I’m at the point where I pretty much bank Megalo Box before it even starts – there’s not much doubt about what you’re going to get with this series.  I don’t think it’s possible to put together three episodes as good as the first trio of this show without being an exceptionally talented staff, and as an original there’s no reason to suspect pacing or other issues to derail things.  So it seems not so much a matter of whether Megalo Box is going to be a really good series, but of just how it’s going to go about it.

With that in mind, the plot took a very interesting turn this week.  And it’s one that raises some interesting challenges for the staff going forward.  In the microcosm, the whole “Gearless Joe” plan makes a lot of sense.  There’s the obvious practical matter of Joe’s team basically being broke.  But above and beyond that, being gearless in a world of Megalobox gives Joe a hook – something unique to help the public gravitate to him.  And it gives his potential opponents both a reason to fight him (crucial when he’s the bottom-ranked fighter) and a reason to be overconfident when doing so.

But for all that, going gearless is nauseatingly risky – as Sachio vociferously points out from the beginning.  It would seem to put Joe at an enormous disadvantage against any given fighter, and the ones Nanba-san is trying to line up for him are no tomato cans.  The first is “Shark” Sasajima – the guy whose ranking was low because he’d lost several fights based on disqualifications.  And he’s none too happy to see the guy across the ring fighting with no gear – because that appears to be an act of mockery.  Honestly I’d be kind of pissed too, but Shark has a serious anger management problem.

This fight is seriously fucking intense, plain and simple.  Megalo Box is at heart (among other things it is) a classic boxing tale through and through, and this is as classic as it gets.  Joe clearly has an edge in terms of movement, but even a glancing blow from Sasajima – with his gear – knocks him down and leaves him dazed.  More than anything it seems to instil the fear that comes with realizing just what he’s up against, and it doesn’t help than Nanba basically loses it in the corner.  The fear makes Joe feel as if he’s knee-deep in mud, and things are looking pretty grim.

It’s Sachio who more or less saves the day here – first by accidentally spilling the ice in the corner and causing a bit of a keystone cops scene with Nanba, then by intervening when both Nanba and Joe seem to be at the end of their respective ropes.  A little innocent moral outrage (and a couple of tears and some cold water) go a long ways towards bringing Joe and Nanba back to their senses.  And those senses understand that in a way, Shark Sasajima is the perfect opponent at this stage of Joe’s journey – a hothead easily angered and manipulated.  Once Joe and Nanba are on the same page with that, Shark is living on borrowed time.

That’s a pattern that repeats itself with two more wins, and the hype (and ranking) starts to build.  But I see a long-term issue here – is Megalo Box (and Team Nowhere) going to stake its story on the idea that Joe is going to prove one doesn’t need gear to succeed in Megalonia?  Because it seems to me as he climbs the ladder, it’s hard to imagine Joe having any chance against the real titans of the sports in gearless mode.  In fact, the next opponent is all the way up at #17 – a fighter repped by an old associate of Nanba’s.  And while we don’t know anything much about the guy yet, we do know that he used to be trained by Nanba-san – and that certainly opens some interesting doors for the plot…