Megalo Box - Manliest Anime This Season!

So Megalo Box has hit Crunchyroll, and as someone who checked it out on a whim without any knowledge on it, I was floored. This shows as of this post is only two episodes in, but man does it show promise. It's like the story of Hajime No Ippo, with the soundtrack stylings of Samurai Champloo, with the aesthetic and setting of Cowboy bebop and a healthy dose of gritty manliness thrown in for good measure. The hand drawn backgrounds(or at least they look hand drawn) brings this old-school look and charm to the show reminiscent of the gritty 90s anime look that is a rarity in today's stuff. Even the opening has this sort of 90s charm to it, with it not being particularly flashy yet still kind of cool and catchy even .

So what it is about? Supposedly this is sort of a reimganing of an old and I mean OLD(like devilman old) manga called Ashita No Joe, which TBH I never heard of but is a classic or something(upon looking it up I have seen images of it before but never checked it out). It's about this sort of cybernetic-gear enhanced boxing in a dystopian future and a willfully weak jobber dude known as "Junkdog" who basically gets tired of being a jabroni and his journey to rise out of his bleak lifestyle into something greater. As for what triggers this is something you'll need to see for yourself but it's totally worth watching and it's interesting to see what direction this journey will go.

Do not sleep on this anime, the first two episodes were great and this is showing some serious potential so far. For fans of martial arts anime or 90s anime nostalgic freaks who miss "gritty aesthetic anime, this will definitely scratch that itch.

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edited 27th Apr '18 1:16:07 PM by Vertigo_High

Another watcher who decided to check this out on a whim and ended up pleasantly surprised here! The ending theme is prime Ear Worm material.

Episode 2 just hit and who’s who in comparison to Ashita No Joe is sinking in.

The end of the episode where JD takes the name “Joe” in his ID cements he’s Joe Yabuki.

This show is awesome and it needs a dub soon.

Count me in. Definitely has the kind of vibe I've been missing for a while. Waiting for the full soundtrack is going to be agonizing.

Wow, this show is pretty though I still wish it lacked animation shortcuts. First two episodes had me hooked (no pun intended). The premise and motives are simple but it has a lot of heart.

So, what you're saying, is that this anime:

• is about fighting
• has a gritty 90's feel to it
• has some kick-ass music
• does not containcute-looking, big-eyed characters
• is not based off of a schmutzy light novel about a teenage protagonist trying to bone six different women with large breasts
• isn't part a 13-part series with convoluted lore and mechanics
• isn't about humans trapped in another world
• was made after 2015

And it looks like this?

Sign me the f'ck up.

edited 16th Apr '18 6:19:28 PM by Soble

Yeah pretty much that and yet it's so much more. The direction is phenomenal and the fights are brutal.

…The top poster pretty much summed it up. It's like a 90's anime with a 70's aesthetics and a 2010's animation. With an electro hip-hop soundtrack. Talk about nostalgia done right.

So this is basically "Ashita no Joe Crybaby", huh… I've only read the first few volumes of the original manga (it's hard as fuck to find) but it's definitely doing a good job of modernizing it while keeping its distinctly brutal feel.

Its more of a reimagining then a straight reboot like Devilman Crybaby.

Kinda weird that an entry in a franchise with Ashita no Joe's pedigree would just randomly drop like this, but whatever, this is looking super promising. The aesthetic is splendid, the direction is strong, the writing seems fairly decent. Very solid package overall and could potentially get even better depending on how they go about this.

I've seen it compared more to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run than anything else.

edited 17th Apr '18 8:39:08 PM by Draghinazzo

It's for the manga's 50th anniversary.

I can't help but feel pretty schizophrenic about this show. Its production is top notch and it looks really sleek. In this respect its so well made that I can't help but enjoy it. Then again, its plot is very stock underdog sport show stuff which, to be fair, it wears on its sleeve, there's no delusion on what it is. Yet that does subtract some from the overall enjoyment.

And then comes the biggy: I can't get over the thought that mechanically enhanced punching in boxing is just retarded. Even as its now, the sport is incredibly dangerous and damaging. The human body, and especially the head, was just not made to take that kind of abuse.

Then here they amp up the power of blows to obscene levels, something humans absolutely can't take. It's a scifi show, but they don't even try to techno babble that away, just ignore it. Then, to compound the issue, they apparently expect Joe to fight in a bunch of these matches within three months with no time in between to recover.

My suspension of disbelief just can't survive that. It's all I think about when I look at the fight scenes, how ever cool they look. It completely drops me out of the experience. That's really annoying, as otherwise this show looks like one I could love.

edited 19th Apr '18 11:31:49 AM by GabrieltheThird

It does feel pretty gimmicky… I mean from what we've seen, they might as well be doing normal boxing, that wouldn't make much of a difference.

Yeah, that was basically my first thought regarding the Gears as well. That said, if it wasn't for the gears I may not have checked this out in the first place, because I was kind of in it for the gritty, dystopian sci-fi parts of the show.

At the very least, the Gears allow the artists to play around with interesting designs in a setting that would normally have rather little of it. The aesthetic that comes from this will do an excellent job of making the fights look more exciting.

But yeah, besides that, Gears in boxing are kinda stupid. I mean, really, really stupid. But shiny!

Oh goodie! I've also checked this anime too actually. I was actually going to skip it given that it didn't interest me that much. But after I saw someone saying this is a box with some sci-fi shiz....I ended up watching it. So far it's pretty interesting esp. the battle between the MC and the champion. Can't wait to see the direction for this anime though.

Honestly, gear boxing isn't even near the stupidest things I've seen in anime. I get that it's a silly concept when you think about it, but a lot of anime is even worse in that department.

And its anime.

I don't expect as much realism as real boxing.

Hajime No Ippo, in fact, is far more shonen-y in terms of fighting styles then original Ashita No Joe was.

Realism has only a tangential relationship to Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Go and check the article for the nuances, its pretty well written and relevant to what I'm saying.

The core problem here, at least for me, is that they kept it too similar to what we have in real life and thus inherited the problems real life boxing has and rather than dealing with that, exacerbate the issue. It suffers from a similar issue as Uncanny Valley. This takes over the experience and makes me unable to enjoy it. If it works for you, well, good.

Episode 3 introduces the street kids, with one of them now being a Gadgeteer Genius.

And, erm… Why does this guy need gear again?

Cause the guys he's gonna go up against are way tougher than that scrub.

Also man this show is great. As mentioned it is so atypical from the utter pile of shit that plagues anime these days cause it has no pandering otaku shit.

Just blood, guts, metal, and the grit needed to go all the way. Its a show I can recommenced to anybody in general.

edited 23rd Apr '18 4:19:07 PM by slimcoder

Episode 4 was sick. Joe going gearless is interesting and we see that while having a gear makes your punches stronger, it does NOT make you superhuman and you're still capable of getting KO'd the old-fashioned way

Enjoying the dynamic Joe, sachio and nabu have with each other.

"Gearless" Joe was hype as fuck. I lost it for a moment when they announced him.

edited 27th Apr '18 12:20:47 PM by Kayeka

I mean, that’s obvious, isn’t it? All it is is Powered Armor for your arms.

Though I do hope they won't take this gimmick all the way to the end. It seriously cuts down on the strategies available to Joe, essentially being stuck as a glass pea shooter, having no metal arms to properly shield himself once an opponent catches on to his tricks. It was fun as a one-off, but I do hope we get to see more.

I feel like once he hits the upper tiers, he's gonna have to go for a different approach. It's inevitable.