Megalo Box - The Ascension of the Stray Dog

It was a normal afternoon weekend, I was watching some anime on the free version of Crunchyroll, when the usual commercial break started. I saw then the silhouette of a boxer walking through what looks like a run-down gym, his hand caressing the walls dirtied up with traces of blood while walking towards the ring.

During this walk, we see flashes of various boxing matches, the arms of the fighters adorned with robotic implants, and our main character trying to give his best in the fight with strikes that have the impact of a bomb straight to his face. This was Megalo Box, and it just gained all of my attention.

Megalo Box was born in 2018 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the historic manga, Ashita No Joe, a manga I never got a chance to read, or watch one of its anime adaptations. This is something that I feel I should try and fix eventually, considering this is one of the greatest classics of the sports genre, known as Spokon in Japan.

There were many things that hooked me in that spot: the powerful impact of those punches, the main character’s design, which was so different from the typical anime, with that big afro and those scars on his body from many years of fighting. Finally the run down and dirty environment gave me the idea that this was going to be a much more raw adventure.

The short length and lack of details for the story in that commercial have done wonders to elevate my curiosity, so I decided to jump in with as little information as possible and let me carry through the flow of the story: at worst I would’ve at least enjoyed some good boxing matches. So what did Megalo Box end up leaving me with? Let’s find out together!

Megalo Box

About the Plot

The story takes place in a futuristic world where the technology and wealth of the city is heavily contrasted by the decay and poverty of the suburbs, where people try their best to live day by day. Our main character, Junk Dog, is a boy that lives off illegal fights with his trainer Gansaku Nanbu.

The two live in complete poverty. Junk Dog has no citizenship, so he doesn’t exist for society, while Nanbu is completely submerged by gambling debts which is slowly paying off to Boss Fujimaki, thanks to his business with match fixing. Junk Dog is getting tired of all this deception, and wants to actually fight for real against some true fighters, a wish that’s even more amplified by a fated encounter.

During one of his bike trips, Junk Dog meets up with Yukiko Shirato, president of the Shirato company and main organizer behind the biggest Megalo Box tournament, Megalonia. Yukiko, from her position, is elevating the tournament as the biggest boxing event in existence, but for Junk Dog is all smoke and mirrors, useless talk to embellish a fist fight.

To take particular offense to these comments is Yuri, trusted friend of Yukiko and reigning Megalo Box champion. Yuri is gonna be a surprise opponent for Junk Dog in an illegal fight, defeating him in record time. Junk Dog of course wants his win back, but in order to get it, he’s gonna have to face Yuri on his own ring, the finals of the Megalonia Tournament.

In spite of Junk Dog’s enthusiasm, Nanbu is firmly against the idea, believing that Junk Dog is just daydreaming too much and will inevitably face disappointment. Junk Dog though is fixed on this decision, and after pushing his will on both Nanbu and Fujimaki he manages to get some false documents to access the city. He will then participate in the tournament as a true citizen called Joe.

There will be countless obstacles waiting for him. The fierce competition, limited time, Joe being poor cannot afford to use a Gear, so if he wants to reach the finals in time, he cannot possibly afford to lose a single match.

Gearless Joe’s climb toward the fight with the champion begins!

The tone is clear from the very beginning, the young underdog, marginalized from society, decides to step into the biggest ring of the world to show his own worth. For Joe, this is the biggest occasion of his life, having spent it trying to get by as he could thanks to Nanbu’s dealings.

Social Difference is a theme that’s often underlined in this anime. Joe is considered less of a person since he doesn’t have citizenship. He has to face the most advanced Gears just with the strength of his own muscles. His presence at the tournament alone is seen as an insult by the organizers who are always hoping for him to be kicked out of it by the next match.

It’s not just the story of someone that wants to prove his worth as a boxer, but someone marginalized from society that wants to prove his worth as a person in front of everyone that tries to stop him, not just the opponents on the squared circle.

