Ashita no Joe 2

grimfangs Mar 8, 2021

9

Ashita no Joe 2 is not exactly a spiritual successor to the story of Ashita no Joe. But that doesn't take away much from the legacy of Anime.While the tale follows a slightly different sequence of events, the story is much faster paced with less focus on dramatics, narrative, and dialogue, and more focus on action and aesthetics. By the end of the Anime, the story slowly returns to the pace of the precursor. The ending is something which I don't know whether to feel bad or good about. It certainly does manage to carry over the depth of the original Anime by the end.Apart from that, they have really picked up on Art and Animation. Where the first one hadn't aged well, this version of events rivals the animation quality of the likes of Studio Ghibli. If anyone found the first one difficult to watch because of visual quality, this would be a treat for them. Even the sound in this version is amazingly placed.The tale remains quite tragic and touching nonetheless as Joe must now deal with the consequences of his actions and the fact that everything he touches, he destroys. The Anime also touches on many similar themes which a boxer encounters including awareness about Punch-Drunk syndrome and the accumulated brain damage over the years of Boxing. Even there, the action is a little over the top and unrealistic while within comparatively reasonable limits.This Anime, however, does focus more on the boxing aspect and for a while, the powerful story which drove it's predecessor and urged you to keep watching takes the back seat as the characters are also changed a bit. For the most part, Tange Danpei, the coach, serves as more of comic relief in this Anime instead of a supporting figure for Joe. But the Anime recovers from that towards the end.No matter what, the tale of Ashita no Joe is an amazing one which, in my eyes, has a legendary status. It is definitely worth a watch and I would highly recommend it to anybody who watches Anime.

Presliylish Nov 15, 2021

10

Ashita no Joe is one of these animes which have one of the most interesting storylines ever.The story shows the struggling of the people on the slums and how a single drunkard man sitting on the floor would change Joe's life completely not to forget it also showed us how Joe went from a stray to someone who cares about his friends and remain loyal to them.Joe was one of these characters who inspired me on the concept of always working hard to something that you have passion for and always set goals behind you.Final overview,I totally recommend watching Ashita no Joe.

Newtype21 May 15, 2022

8

This is the oldest anime I have seen and what an excellent series I found. It´s truly a legendary anime.Joe Yabuki, the protagonist with more willpower than any other I've seen and one of the best ever. His development throughout the series is wonderful. Finding a place to call home (he was an orphan), fighting his inner demons and slowly maturing. I love his feisty personality, added to his life philosophy (until only ashes remain) which allowed him to overcome all the great adversities he had in his life.Tooru Rikiishi, the best rival in the anime I´ve seen. Not only he was the motivation to gradually accept the boxing that Joe initially rejected. But he was also a great friend and even a father to some extent. He even went through inhuman torture by reducing his weight without feeding himself to get into Joe's category and fight like pros. He is so cool that he has his own song.Danpei Tange, Joe's mentor. Who offered him the opportunity to box for a living, both for Joe and for himself. His dynamic with Joe was great and their many confrontations strengthened their friendship.Carlos Rivera, another great friend, rival and motivation for Joe after his fight with Rikiishi. They both shared the same kind of competitive spirit, we were introduced to their past and their motivations to make their reunion one of the most emotional of the series.The boxers, Yoko, Nishi, Noriko, the children and everyone else contributed their bit to the plot, they had their own motivations and reasons to be relevant closing their respective character arcs at the end of the series.Some minor drawbacks were: the limited animation of the time which was sometimes distracting, the somewhat slow but steady pacing and the semi-open ending of part 1.Fortunately all of the above and more were improved in part 2, although it was not spared from some inconsistencies such as:- The weight issue in Joe, he only made the sacrifice for one fight and was discarded for the next ones. - Another was in the fight against that savage Harimao, whose way of fighting was not quite suitable for boxing and was more inclined to wrestling.It is also worth mentioning the wonderful soundtrack of first level, totally accurate and immersive and the great songs that fit the tone and message of the series.And the conclusion, that epic finale. I have witnessed one of the best endings I have ever seen.