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What gets brought up repeatedly are things like Joe grabbing Yoko's throat and telling her he doesn't care if she dies in a ditch somewhere, the time he throws water at her when she asks him to forfeit against Kim, the time in the manga when he teases her about her confession and tells her that women's magazines would love that scoop, Yoko forcing Joe to fight Harimau against his will, Yoko holding his world title match hostage, Yoko accidentally making his punch-drunk syndrome worse, Yoko actually telling him to die in the ring...

It goes on.

People who prefer Joe with someone like Noriko seem to want Joe to have easygoing and friendly relationships that don't have all these high-octane scenes.

And I definitely understand that discomfort. Joe thinks Yoko is actually his enemy for a majority of the manga and that informs his hostility towards her (in season 2, they are way friendlier so this doesn't really apply to their anime selves).

But does it mean that in light of all the insane things they do to each other, that after Joe is done with boxing, that they'd have an unhealthy relationship where Joe roughs her up or they'd still be antagonistic towards each other or something, like some people think?

Actually, I think it's narratively impossible for that to ever happen. If Joe and Yoko were to ever be in a relationship post-series, it would certainly be friendly and peaceful.

Why?

There's a very specific thread of frustration that runs through Joe and Yoko's relationship in the series.

Namely, fighting and exchanging physical blows is a very, very positive connection in Joe's worldview, and certainly the philosophy of Ashita no Joe.

Here, Joe says that communicating with Carlos by beating each other up has made them best friends, and that this was the case with Rikiishi as well.

Not only has fighting them given them a beautiful connection, Joe thinks it is superior to other connections. Closer than friends who've shared a million words together.

After fighting his rivals, Joe's feelings of antagonism towards them completely vanish and he behaves calmly and peacefully, trying (and failing 😭) to shake Rikiishi's hand, tearfully embracing Carlos after ages apart, and even refusing to let Goromaki Gondo say anything bad about Wolf.

Joe loves his rivals.

Now, what is the specific thread of frustration that runs through his and Yoko's relationship? Yoko certainly wishes to connect to the men in her life by understanding boxing. That's why she starves herself along with Rikiishi. She wants to understand the world of men.

Now, here is where people get off-kilter.

Joe wants to connect with Yoko too. He seriously desires a close connection with her, and when he says she's a woman in a man's world?

He resents this. He wants her in his world. His antagonism masks this, however...

He is frustrated that she doesn't seem to get it. He wants to understand her and for her to understand him.

He wants to have a close connection with her, a friendship, just as he does with Rikiishi and Carlos. That's why he visits Rikiishi's grave with her.

However, he does not think she reciprocates this desire for a close connection. He says Yoko doesn't care that he won the title (with the implication that he wishes she did?).

Just as he explains to Noriko his motivation for boxing, he does the same to Yoko here. Again, the antagonism does a great job of masking it. But he is genuinely trying to explain his heart to Yoko.

Why does he have to explain this to her, though? Because he is not allowed, narratively, nor by any legal standard, to actually exchange blows with her. Literally. He hits Danpei (and almost kills him twice). He hits Nishi.

Joe is a fictional character and not a real person, and his behavior is constrained by the narrative, which definitely forbids him from doing this. He cannot and will not exchange blows with Yoko, because she is a woman and not a boxer, and beating each other up is what he does with other boxers, in a world of men, not with her.

Because he cannot, and I do not think he has the heart to, despite what insane comments he makes, and some of the truly disturbing items on the list above (yeah, he's problematic...we know. I'm not his defense lawyer).

I think he was deeply frustrated at this, this inability of his to communicate with her in the language he knew. The best tool at his disposal, his fists, are totally useless to him here.

Do I seriously think he wants to commit horrible, misogynistic crimes of violence against a defenseless lady, however? No. I actually don't think that.

He never seeks mindless, sadistic violence. He does not desire this. He seeks understanding and true connection, and combat is legitimately the first time someone truly respected him as someone worth dying for, in the form of Rikiishi.

I think he honestly, truly wanted her to be his rival, an Atalanta to his Meleager, an equal to meet in combat, but he can't (that's why she keeps getting people to fight Joe by proxy; not just for Rikiishi, but for her too), for obvious reasons.

So what does Joe do?

Instead, he resorts to what he believes is an inferior method of communication. He tries to tell her about his feelings.

He says that exchanging blows is far superior to just talking, and yet he talks to her, and he talks to Noriko. Noriko doesn't understand, and she slowly fades from his life and marries Nishi instead.

Anyway, just as with Noriko, words fail with Joe and Yoko in that instance, though he tries. But unlike with Noriko, he does manage to have a soulful conversation with Yoko in the end, when she tells him to fight against Jose Mendoza with no regrets. When she does this, she understands him where Jose Mendoza, his actual opponent, fails.

I've said before that his discomfort with seeing Jose Mendoza's family in Hawaii did not come from being an orphan and seeing a happy family that he never had, but from the idea that he would lose everything he had gained. Joe does have a family he cares for deeply. But he must surely have been worried that his drive to become white ash was alienating them, just as it alienated Noriko.

On top of that, his final opponent, the world champion, was literally refusing the meaningful sparring and sense of friendship that Joe was trying to offer him in Hawaii, and was trying to offer him in the ring.

Yeah. Joe in the manga actually thought of Jose as a comrade and seeking him out in Hawaii was Joe's attempt to form a close relationship with him. This didn't happen, though, because Jose isn't that kind of guy.

That final match was such an ironic inversion.

Fist-fighting, his most meaningful way of communication, didn't help Jose Mendoza understand Joe as a person. It just terrified Jose and aged him prematurely.

Ironically, Yoko, a non-fighter, was the one who was finally understood him. And she did it with words of encouragement.

