English Dub Review: Megalobox 2 – Nomad “El con alas lleva al sin alas, y el sin alas bendice al con alas”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Joe and Mac have their final match, not just between them, but for themselves. Sakuma is arrested for withholding information about the BES chip, but Yukiko also accepts responsibility for their partnership and resigns in hopes that the chip can be used for better uses in the future. Part way through the second round, Sachio feels Nanbu’s presence tell him to stop the fight, so he throws in the towel, giving the match to Mac, though Joe accepts the decision. He goes back to live with Team Nowhere and Mac goes home to his wife and son. Sachio ends up leaving to work for Shirato, with Joe escorting him out part of the way and then giving respects at Chief’s grave.

OUR TAKE
The second, and possibly last, season of Megalobox has concluded and…I feel weird. Not quite a bad weird, but definitely a lot more muddled than I felt with the last finale. That’s honestly par for the course with this season in general, with things being a lot less straight forward all around compared to the first season. And this last episode exemplifies that quite well, as while the first season was about Joe being constantly tested to be his genuine self and keeping the fight going, the first episode of the second season shows how that route has actually ended up being a pathway to him nearly killing himself. Likewise, while he only becomes important halfway through, Mac finds himself in a similar situation, and so what this season has been leading towards is not an intense rivalry about two men chasing a big showdown and sacrificing all else to get there, but actually the opposite. Chasing the fight has nearly cost them their families and their own lives, so now they’re giving it up and releasing themselves from it by accepting that they are people who exist outside of the ring.

It’s all quite poignant and would be an acceptable send off to Joe after 26 episodes. But it also feels like almost too soft an ending for this series. Much like the fight against Yuri in the first finale, the point of that fight is not really the fight itself, at least not as much as it was there. As said, it’s about the two of them letting go of fighting. So Sachio throwing the fight does make sense in that context…but it feels like we could have gone a little further to have a more properly satisfying finish. I don’t know, maybe it will grow on me as I rewatch the season for the Season Review, but as I write this, it didn’t really hit the sweet spot like the last finale did. I’m also not really fond of how Sakuma was very clearly painted as the bad guy, especially in such a morally and emotionally nuanced story compared to last season. But I’m happy for just about everyone else who made it out, especially Mac and Joe. And yet I also have this irrational irritation with things that only have two installments, so I’ll be pulling for a third installment about Joe possibly training a protégé or something. But now let’s look back on this great season as a whole.