The anime was good this week, folks. Actually, the anime’s been pretty damn good these past two weeks, with Megalo Box pulling off what was easily its most satisfying fight yet, Hinamatsuri finally establishing what feels like a confident balance between its various modes, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes just chugging away as consistently as ever. If Megalo Box can maintain the standard set by the second half of Aragaki’s fight, it could easily end up being my favorite show of the season – of course, that also depends on how My Hero Academia handles its upcoming highlights. We’ve basically got a seasoned pro squaring off against an energetic young gun here, and whoever wins, we in the audience get to enjoy all of it. Let’s settle back and run these past weeks down in one more week in review!

This week’s Megalo Box was very solid, but given last week’s episode got ignored in lieu of the first half wrap up, I feel like I should take a moment to say: holy shit. The second half of the fight against Aragaki was not only one of the most viscerally satisfying, beautifully realized, and intelligently structured fights yet, it also totally sold the originally messy Aragaki narrative. The flashbacks were tighter and more immediately relevant here, and used in smart ways like Aragaki’s loose punch leading into that memory of punching Nanbu’s window. All in all, episode six substantially improved my general impression of Megalo Box.

After the success of episode six, seven only really needed to ride the wave, and I think it succeeded in that as well. Aragaki’s story increased the scale of Megalo Box while simultaneously selling Joe as a known, public figure, and episode seven cashed in on that buildup while simultaneously performing much of the crucial work of defining Joe’s future opponents. It seems like Megalo Box doesn’t just want to ride on style – it wants to be a genuinely tactically satisfying sports narrative on top of that. After the Aragaki fight, I think it could really pull it off.

Meanwhile, My Hero Academia finished out its student training arc with a very different kind of payoff, building on all the show had established about 1-A’s powers to deliver some unexpected collaborations between our various stars. The last dustoff between the villains and heroes was messy in a way I found very satisfying – this wasn’t the clean, clearly partitioned fighting of the sports festival, this was a bunch of desperate people using their powers in whatever way felt most effective at the moment. I’d have really liked to see more of that tactical desperation play out, so this arc’s loyalty to the source material still chafes a bit, but that’s a complaint that’s not really going anywhere. On the whole, My Hero Academia remains a very entertaining action platform, and I’m pretty sure my own favorite scene this season will be covering comes up next week, so hey, fun times ahead.

After seven episodes, it really felt like Hinamatsuri might have actually found its rhythm this week. The show tends to settle into three distinct sub-shows, with Anzu handling the “heartwarming found family” material, Hitomi holding down the “life is suffering” fort, and Hina bringing her deadpan sensibilities to a funny compromise between the two others. While Anzu’s material has shined throughout, both Hitomi and Hina’s material has gotten a little repetitive, so I was happy to see the two of them actually carry the day this week. Hina in particular had a bunch of great jokes in both her student council and finding a mom narratives, and I found it sort of structurally hilarious that while Anzu’s material generally follows some sort of “Anzu makes a mistake and then learns about the world” arc, Hina and Hitomi divvied up their material this week so that while Hina made all the mistakes, Hitomi had to suffer through all the lessons. Hina and Nitta’s charming comedy of errors stuff here felt as strong as the show’s first episode, giving me confidence the show simply had to weather a somewhat unfunny low stretch.

And staying perfectly on theme, Legend of the Galactic Heroes continued its sturdy march towards intergalactic drama this week. This episode was more or less divided between Reinhard’s first two allies, the starry-eyed Kircheis and the proudly amoral Oberstein. I enjoyed how splitting the episode between the two of them essentially underlined their thematic roles as Reinhard’s shoulder angel/devil – Kircheis’ nearly bloodless ending of a local rebellion perfectly embodied his belief in rulers who earn their rule, whereas Oberstein’s desperate negotiations to get out of an arbitrary court martial underlined his own bitter hatred for the cruelty of unjust kings. It’s ultimately impossible for me to disagree with Reinhard’s choice; though I’d like to believe enough Kircheis-like characters could fix things, there are also a lot of happily cruel and selfish rules who could really use an Oberstein to take care of them. Of course, this already sets Reinhard on a course where his own decisions might end up seeming just as cruel and arbitrary as his predecessor’s, but hey, you gotta break a few eggs to rule a galaxy.