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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.