Warning! This review contains spoilers, so I recommend that you finish the first season before reading this review.
Plot 9.3/10
Ashita no Joe or known as in other parts of the world as Rocky Joe, Tomorrow Joe, Joe’s Tomorrow, Champion Joe, and Joe is about an orphan who ran away from the orphanage at a very young age who goes by the name Joe Yabuki. After a couple of years when Yabuki Joe is a teenager he meets an old man named Tange Danpei, who used to be a boxer and gets into a fight with Joe and loses. After that at some members of the yakuza show up to fight Joe, but in the end Joe wins. Danpei sees this and asks him if he would like to become a boxer and Joe’s responsese to this is “no “. Danpei still keeps trying until Joe finally accepts the offer, but the only reason why is because of the money. Then a rich woman shows up named Yoko Shiraki and Joe - with the help of the kids they scam her. She finds out about this and Joe gets sent to jail for one year and six months. During his jail time he meets Nishi who becomes a good friend later on and a man that gets into fight with Joe, who defeats Joe. This person is known as Toru Rikishi. After this a rivalry starts between the two of them which causes Joe to become a boxer in order to settle the score with Rikishi.
Review of the plot: Even though the plot is nothing really special, but the way they handle it makes it one of the best stories I have ever heard/seen. The main theme of this season is pretty much rivalry and the struggles of boxing. In the first season the relationship of Joe and Rikishi evolves to not just being rivals, but becoming closest friends. The struggle this season deals with is losing weight, getting ready to fight Rikishi in the ring, Joe learning boxing techniques, and the pain of killing someone in the ring. The way the handles it is something that left me in tears in how sad this series was becoming and sometimes hard to watch.
Characters 10/10
Joe Yabuki: The main character of the series is an asshole and acts like a wild animal. Due to his past he doesn’t know when his birthday is and who his parents are. Really the only thing he knew form his past is his name. Throughout the series Joe ends up loving boxing, ends up becoming a decent person and respects his rivals. Overall I would say at first Joe is a person that becomes hard to like, but later on he becomes so that you end up loving him to the end of it. It is because of his character development he become my favorite anime main character of all time.
Toru Rikishi: He is Joe’s main rival of the series, a boxing genius, a person with a lot of determination, and also like Joe he is a delinquent. He got sent to jail for nearly killing someone who badmouthed him during one of his matches. Overall Rikishi is a total badass being able to beat up freaking bulls easily. He also is one of the coolest characters of the show. He’s also the person who left the biggest impact in the series and in anime in general. Rikishi is known to be the first character to have ever died in anime. This ended up being very risky for the two creators of Ashita no Joe because killing off a character was never heard of and the fact of killing a popular character could mean the end of the series. In unexpecting terms the fans of Rikishi end up hosting a funeral for him. It is also because of his death the series starts to take a darker tone as you seen with the last 21 episodes of the show and in season 2 of it. In the end Rikishi goes down as one of the greatest rivals ever made and becomes Joe closet friend.
Tange Danpei: Joe’s boxing coach who used to be a boxer, but retired due the fact he can no longer see with his right eye. After he retires he becomes an alcoholic, but when he meets Joe his life starts to change. When Joe got sent to jail he started to write postcard that had boxing lessons such as the jab and uppercut. After that he decide to go over there to further teach more lesson to Joe such Cross Counter, Block, and Footwork. He known to very manipulate by confusing Joe by not train him, but instead training Aoyama instead him in order for Joe to learn how to block and footwork in order to beat Aoyama. His dream is to make Joe a champion since he was unable to do it himself. The best way I can describe Danpei is that he’s a person who’s obsessed with Joe and determinated to make Joe a champion.
Kanichi “Mammoth” Nishi: Is one of Joe’s closest friends and a person who gets scared easily in the beginning of the series until he decides to become a boxer to overcome his fears. The best way I can describe him is that he is a nice person who has a weight problem, but overcomes this thanks to Joe.
