Megalo Box – Ashita no Joe Anniversary Project

I wanted to take a moment to say that this Spring Season is absolutely badass for anime watchers. There is no other way to put this. I will be picking up a few shows to watch and perhaps even back track on some I have missed in the next few weeks.

Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of discovering Megalo Box, and oh boy…I can only describe how awesome the production on this show is. The show is the 50th anniversary project from Ashita no Joe. Have I watched this? No… I have not, yet. I attempted to a little while back but found the dated Doraemon esque style animation a little heavy. I may however, read the manga and get to enjoy the story for its glory. Watching Hajime no Ippo was a treat in itself and have read that many people think ‘Joe’ is the badass character that Makunouchi (Ippo) could not build up to. I will hold my reservations around this for now but will be extremely interested to see how the story develops.

Now moving back to Megalo Box! A friend of mine showed me the trailer for this series a little while back and I have to say, I was hype hype hype!

Trailer:

The animation quality was off the charts and I honestly thought I was looking at a movie release here. But no, it’s a 13 episode season! There are currently two episodes out and I have caught one of them so far.

The first episode is a work of art in my eyes. The soundtrack, dialogue, animation – It ass meshes together so well. The MC is scripted as a battle hardened underdog who has been sandbagging in the slums. Some of the lines he came out with gave me bone chills and the epic encounters with an appearing adversary has really wet my appetite for this series. I was reminded of Cowboy Bebop, Akira and a couple other shoes when this kicked off. Seeing the mechanical boxing style and blood spill really adds to this gritty series.

Did I dislike anything about this episode? Yes, sure I did. There was only one episode out at the time and I needed more! It’s hard to gauge how well the story will develop but as an experience and hooking viewers in, this series has done a fine job. I often binge opening episodes to see if anything can hook me into watching the rest of the show, Megalo Box does exactly this and without spoiling too much I can only urge you all to go give this a watch!

I look forward to seeing how this story unfolds and as to whether it will suffer from pacing issues or plot development. I may give episode two a watch tonight and get a better feeling. But one thing is for sure, the hype train is here and it’s time to board for an epic journey!