Viz Media Adds Megalobox Anime

Viz Media announced at Anime Expo on Thursday that it has licensed the Megalobox anime.

Viz Media's license for Megalobox includes the exclusive theatrical, broadcast, and home media rights, as well as the non-exclusive streaming, merchandise, and consumer products rights.

The 13-episode anime premiered on TBS on April 5, and Crunchyrollstreamed the series as it aired. The show's home video releases in Japan will feature new anime shorts.

The anime is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ikki Kajiwara (pen name Asao Takamori) and Tetsuya Chiba's Ashita no Joe manga, and it features an original story. In the new story, a man called JD (Junk Dog) participates in fixed boxing matches in an underground ring in order to live. Today, he enters the ring again, but he encounters a certain person. JD wants to take on a challenge that risks everything.

You Moriyama (animation director for Master Keaton and Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, concept designer for Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress and Attack on Titan) directed the series at TMS Entertainment, and he was also in charge of conceptual design. Katsuhiko Manabe (Shin Kyūseishu Densetsu Hokuto no Ken: Raoh-den Gekitō no Shō, Shin Kyūseishu Densetsu Hokuto no Ken: Raoh-den Junai no Shō) and Kensaku Kojima (live-action Shinya Shokudō series) both oversaw and wrote the scripts, and mabanua (Kids on the Slope) composed the music.