Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Megalobox
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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Yes. The official site lists the last Blu-ray set with 4 episodes from Round 10 to Round Final (which would be 13). |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
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Yeah, the Sachio rap was a bit jarring, but once it became background music, I was ok with it. I knew from the after-OP card that Nambu's eye was history as of this episode. I'm glad it was just his eye and not him. That's one thing that does bug me about this series - they keep putting spoilers in that card.
I also have to take issue with this episode in that Fujimaki turned into his ultimate villain archetype by stupidly revealing his hand before he got his payoff. I know, he didn't think Nambu had the cajones to defy him at that point, but still... I think the most poignant moment for me was Nambu discarding his crucifix. No matter how shitty his life was, he clung to the belief that "Dios aprieta pero no ahoga." God squeezes, but doesn't strangle. Tossing it away was like acknowledging that the last part is a lie, and God would never let up until he was dead. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
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"The guy who wanted to watch him in the finals the most just tore his only eye out to make it happen." (paraphrasing, from memory)
God damn, that line / scene was brutal. What a thing for Nanbu to do. A bit surprised Fujimaki backed off as satisfied with it as well. |
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musouka
Posts: 707 |
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I don't think that was a "hand" so much as it was an observation about the sort of "tomorrow" that was awaiting Joe in general if they threw the match. It's not like he was going to literally chain Joe to the ring and force him to fight for him, it's that freedom wasn't going to await Joe even if he paid off his bet in this way--just a quick slide back to the bottom where Joe would inevitably end up in the exact same circumstances as before. Except this time there would be no one-in-a-lifetime miracle of catching the champ's eye again. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
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He may have meant it both ways - I won't let you go, but it wouldn't matter even if I did. In any case, he still screwed himself by giving Nambu a push toward betraying him. Had he just waited five minutes to stick the knife in, he'd have gotten what he wanted. That's classic villain stupidity.
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Total agreement here. Although I'm not surprised Fujimaki considered the matter settled. He kept going with that 'You can't change your nature' thing and was impressed Nanbu would even do such a thing. I mean, I can't picture early series Nanbu doing that. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
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That's a great point---I hadn't really thought about it at all, but Fujimaki's change of heart fits really well with his obsession over whether a person can change their true nature. A gangster with principles, eh?
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FackuIkari
 Posts: 411 Location: Argentina |
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One's beast, an animal, living day to day.
They cast him out but he's still hunting down his prey. An underdog that never really had a name. Naked and scared but still a player in the game. He's coming up against the mighty king of beasts. A chosen one turning all comers into feats. Got silver hair, flashing under moonlight. Retire undefeated? They say he just might. A pair of souls caught up in the same undertow. Now they're chained together, howling in the shadow. A type of envy, not something they'd wanna admit. Only way to deal with it for both dogs to jump in the pit. Ah, he who has and he who has not. A man rising up to try and take another's spot. Ah, a pretender to the crown. Fake or real which one is going down? Ah, two animals going wild out there. Freedom and soul the only things they share. Ah, this is where they wanna be. A pair of predators, about to be set free.[i] ♪ One episode left, one fight left, Let's f**ing do this |
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Joshua Zarate
Posts: 2061 |
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^I’ll admit, when that song played, paired with the visuals, I had the biggest smile on my face that I’ve had with this series so far. Whenever music in any media is cued just right, it can really get one in the mood very well.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
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::laughing:: Well I'll be damned. I said early on I was going to be sorely disappointed if Joe fought Yuri without Gearing up, and it was looking more and more like that's where they were headed. I sure never expected them to resolve that issue for me like this. Sweet.
Still, it did kinda break my suspension of disbelief that Mikio had a fully stocked surgery in the basement of his little house in the big woods. When did he haul all that stuff up there? Why? Was he doing clandestine Gear surgeries between his communing with Nature? Not to mention the padlocked recovery room he's got tucked away down there. The more I think about it, the more disturbing that whole setup is... |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2302 |
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I really liked the Yuri turn as well (but maybe Yuri would be better called Yaoi, given how excited he is about Joe?
