Megalo Box - Manliest Anime This Season!

He might end up using a similar style of arms to Yuri.

Though i have a feeling that because he's been fighting without a gear against geared fighters he might get Punch Drunk Syndrome much faster then Joe did in the original story.

This is explicitly a marketing gimmick to get him into Megalonia. He’ll presumably gear up after that.

If anything, it actually makes counters all the more dangerous, since the gear increases your momentum…

I really like how the whole "near-KO" part was directed. Really nailed the feeling of not being quite there and hearing everything from a distance.

More generally, this anime's greatest strength so far is how earnest and uncompromising it is in its approach. It'll give you that 80's/90's grittiness even if it has to resort to old tricks like Rocky-esque montages with cheesy music.

I do think the interesting thing in this show is how boxing has become even more of an overt gladiatorial blood-sport thanks to the advent of Gears. There’s not a huge gap between one of those monstrosities and a murmillo’s armoured sleeve.

Caught up on to episode 4 now.

Still quite solid, and "Gearless" Joe was hype. Have to agree the direction with the near knockout was aces (which has arguably been the biggest strength of this show from the beginning). And yes, I'm pretty sure Joe is going to gear up soon.

I mean, the main thing is that they don’t have the money to get him a good Gear. His current round of publicity stunts should be great for attracting sponsors.

Saw this week's episode, you really got to respect this guy, he's got it rough yet still keeps fighting. I They did a great job setting up this guy as an opponent to Joe, and a more meaningful one in how he relates to Nando as well.

Holy PTSD, batman!

I'm not sure i understand why he's upset Nambe thought he was dead, he had no reason to doubt the news report.

This is like if Tom Hanks' character from Castaway got upset that his friends and family thought he was dead after spending years on that island.

It's not meant to be a rational reaction. The guy is clearly still not over what happened to him in the war and his sense of abandonment is over-riding any rational consideration of events. I mean if you want to be really picky after all, he didn't bother to look up Nambu either to see what had caused the gym to close.

You'd have a point if it was just him, but even his new couch was giving Nambu grief over "giving up on him". It just makes them come off as jerks to me.

edited 5th May '18 5:38:22 PM by Cortez

It’s because they were right when they accused Nanbu of not bothering to check what had happened to his most promising pupil, and when they accused him of it, they could see they were right from his reaction. Dude just wrote him off immediately. Probably didn’t even visit the funeral.

edited 6th May '18 4:01:59 AM by Iaculus

Making a lot of assumptions there, especially going by how Nambu reacted to seeing his death announced on the news. Which again, he had no reason to doubt.

And where did you get the idea he didn't go to the funeral?

edited 6th May '18 4:37:30 AM by Cortez

it’s all there in the body language. Aragaki accuses Nanbu of giving up on him, and Nanbu crumples into himself and looks guilty as fuck. That’s not how you behave when you’ve given your star pupil what they were due.

The animation was a bit underwhelming this week, though it was obviously not an action-focused episode. This series still has a solid depiction of shock and trauma though.

But yeah, while understandable (coming back from war with no legs, no home and PTSD is no laughing matter) Aragaki's reaction still comes off as somewhat selfish.

And again, if it was just Aragaki i'd cut him some slack, but even the new couch buys into it.

Because Nanbu does the exact same thing when the coach accuses him of it. He knows what he did, and he shows it so much that everyone else knows. Plus, those two seem to go back quite a way, so Aragaki’s coach may have been there to see how Nanbu handled his pupil’s ‘death’.

What he did was grieve for Aragaki. Sorry, but Nambu did nothing wrong. Why would he doubt a news report?

By your logic Chuck Noland should have been upset that his friends and family thought he was dead, since he was stranded on an island for five years.

edited 6th May '18 7:10:56 AM by Cortez

It’s not that he didn’t believe a news report. It’s that he saw the news report and moved on. He didn’t dig into the details, he didn’t reach out to Aragaki’s friends and family, he just upped sticks and did other stuff. He would not be carrying nearly as much guilt around about this otherwise.

You are assuming he didn't and the news report straight up said he died, what details would he look into?

And the guilt isn't proof of anything. People blame themselves for things that aren't their fault all the time.

edited 6th May '18 2:51:17 PM by Cortez

Normally, friends and relatives can ask for details of what happened from the military - news stories rarely include much in the way of info. It’s important if, say, you want to plan or attend a funeral (was there a body? can it be brought back?). Nanbu admits by his silence that he didn’t do that, which is pretty rough considering he’d set himself up as Aragaki’s surrogate father.

So episode 6 made the rounds. It's a really good follow-up to the last one, and a good conclusion to this particular story as well. Also, really good fight scene. Just a kickass episode all-around, really. Joe continues to prove himself a damn good fighter.

The fight was strangely "static" overall, but I'm not sure if that was a stylistic choice or a budget choice… The best part of the episode wasn't the fight itself anyway. I really liked how Nanbu and Aragaki's dialogue at the end didn't have any music (at first). Made it feel really cinematic.

I certainly did not expect the fight to end this way, but that was probably the best conclusion to this arc.

To be fair, the end of the fight had some nice animation. That's probably why the mid-point was so static. Although one could excuse it in-universe by saying that Aragaki just didn't want to strain his legs by moving too much, as he was already in pain.

Whoa now that was just an all around shocker & plot twist.

Damn Mikio is a real SOB. Dude picked the cowards & slime-ball way of winning, that's for sure.