Is Megalo Box the new Hajime no Ippo?

If you want a straight answer, no, but not because of some inherent quality about the work, but rather, it does something different from Hajime no Ippo which I will explain later on. Keep reading.

If you’ve spent long enough time reading various internet opinions about what’s the best sports series one can get into, Ippo is one that comes up often, and for perfectly valid reasons. It’s the kind of blood pumping series that’s really hard to put down once you’re invested in the characters and the matches. The quality of the 3 seasons that studio Mad House put out adapting the long source material is unmatched.

But today, I’m not here to talk about Ippo. In the beginning of the year, the anime scene was lit up by the arrival of Devilman Crybaby, a reboot of a manga series that’s been famed in Japan for decades since its release. Following on that, another classic had its reboot, and that was Megalo Box. However, instead of taking the Crybaby approach which is modernising the characters and setting for a new audience, Megalo Box became its own thing. At its core, this reboot is Ashita no Joe, a legendary boxing series by two influential manga authors, Tetsuya Chiba and Ikki Kajiwara, predating both Ippo and Stallone’s Rocky, but with a new setting and characters. This means that all the characters in the show are new but they play similar roles that the characters played in Ashita no Joe.

Now, I brought up Hajime no Ippo because its biggest difference with Megalo Box is how it approaches the story. Ippo focuses on the professional lives of boxers, their daily struggles, their matches, but at the end of the day, the story is really about the boxing and everything that surrounds it. However, Megalo Box simply doesn’t contend with that. Just from the opening sequence and music, our protagonist is likened to a stray dog, not a professional boxer. To survive in this harsh environment, our protagonist, Junk Dog as the show calls him has to participate in illegal boxing matches, and even lose on purpose in fixed matches in order to make ends meet. There’s no escape from his terrible condition without huge consequences for every party involved. Yet, at the end of the 1st episode, he decides to take the risk and not partake in match fixing. He decides to fight for real.

This of course puts him in a conundrum losing both his financial stability and the trust of Nanbu, his trainer who's also in the deep with him. However, thanks to the huge risk he took, he manages to get himself a legal citizenship through forgery going under the new name Joe, and that allows him participate in the official boxing tournament known as the Megalonia. One of the central part of the series is the concept of gears which are just extra pieces of equipment that the boxers wear to enhance their abilities. After entering the official tournament, he decides along with Nanbu to go gearless, meaning he would forego all the physical advantages that the equipment offers, and fight against geared opponents. This was risky and put him at a disadvantage in every match, but his gearless gimmick also meant that high profile opponents were attracted to him. That would help him climb the ranks faster, and also help Nanbu get out of the bad deal they both got quagmired in.

Throughout the course of the show’s 13 episodes run, Junk Dog now known as Gearless Joe will meet opponents who aren’t even aiming for the same pie as him. This is unusual because you would think that they would be all aiming to be world class boxers as well unlike the boxers in the illegal boxing matches, just like in series like Hajime no Ippo, but no, on the contrary. One of his fiercest opponents for example, Mikio Shirato is just fighting to prove the efficiency of his gear, which his company, the Shirato Group has developed. Another just wants to take revenge on Gearless Joe for past circumstances linked to Nanbu.

With all this fakery going on, Gearless Joe finally manages to meet his match, Yuri, the bodyguard and romantic lover of Yukiko Shirato, the sister of Mikio Shirato. He was also the person who first fought him in the illegal boxing match looking for a real fight. Needless to say, Gearless Joe, and Yuri are probably the only two Megalo boxers in the tournament who wanted to fight, not because they had some external circumstance, or some score to settle, but rather, their primary motivation were to be as authentic as possible. Of course, Yuri also wants to please his romantic interest, Yukiko Shirato who's obviously in it only to promote his gear along with his brother, but for that one match against Gearless Joe, for once, he wanted to have the “real deal”, as he puts it. He wanted to stop living a life of lies, just as with his opponent, Gearless Joe.

The constant strive for authenticity is what really sets apart this boxing animation's story, from others. The sports aspect of the show, including the gear gimmick, were only the means to that goal. Nanbu, Joe, Saccha, who's one of the kids who accompany them , Yuri all have problems in remaining true to themselves, but they make real efforts to achieve it. Personally, I think it's a powerful message that the Steemit community COULD really make use of; stop plagiarising people's content, put some more effort in your posts; prove that you're not here just to make a quick buck, etc, those kind of things. In the show's final moments, you could garner that the sacrifices that the characters made were all worth it. There is not much point for anyone to live a life full of fakery and deception; you might as well be dead.

The other thoughts I read on Megalo Box seem to only focus on the superficial aspect of it. Sure, the fights aren't exactly as mind blowing as those in Hajime no Ippo or (Help God!) Ring ni Kakero, but they do the job. The killer soundtrack helps set the mood that it aims for, and the animation is stylishly retro, mirroring its 60s Ashita no Joe roots. From a technical point of view, it crosses all the checkboxes, and these all help make the series achieve its true potential.

For the reasons above, I have nothing but praise for Megalo Box.