In the end, he gives her his gloves, inviting her into the world of men, without explaining a single thing, because he trusts her to understand. That was their version of the handshake he never got to have with Rikiishi.

In a way, the rival he made peace with was not Jose Mendoza. It was Yoko.

And, as I said, what happens when Joe makes peace with his rivals?

He drops all antagonism and all fighting. It's the end of combat and the beginning of peace. The cycle of combat was broken with the world title match, and Joe would stop fighting, because he reached the undestanding he was hoping for.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

tldr - Joe and Yoko would definitely have a friendly relationship with peace and calm if he somehow lived.

Many people take what Yoko said here as some kind of golden rule of Joe's life, and that this is what he was trying to do in his final fight. Die on the ring as a way of paying off his debts. That this is what 'burning out' meant, and that the only satisfying ending would have been Joe's death.

You can even see it in this quote.

But I don't think this is accurate or correct. For one, it's a false dichotomy that the only two fates left to Joe are 'die gloriously' or 'live the rest of your life as a miserable husk of your former self.' As if living gloriously is never an option, even though it very well could be. Joe never sees himself or his fate in the way of the false dichotomy of that audience.

Joe DOES feel a sense of duty to his past opponents, but he doesn't actively seek death, and he doesn't do all of this only for others. Some of it is because this is his natural inclination. The sense of satisfaction in doing his best and burning his brightest.

And I think the big problem with the above interpretation is that it assigns whether he had a good or bad fate to the outcome of the match with Jose Mendoza, that it would have been good if he had died and bad if he had lived as an 'invalid' or married Yoko (lol).

Another problem is that Yoko herself regrets what she said to him here.

And more importantly, this is not the yardstick Joe uses for his life (dying on the ring, I mean, not the stuff about him fulfilling his duty as a man; I think he does agree with Yoko on that). Her worldview progressed from 'Joe should die on the ring to fulfill his debts' to 'Joe should give his best with no regrets to fulfill his debts.' Moving from the outcome of the action (which is beyond Joe's control) to the pure-hearted fulfillment of the action itself.

If you don't believe me, I'm pretty sure you'll believe the co-author, Tetsuya Chiba, who says something similar.

When I reread it, that picture (of the last scene) suddenly came to mind. At the time I drew it, I wasn't thinking about Joe's life or death. I just wanted to draw a picture that would give a sense of satisfaction, of someone who had used up all of their life, or their vitality, or whatever it was, and burned out. When I finished the serialization, I felt a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that "this was the only ending I could have."

　I'm sure we've all had the experience of accomplishing something and giving it our all at some point. I hope that Joe's life will make people realize the value of dedicating one's life to one thing.

　I am currently working with students at a university, but when I see their daily lives, I feel like it's a bit of a waste. I want them to try their best and try their potential. Now that we are in the era of the Internet and electronic books, I think new expressions will emerge. That's why manga is still in its infancy. I want to teach young people something that will give them the opportunity to express themselves through manga, and I myself am still looking for what I can do to burn out as a manga artist.

Joe never considers the outcome of his matches or his bodily state to determine whether his ending is good or bad.

Joe considers giving his full potential to boxing, his best effort, to determine whether his ending is good or bad. Joe isn't hung up on things he cannot control, whether he lives or dies, wins or loses, is punch-drunk or perfectly healthy. Recall that he was never bitter about losing to Rikiishi. He was satisfied that he had fought his best against a man he admired. His match with Carlos was a draw, and he did not care. He was satisfied that he had fought his best against a man he admired. Joe's final fulfillment came not in dying in the ring to pay off his debts, it came from honoring his opponents and himself by doing the very best he ever could. If he was gonna burn, he wanted it to be bright. That is why even if he had lived, it would not have been a bad ending.

Ironically, these readers are making the same mistake as Jose Mendoza: getting hung up on the outcome, only their preferred outcome is death over being an 'invalid.' A projection of their fears onto Joe, who never shared them.

Jose did not understand why Joe kept boxing even though death was a real and potentially imminent possibility. He projected his own fear of death onto Joe. Jose was chained by fear and this prevented him from giving his all. Joe was liberated from this fear, and he wasn't scared of the other outcome of permanent brain damage either. He had accepted all possible outcomes and gave his best. This is why he's 'Tomorrow's Joe.' Because he's free from fear. But accepting death as a possibility isn't the same as being suicidal, the way some think.

And as for his marrying Yoko to be a horrible fate 😂: I don't think he necessarily would have married her if he had lived. Maybe he would have reciprocated, maybe not, though it looks like he may have, judging by the original ending. But the readers here seemed to have missed something important about Yoko. In the end, she is the ONLY living person he comes to a mutual understanding with. She refuses to run from his match with Jose regardless of the outcome, does not give the towel to Danpei, and tells Joe to fight the strongest man in the world with no regrets. She perfectly understands him in this moment.

Some people say he was a tragic hero totally untouched by the women in his life, but that's not true. Joe talks a lot about how Yoko doesn't belong in a world of men like boxing, but in the end, he symbolically takes that back and invites her into his world by giving her his boxing gloves. It's interesting that usually by the end of his matches, Joe comes to an understanding with his opponents, but here at the end of this match, he comes to an understanding with Yoko, who he's had such a difficult time with and who he's always been in conflict with. That conflict has been resolved.

This is reflected in the original drafted ending of the series, where they appear to be a couple (?) and he is staying in her house. And even though that ending was scrapped in favor of the ambiguous white ash ending, here's what Tetsuya Chiba had to say years later after the manga was over.

"Since the title has 'tomorrow' in it, I think Joe is not dead, and he will be walking towards the sun with Yoko Shiraki tomorrow. "