Ashita no Joe Manga Inspires New TV Anime With Orignal Story in Spring 2018

posted on 2017-10-13 

Ikki Kajiwara (pen name Asao Takamori) and Tetsuya Chiba's Ashita no Joe manga is inspiring a new television anime series that will premiere in spring 2018. The anime is titled Megalobox, and while it is based on Ashita no Joe, it will tell an original story.

The anime is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the original manga. 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) is directing the series at TMS Entertainment, and he is 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) are both overseeing and writing the scripts, and mabanua (Kids on the Slope) is composing the music.

Ashita no Joe revolves around an orphan named Joe Yabuki who rises from the Tokyo slums under the tutelage of a former boxer. Takamori and Chiba's original 1968-1973 manga is among the most critically acclaimed stories in Japanese popular culture, and Osamu Dezaki's television series added to the story's iconic status. The manga would later influence two generations of sports and shonen manga, including Hajime no Ippo (Fighting Spirit). A crucial twist in the Ashita no Joe television anime's plot made headlines in Japan as people marked the occasion with public ceremonies.

The manga inspired multiple TV anime series and anime films, and more recently a live-action film that opened in Japan in 2011 starring Tomohisa Yamashita. A stage play adaptation ran in Tokyo in 2015.