Well, that could easily have been, like, the best OVA series in years.  It had just about everything you could want in a self-contained anime – pathos, drama, thematic ambition, social commentary, brilliant characterization.  In point of fact it’s just the prologue as it turns out, and we have two-thirds of Megalo Box 2 still to come.  Frankly it’s set a pretty damn high bar for itself at this point, but if the rest of the series can play at this level we’re looking at the early frontrunner for 2021’s anime of the year.

There was really only one slightly off note for me in this episode and indeed the whole arc, so I may as well get it out of the way of the lavish praise to follow.  Mio’s turnaround here was a little too sudden and too total for me to find it believable.  It also didn’t have a strong enough catalyst behind it – it just sort of happened when it needed to happen.  And while it worked fine and I probably only took issue with it because the rest of the writing has been early-90’s Jordan caliber, it’s about the only thing in these four eps that hasn’t been a bullseye for me (pun intended).

Chief was a helluva character, that’s for damn sure.  He had about as glorious an arc as one could hope for in four episodes, but it did become clear as this one progressed that it was satellite to Joe’s story.  There were times during this run when I’ve felt that Chief’s could be the arc that forms the spine of the entire series, but it ran its course here – Megalo Box is Joe’s story, not Chief’s, and he’s the Nomad in question.  That makes Chief’s urgency in pushing Joe to re-enter the life he’s abdicated from quite a logical turn for his character.  Chief was doing exactly what he felt he should be doing, but he knew that Joe was only with him as a form of escapism.

In the end Hikawa turned out to be a paper tiger, but I’m fine with that actually.  Chief was a great man and Hikawa is an extremely small one, and events of the final night of Chief’s life proved that.  It’s fitting that the final fight of the tournament should be a platform for the spewing anti-immigrant hate (no, we’re absolutely not commenting about Japan here, no way), because that was the overriding theme of the arc.  Even with the small-time fix in, Chief is still the better man – though the results would likely have been different if Joe hadn’t been present to remind him of that.

There’s a reason punches to the back of the head are illegal, and the fact is that if Chief had been unable to get up as a results of the most blatant one, his opponent really should have been DQ’d (though I doubt that would happen in these circumstances).  I’m not sure at what point exactly I knew Chief was gone – I think it was when he told Joe he was afraid to go to sleep.  But as painful an ending as it was, in the poetical sense it probably had to happen.  Chief had fulfilled his purpose in life, made the amends he felt he had to make, and the people he wanted to be with were never going to be waiting for him again.

It seems pretty clear that Joe is going to return to his life and try to make his own amends – which presumably starts with Sachio.  Joe is lucky in that he still has time to do right by the person who haunted him with guilt, whereas it was already too late for Chief.  But does that mean he’s going to return to boxing, too?  Taking Chief’s gear implies yes, but there’s only one possible way I see a return to fighting ending for Joe.  I also wonder if we’re going to see a new OP and ED now that Chief’s story is told.  I won’t lie, I have a bit of trepidation in seeing where Nomad goes from here, only because this prologue was so sublime.  But if any show has earned my trust, it’s certainly this one.