Welcome back to another episode of Megalo Box: Nomad! This week see’s the family come back together, Yukiko confront her business partner and Mac lay down a challenge. Exciting stuff! So without further ado, lets dive in.
Like the last few episodes Nomad continues to be split between the good, family oriented themes and… Rosco. For every scene of Mac with his family, of Mac realizing what’s happening and coming to terms with his memory loss, we get corporate espionage and military contracts. Every time Yuri or Joe get a heart to heart with their chosen friends it’s followed up with some bit between Sakuma and Yukiko, I just can’t stand it. Everything surrounding Mac is great! The way Joe once again inspired someone to get into the ring. Even Sachio was pushed towards boxing because of Joe, though in a different manner. How their struggles connect back to Joe and the overarching themes of the series. This stuff is all great and I love it when it’s on screen! But I don’t care about the corporate crap and I don’t know anyone who does.
Getting back to the good stuff though, lets talk about Sachio. While we didn’t see much of him this week I feel like I understand him a lot more now. The revelation of why he got into boxing, how he is denying his prior dream of being an engineer, all to become the new Joe. Not out of some selfish desire, well perhaps not wholly unselfish, but rather to keep the family together. To become the binding force that Joe was before he left, to keep the gym going, etc. It makes Sachio more complex than I was expecting. He doesn’t deny Joe simply out of frustration or anger, though those are there. But there’s also this idea of stolen purpose. That if Joe returns then he will take back the role Sachio has built up and taken over. He feels threatened, yet no doubt happy, and its really interesting!
Meanwhile the rest of the gang seems to be on a much more healthy path of accepting Joe again. Not as things were of course. Their relationship has changed forever, they are no longer kids and Joe is no longer their guardian. However they are able to see his earnestness and seem to be willing to start over. To build new relationships as equals in this family again even as some of their prior hero worship remains. That’s pretty cool and I enjoy watching it slowly build up a lot. From Oicho’s conversation with Abuhachi about how much time they have left together to working together to survive the typhoon. The same kind of storm the wrecked and destroyed the gym a few years past, after Joe had left. Except this time Joe is here. He can help. He can devote his everything and so… it survives.
Sadly we can’t close out this week without once again talking about Sakuma and Rosco. And like I said above, I don’t like it. The whole storyline about the BES chips, corporate espionage and military contracts is fine. The intrigue of sending falsified data to Yukiko, of using Mac without his consent, all of that would work… in a different show. But I feel it clashes with the themes and pacing of the first half. The scope is far larger than it needs to be and the exploration of wealth and the actions the rich will take to keep it feel more appropriate for the first season of Megalo Box. I have to ask, am I alone here? Am I just screaming into the wind about something that’s not a problem? Maybe I just don’t get it? Let me know below because I find it very difficult to ignore.
All in all I want like this episode of Nomad. I really do. The family stuff with Joe and Mac, Sachio’s revelation, Liu and Yuri’s dreams, that’s all good shit. But I can’t but feel its overshadowed by this larger corporate meta plot that I have absolutely zero interest in. Maybe my expectations are wrong, maybe I need to recalibrate what I want from Nomad as a show. For now at least though I can’t help but end the episode on a sour note as Sakuma takes up more and more of the plot. Hopefully Yukiko can kick it back on track though and the Joe/Mac fight can make the familial themes shine. I suppose we will find out next week!
Oh and one last thing I realized I forgot to mention while getting screencaps, the story book! While a bit on the nose I quite liked it. Nomad’s use of parallel story telling, the connections between Mac and Joe, are great. Each of them has something the other wants but neither “thing” is something that can be taken. Only earned/found for yourself. I want this fight between the two to really capitalize on this and give us a hell of an emotional finale. If it can do that then I can look past all the Rosco crap.
I really don’t think the Rosco/corporate plot is overshadowing anything in the show. For now Nomad has just about the same amount of this element as season 1 had, with Sakuma himself being about as shady/unlikeable as Yukiko was in S1.
And it’s not even disconnected from the more human elements in the story, what with Rosco being the reason Mac is even here in the first place, and them having a vested interest in keeping him in the ring, also holding him hostage via the brainchip. In S1 Yuuri, who had been in a similar situation so far, eventually said “nah, I’m going my own way” and had his gear removed, but Mac can’t do that. (Also, Mac is a different person with different priorities.)