I loved the opening of this anime, in which Joe is represented as a wolf full of scars who keeps running in the desert and overcoming every obstacle that keeps throwing him down, to finally after many ordeals reaching his objective: a beautiful silver wolf in the distance. This of course symbolizes Yuri, and Joe welcomes him with his show off-ish smile, in an expression of pure euphoria for their upcoming match.

Speaking of matches, this series doesn’t hold back in giving every punch the impact of a runaway bullet train. It’s about boxing matches, we’ll never see particularly exaggerated scenes, but there’s a great direction with the usage of framing and slowdowns that really make you feel the impact of every shot by the fighters, and leaves you hanging cheering for Joe during his battles.

To accompany all this there’s a wonderful soundtrack that mixes both electronic and rap music to create a very captivating effect for every situation. It really charges you up for the moment when the tide will turn for our main character, about to turn the tables on his opponents, after taking everything they could throw at him.

About the Characters

Joe is a boy with many aspirations that won’t stop in front of anything, and this is also his achille’s heel. He’s excessively confident and acts impulsively, we can see these traits especially during his first fight with Yuri, where he gets brutally knocked out by a punch that will leave a permanent scar on his cheek for the rest of the series. It’s here that his two companions get into play to keep him more balanced.

Firstly Nanbu, his trainer and match fixer partner. Nanbu is the complete opposite of Joe, a man completely broken down by the hardships of life, and taken over by cynicism. To him the hope of a better life is just a fleeting mirage that he keeps chasing, by trying to cash in that ever elusive win at dog races, while drowning his sorrows in alcohol. 

Nanbu, by his own will, would like to be more optimistic, but the oppressive presence of Fujimaki imposes this pessimistic view of life with no way for him to escape. Fujimaki is a constant presence in his life, not only with thinly veiled threats, but also by constantly reminding him how his nature is one of a con-artist, a, exploiter, filth that makes his life off deceiving others and that he can never hope to change.

Joe and Nanbu are both pretty stubborn and constantly end up fighting, but in every couple like these there’s a third member that keeps them in check and makes them agree even at the most difficult times, that someone is Saicho!

Saicho is a kid from the slums that makes his way through life with some occasional theft. In spite of this is very handy with machines and very passionate about Gears. The kid is very curious about how someone as broke as Joe can even remotely think about winning Megalonia, and that’s what draws him close to their team.

Saicho’s contribution is with technical know-how of the various Gears, to understand how to prepare for the matches. His contribution isn’t inherently disinterested though, he also has something to prove. He hopes to see Joe win to humiliate the Shirato Company, which fired his father after stealing his research which brought him to financial ruin and destroyed his family. Saicho has never forgotten and he hopes to get his revenge thanks to Joe.

Saicho has the talent of saying the right thing at the right time to make these two knuckleheads work together. I feel that without Saicho these two wouldn’t have gone that far. I also like how their team is called “Nowhere” and sets up their training ring under a bridge: emphasis on where they come from and they aim to get everything.

Megalo Box has a very fun and varied trio of heroes which is easy to grow attached to, but it also has just as varied and well put together team of adversaries. Not every of Joe’s challengers will have a refined personality but some of them need to be mentioned.

Firstly, Aragaki: a war veteran who has become one the most fearsome fighters in the tournament, especially for his excessive violence in the ring. Aragaki has a past with Nanbu, since he was one of his students before he got sent to war. The two have lost contact with each other since his departure and on his return, Aragaki fell into a deep depression since he lost his legs at the front. The Megalo Box has been the one thing that gave him strength to continue, but he still hasn’t gotten over Nanbu.

Aragaki is one of the deepest characters in this series. We get to see him before his departure, the nature of his disability, his hard journey of recovery and his deep resentment against Nanbu that turns into jealousy for Joe. Their fight isn’t just for the tournament, it’s a confrontation from two parties that need to make peace with their past.

I also enjoyed the representation they gave to disabled people, not just him, but everyone in his team of war veterans, who kept going in spite of the impairment received because of the war.