Yoko Shiraki: Toru Rikishi’s manager and her relationship to Joe is the closest we will ever get of a love interest for Joe. In the beginning of the series she is seen as the person who doesn’t care about Joe but later on starts developing feelings for him and cares about him. This is shown when Joe needed a new rival in order to overcome Rikishi’s death. She also serves a counterpart to Joe to the point it’s hard to doubt if she’s even a villain for the first half of the series. The best way I can describe her is that she’s a very calm person.
Carlos Rivera: Joe’s second rival and the person Joe needed in order to overcome Rikishi’s death. He has a similar backstory to Joe that they were both orphans and both lived in the slums. Carlos is also a playboy who can’t stop hitting on women, a laid back and friendly person. Like Rikishi he also serves the foe Joe has to overcome and becomes really good friends with Joe. He’s also one of Joe most important opponents of Joe’s career since he is ranked 6 in the world.
Wolf: Not much to say except he is the first major opponent of Joe’s boxing career. It is because of the fight they had in the locker why Joe was able to get his boxing license. It is because of this Wolf starts to hate Joe and do anything it takes in order to defeat him.
Overall the characters are the strong point of the series because of how developed they are and how they are handled. I could talk about more characters such as the kids who follow Joe and Noriko, but I couldn’t since they haven’t received enough development and they haven’t really changed that much.
Animation 8.8/10
Due to the fact the show was made in 1970 the animation ends up begin very rough and coming out in a time where anime company was still not used to use colored animation yet. However, there are still moments where the animation does look good and times were it looks bad. It is because of this that it doesn’t really hold up well compared to anime from nowadays.
Music/Voice acting 10/10
The soundtrack is absolutely amazing and fits the series. The main genres they ended up using are jazz and rock. Tracks such as Joe’s whistle, Rikishi’s theme, the opening theme, the instrumental version of the ending. The music really handles up very well and there are some of the best soundtracks I have ever heard in anime. The voice acting, I gotta say was very well handled and each one fits their respective character. I can’t say anything about the Spanish dub, Italy dub, and English dub of it since I can only find a few clips of it and the English dub of it only covers the first eight episodes of it and the first movie. In the Italy dub and Spanish does change the title to Rocky Joe when they aired it.
Adaption 9.4/10
The first season over from the beginning all the way until the end of Joe vs Carlos Rivera, but it does have filler scenes in the series such as the doctor who treated Joe’s wounds and during the time Joe goes on his journey after Rikishi’s death. Even though the series has filler that doesn’t make the quality of it go down. The filler contributes to the story by adding more matches of Joe that the manga did end up skipping. It’s because of these fillers that makes it help making Joe’s boxing career seem more realistic. The filler moments also contribute to the development of Joe for example episode 69. However, the first series skips some scenes such as the moment Carlos kissed Yoko and the exhibition Joe had with Carlos. In my opinion comparing the first anime series to the manga I would have to say the manga is a bit better, but the first season does an amazing job adapting the manga. It also manages to handle things better than the manga such as Rikishi losing weight and Joe’s Journey.
Enjoyment 10/10
Out of all the series I havee seen they have never given me the same amount of enjoyment I had when I was watching Ashita no Joe. The reason why is because how immersed I was into the story, the characters, the fights, and everything that happened in the series. The fights are the most intense fights I have ever seen. A good example of this is when Joe was fighting Rikishi and you see the moment when both of them start using the “no-guard “position. I was amazed how quickly I started enjoying the series. Within the first 10 minutes of the first episode I was already hooked and I knew this would be a series I could never forget. This also was the first time I have experienced any form of entertainment that left me with a huge impact. This series made me feel like I was being part of the world they live in as an observer and I quickly became attached to the characters to the point I would break into tears the moment anything bad happen to them.
Final Thoughts
Overall this series probably will always stay as my favorite anime of all time because of how amazing it is and the impact it had on me to the point after I had finished the series I ended up going through a void that took me a year to get out of. Overall I give the first season a 9.5/10.