for this, Gansaku was like a father to Joe and expecting him to soldier on would be ridiculous. But fact is those kids still needed him.
However while those kids were supporting each other, Joe wasn’t there. Instead he ran. As Nomad shows us, he never stopped running. Even now Joe is still living in the past. before he abandoned everyone, before Gansaku died. He’s sleeping in the destroyed remains of the Gym. Calling up Aragaki for help, chatting with Abuhachi the mechanic and digging through rubble for the old Team Nowhere sign. Hopefully these are just his first steps to recovery though. I want his time with Chief to have opened him up to what happened, to accept it and work on making amends. And maybe rebuilding the gym can act as a physical representation of his mending relationships. Reconstructing Team Nowhere from the ashes just as the gym is rebuilt in the abandoned and destroyed half of town he’s sleeping in. I think it could work well.
Moving on lets talk Sachio! This bundle of joy has changed from the first season and not in a good way. Good narratively, I love where he’s going, but it’s not a positive life change. Fighting in underground rings despite not being built for the sport. Taking blows, refusing help, etc. In a lot of ways he’s like Joe was at the start of Megalo Box. Except where Joe was alone Sachio seems to have people he’s fighting for. The other kids whom he took care of in Joe’s absence, Aragaki who trained him, maybe even trying to protect Gansaku’s legacy. Still for all the support group he has, for all that he has done for them, Sachio doesn’t seem to be in a good place. His first response to hearing Joe had returned was to almost kill him after all. Kid has a lot of anger in him.
Still with Sachio effectively taking Joe’s role in Megalo Box, it makes me wonder: What role will Joe take? Will he be a passive observer trying to piece it all together? Or will he take Gansaku’s role and try to become a coach for Sachio? And if you ask me I think the latter sounds pretty damn sweet. Honestly if we could go the rest of the season without Joe stepping foot in the ring, I think that would be incredible. I don’t think Nomad would do that. It’s been setting up this fight between Liu and Joe since episode 1. But if Nomad could switch it up? Have it be Yuri vs Joe as coaches, putting their students against each other, instead of Joe vs Liu? I think that would be kind of incredible. And without a doubt a great direction for Joe’s character after Gansaku’s death.
So yeah, all in all, I think that was a pretty great episode. Nomad definitely overused the greyscale with all of the flashbacks, but they were important flashbacks nonetheless. And I can’t understate what they did for Joe’s character and Nomad’s story as a whole. This has become so much more than I expected it to be and I’m so excited. All of the old characters are back, but they also aren’t. They’ve grown, changed, aged and even the OST reflects that as we get original Megalo Box tracks redone and rerecorded for this season. Their tones and beats shifted to fit the new story. I still hope we see a return of the Latin music, it’s fantastic. But it’s hard to say no to an OST as great as the original Megalo Box’s was.
And with my opinion out of the way I want to ask you dear reader: What did you think of Nomad this week? Enjoying this new direction or is it a bit… edgy for you? A bit to dark? I’d love to hear your thoughts and I will see you next week!
Good episode, I agree. Can relate, when my father was slowly dying I wish I could have skipped the visits in general. In the end you do it for them. In this series the kids were more responsible than the actual adult that couldn’t face to truth. One of the best scenes was when Joe was trying to tell everybody the surgery would save Nanbu, even though the docs confirmed it would only buy him a few months. Months Joe has wasted on training instead. And only the younger kids believed him, while Sachio and his closer friends were fully aware of delusion but didn’t say anything to avoid hurting the others.
I think that both sides are well depicted and understandable here. In general the kids were right, but I understand how Joe must have felt and how bad he must have felt later when everything went wrong.
Nice contrast to the “save ill person by winning a match” trope that is so common in cheesy movies by the way.
Agreed. Nomad did a good job of showing that neither side was in the wrong per se, they just tried to cope in different ways with the loss of a loved one. Joe held on to the hope that his boxing could save them, just like it did in the first season. His boxing has seen them through some of the roughest moments of their life after all and it’s the one thing he’s good at.
Of course Joe’s response at the end to run away was a bad one. But its also totally understandable I think, as is everyone elses reaction to him running away. There’s no “right” side to root for here I don’t think. Just a bunch of good people who have hurt each other and don’t know how to make amends.
Also yeah the subversion of the “Box to save his life” trope was a nice touch. All around I think this was a great episode and I’m really lookin forward to where it goes from here.
Ah I like the greyscale, it enhances the fact those are flashbacks.
The first season is still good but I wouldn’t have said I emotionally connected with it like I did with Ashita no Joe, however this season has so far done a great job on adding much more feeling to everything.
Great breakdown of a great episode of a great series.