From the complete opposite side we have Shirato Mikio, brother of Yukiko and considered the black sheep of the family. Mikio is definitely the most devious challenger of Joe and represents the ostentation of his social class. He’s rich, realized, and considers himself a genius. He thinks that participating at Megalonia is a privilege reserved only to a few, and “stray dogs” like Joe shouldn’t be allowed to take part in it.

Contrary to Yukiko that tries to mask her disdain with some thin veiled diplomacy, Mikio is instead very direct in his dehumanization and superiority complex in regards of Joe, he doesn’t go easy with the insults, and tries take advantage of the weaker points of his attitude in order to show everyone he’s not a boxer, he’s just a beast.

Under all that air of superiority though, lies a man who’s completely insecure about himself, who lives in the shadow of his sister and is constantly looking for the approval of others. The fact that his Gear takes advantage of an AI program which is able to predict the challenger movements and react accordingly, underlines how little he trusts his own ability.

Mikio is an engineering genius, and he’s also very fit and well versed in boxing, but his own insecurity makes him rely heavily on this AI, which not only fights in his place, but it ends up putting a heavy strain on his nervous system. In spite of everything, he needs his safety net, because he can’t accept that he, alone, can’t be good enough.

Mikio is certainly the challenger who’s the best at making himself hateful, and I’m not gonna lie, watching a grandstanding rich guy, who’s also obsessed with an AI, getting punched in the face really hard, kinda warms my heart a bit. 

We finally have our champion Yuri. We don’t know much about him: he’s the cream of the crop, the strongest boxer with the most advanced Gear and nobody is able to put a dent to his domain as champion. We see more details about his character being added during the story, like his devotion to Yukiko and how his passion for boxing has kinda dimmed lately. In spite of some initial friction he has a lot of respect for Joe and his arduous road towards the final, and between them blooms a beautiful friendly rivalry which really makes you wanna see their eventual final encounter.

Yukiko is the character that was harder for me to form an idea on. She’s the current president of the Shirato company and the organizer of the Megalonia, a woman with a stern and icy appearance which is mostly focused on the profits that she can gain from their new Gear, worn by Yuri, in usage outside of sports, mainly with the military.

Yukiko, just like her brother Mikio, has a very stuck up attitude towards Joe’s team, definitely not amused by the fact that a boxer without Gear is being allowed to compete, at the same time though she can’t be too strongly opposed to it for appearance reasons. She’s a woman who’s clearly suffering from internal conflicts on what he wants to do as a person and what she needs to be for the company.

Her position isn’t easy. Being the president gives her an amount of power, but she’s also in a nest of vipers ready to bite her at the first distraction or sign of weakness. She cares about Yuri, but she needs to see him more as a product of the Shirato rather than as a person. It’s a complex character that really should’ve had more screentime.

As much as the focus of this series is on in-ring combat, the characters that carry these events are all very well written and I ended up loving everyone of them, especially the latest episodes that have some of the highest moments in the series.

In Conclusion

Megalo Box has been a big surprise. It drew me in with the promise of a great battle, and I came out enthralled by the character drama and their arduous ascent towards victory.

If you’re passionate about sports anime, surely you won’t be disappointed by Megalo Box. We have an exciting tournament with engrossing matches, a main character that you wanna see succeed and affirm his value as the greatest underdog. I do believe that just calling Megalo Box a sport anime is a bit of a disservice and ignoring its strongest aspects, like the characters, the setting that emphasizes the social disparity and how the pomp of the sport competition which becomes more and occasion for the richest class to show off rather than an actual competition for everyone.

Many of these concepts leave you with a lot of meat to chew on for those that want more than a simple competition, so I can easily recommend it to everyone. Come for the in ring action, stay for the character drama, you might be surprised!