 ), and the soundtrack that went along with it was super on-the-nose but somehow that didn't bother me at all. Yuri enduring torture/withdrawal/whatever all that was, and striking out to pursue his dream entirely distinct from that of his 'Owner' to abandon his gear and fight Joe on even terms seemed like a more plausible & thematically consistent choice than Joe choosing to gear up for the finale. The only time we've seen Joe fight with gear in the last 10 episodes was when he flirted with throwing fights again; at this point, Joe's gear is effectively synonymous with forfeiture of meaningless, artificial fights, and it would've been real difficult to buy him putting it on to fight Yuri, but equally difficult to parse Yuri's character if Yuri was artificially enhanced in his fight against Joe. Yuri's choice to abandon his gear poignantly reinforced how important this fight is to Yuri and gave Yuri some extra texture beyond just 'Impossible mountain Joe must climb'. Incidentally, it also helped maintain the series' pattern of developing secondary characters more fully than Joe himself. (though Yuri still seems a bit of a caricature, possessed of a drive to fight with 'the real deal' in a way that I don't think his backstory fully sold; certainly, he's still not as full a character as the soldier-boxer, Mikio, the kid, Nanbu...)
I wasn't crazy about Mikio's role in the episode. I get that we're supposed to believe Joe K.O.'ing him despite his AI-gear marked a serious emotional catharsis & intellectual/ideological revelation for him, but I got some serious character whiplash watching him suddenly be buddy-buddy with the sister he's resented for so long (and charitably support her chosen champion's dream). I'm willing to believe he eventually gets to this point in the wake of his run-in with Joe, but it felt like they jumped from Step 1 to Step 10 in terms of his personality overhaul. I was actually kind've willing to buy that Mikio could get all that equipment setup on short notice, given his economic & research connections, and so I figured we were supposed to assume Yuri had given him enough notice that he was able to scrap together just the bare bones of an operating room. On the other hand, I'm kind've ambivalent about Mikio actually knowing enough about human physiology to serve as a competent surgeon; I thought the show had impressed on us that he was a brilliant engineer -- granting him hands-on surgical skill and the medical knowledge necessary to perform it kind've beggared belief for me. I guess his AI-gear may have also been in some ways directly linked with his personal physiology (though I feel that was left ambiguous), and so he could've naturally required knowing a fair bit of human physiology to pull off that design, so maybe there's some natural in-universe support for his multi-competency... Anyway, I guess ultimately I'm practicing my own surgical skills with the scalpel I pulled out for this nitpick, but sometimes I just shake my head at the ridiculous range of skills we're supposed to assume characters possess based entirely on some kind've over-broad archetype. |
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LuScr
Posts: 140 |
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Started on this series late. I was hesitant to give it a try, considering how the original ended (spoiler[I've had more than my fill of downer boxing stories with Ippo these past few months]) but don't regret having done so.
One thing that's making me more than a little uneasy as we close in on the finale is the underlying military connection that keeps popping up throughout the series--how Shirato had been closing in on a Gear contract with them, with the implication that securing that contract was the entire reason Megalonia was set up in the first place. Even in this latest ep, after the contract was signed, the military man still talked about how important it was for Yuri to win the finals with his Gear. And now Yuri's had his Gear surgically removed? I have a sinking feeling this is going to end badly for everyone in the main cast. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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"And as for Tiny Tim...who did NOT die..."
In another time I might've given this a hard time for backing off, but honestly, there's been so much depressing **** lately, getting a happy ending unexpectedly isn't such a bad thing. I'll take it. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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Great anime show with a solid final episode. Once again, like with Made in Abyss last year, a show that was not in my radar ends up being a strong candidate for anime of the year. Megalobox is a fun and cool ride with a lot of personality.
I hope we see a BD release with a great English dub next year. |
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Cab329
Posts: 132 |
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I like to think the ending was a suckerpunch, like the show has been boxing with our feelings the whole time. Each week, it worked us over by putting Team Nowhere through absolute hell while making sure the words "dead" and "Die" were always present (and of course using the franchise's pedigree to prep us for death), getting us to put up our guard for a downer or bittersweet ending.
Yet right at the end, episode 13 (just like the fight ended in Round 13), the show hits us with a far happier ending than we were expecting, catching us off guard. Or at least it did for me. I didn't cry but I certainly came close at just how happy I was things turned out well. I loved the crap out of this show. Yeah, the boxing, as James pointed out, depended more on editing and angles rather than great animation or even much variation, but as a drama it was great. I'm gonna miss watching each week and I know I'm going to rewatch it at least a fw more times this year. |
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