English Dub Review: Megalo Box “The Man Only Dies Once”

Ain’t gonna be no rematch.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yuri’s surprise appearance fires up the crowd and gets the bets flowing more than ever, but it’s Junk Dog who’s salivating more than anyone now that he finally has a chance to go all out. Yuri gives him a one arm handicap, but even though he gets a couple good hits in, Junk Dog forces him to use both hands to put him down. The match is over in less than one round, but a switch has been flipped inside Junk Dog. He can’t bring himself to take dives in matches anymore, even going as far as knocking out his next opponent in one blow to show he’s not going to be playing around anymore. What he doesn’t realize (or simply doesn’t care) is that this is getting his manager, Nanbu, in trouble with their mob boss, Fujimaki.

In order to avoid being given a pair of cement shoes or a horse’s head in the bed, Nanbu relents to Junk Dog’s wishes, that were taking part in the Megalonia to get a shot at fighting Yuri again. This will pay off Nanbu’s debts to Fujimaki and get their boxer to be a team player again. But before they can do that, they need to give him a proper ID so he can enter. Taking over the space left by a guy who got behind on his payments, Junk Dog takes inspiration from a billboard he saw and decides to take on a new name: Joe.

OUR TAKE

And so, we reach the end of Act 1. That’s odd to say at the end of the second episode, but this and the last episode basically make up what is the typical way of writing the first act of a three-act film. We meet our protagonist in their normal world, show why they’re interesting but have a desire they haven’t been able to obtain, as we saw last week with Junk Dog’s introduction and initial situation. This episode brings in what is known as the “inciting incident”, where a sudden change in the protagonist’s status quo forces them to enter a new world to find what they want. In this case, that incident is Junk Dog’s first match with Yuri, showing him that while he does have talent, there are others out there he can’t hope to beat if he’s stuck in this bar.

It’s also the first embers of a rivalry between Junk Dog, or rather “Joe”, and Yuri. We see later that Yuri is pretty convinced he’s not going to be seeing Joe again, even though it’s obvious something stirred in him during that fight. This lays out a goal for Joe to strive towards and a trajectory for this series to follow. It might make things a little predictable, but I’m more than eager to see the sparks fly between them after some proper build up. Character rivalries, especially in anime, can become near legendary if handled the right way, and this seems to be on the right track with these first two episodes.

We also get a good look at the show’s Opening, “Bite”, which is…a weird one, at least compared to the ones I’ve covered recently. There isn’t a ton of focus on the characters in it, but rather metaphors for them in the form of objects and, in the case of Joe and Yuri, ravenous wolves. It’s a really “out there” OP if that makes sense. There are so many images that, at first glance, seem to just mundane objects, but could have a ton of meaning behind them for all I know.

Now that we’ve crossed the threshold from the normal world into the new and fantastical one, it’s time to get to know more about this Megalonia tournament. I’m a sucker for a well put together Tournament Arc (or a bad one, really), so I’m really eager to see where this all goes.