Look it up where you can find it on your various streaming services, or you can sail off to alternative routes. Just make it so that you can enjoy this anime, you won’t regret it. For those who’ve seen it follow me to the…

SPOILER SECTION - Proceed at your own risk

Let’s talk about my favourite moments of this series, that happened towards the end. Let’s talk about the dirty trick that Fujimaki had in store for Joe and his team.

Fujimaki is a character who only cares about his own gain, and in the moment Joe voluntarily screws up a fixed fight just to prove a point to Nanbu, everything turns for the worst. Nanbu is almost forced by Fujimaki into giving away his only remaining eye as collateral, but he decides to go all in: win the Megalonia in order to repay the debt.

Fujimaki however doesn’t call this bet, the risk that Joe might actually lose is way too big, but he’s not blind to a big opportunity. Nanbu only has to worry about one thing: reaching the finals, so that they could put together the biggest fixed match ever. Joe will lose his semi-final match and Fujimaki is gonna take all the money.

Nanbu’s betrayal hits Joe very hard. Joe for once was convinced that he was gonna be able to put himself in the game for real, only to then find out he was only being taken advantage of. The sight of Joe coming out to the ring against Glen Burroughs wearing the old Gear he used in his illegal matches, just underlines how for him that wasn’t a real fight, was a genius little touch.

The tension in this fight isn’t so much if Joe is gonna be able to win, as much as he’s really gonna go through in his deal with Nanbu, after all he dares to challenge him again the entire team will pay, including young Sachio and Joe cannot allow this to happen.

It’s at that very moment that Nanbu, tired of all the abuse, tired of only being seen as a con-artist, tired of the iron grip that Fujimaki has on his life, decides to take matters into his own hands and tells Joe to just win the match. Joe gets rid of his Gear, Glen gets knocked out in a single punch and Nanbu pays the price by giving his eye to Fujimaki. He lost his eyesight, but he gained his freedom.

That entire sequence was just wonderful, especially seeing Nanbu finally finding the courage to rise up, even at a great cost.

Another beautiful moment is the final match with Yuri, a no quarter fight that went over 13 rounds, with two opponents that were giving it their all. Winning the tournament was secondary for them at that moment, their goal was pushing each other to the limit to prove to themselves who was the best fighter, especially for Yuri.

This entire tournament deeply affected Yuri. For his entire life he fought with his Gear, he was basically invincible. The Gear was part of himself and nobody was ever able to match him. Yuri gained everything thanks to Yukiko and he always paid her back by giving his best, but in due time, this led to Yuri losing his passion for fighting, until Joe arrived.

Joe rose up from nowhere, he had nothing but his own strength, he fought kicking and screaming to reach his objective, through immense pain, dealing with the worst injuries and a body filled with scars and bruises. No Gear needed, just an unshakeable force of will.

So Yuri makes a very difficult decision: remove his surgically implanted Gear. The operation has been done in secret with the help of Mikio, with Yukiko unable to change his mind despite trying her hardest. The process was tough and extremely painful, but it was all worth it to face Joe on equal footing.

We can see this as an act of rebellion and liberation from Yuri’s part, the Gear was like a leash keeping him tied to the Shirato: no more a person, but more like a prototype for a product to be sold. He was the image of perfection, reached thanks to their implants, which he would’ve had to live up to his entire life.

For once, Yuri takes a decision which is really his own, bearing all that pain to gain his own freedom, symbolized by a fight to the bitter end that he would carry at his own terms, the end result be damned.

At the end of the day, Joe and Yuri aren’t really all that different. As much as their backgrounds are polar opposites, they both want to break off the role they were both chained to, and find a way to affirm themselves and live their life on their own terms.

It’s a shame that Yuri’s price to pay for all of this was losing the use of his legs, thanks to the sheer amount of strain that he put his body through, but this anime teaches us thanks to characters like Aragaki that with the right force of will, not even a disability can stop you.

So, what do you think? What were your favourite scenes from Megalo Box? What are the characters you like the most and the ones you hated? Did you expect a different ending? There were things you would’ve liked to change? Let me know in the comments, I’ll be waiting for you!