Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow Omnibus 1 Review
There are many classic manga that have taken a long time to get an English-language release. One of them is this: arguably the most influential sports manga ever written. Long before today’s modern audiences got into sports series because of the cute guys in them, accompanied by a wave of fan fiction that’s too rude to go into right now, there was this 1960s manga about a young drifter-turned-boxer. A series which only came out in English at the very end of last year.
Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe) begins with 15-year-old Joe Yabuki, a drifter wandering the slums of Tokyo, who gets into a fight with a one-eyed drunk named Danpei Tange. Joe easily beats him and tries to leave, but Tange follows him, believing Joe to have what it takes to be a great boxer. He even goes as far as to protect Joe from a local gang who try to attack him with knives. However, thanks to the numerous people Joe beats up, both of them land up in a police cell. There, Tange tells Joe about his own boxing career, which ended when his eye got “busted” in a fight, and how his attempt to run his own boxing gym failed.
Eventually, Joe starts taking boxing lessons from Tange, with Tange working nights in order to feed the pair of them. Joe however, forms his own gang with the local kids and they commit a wide string of crimes, from criminal damage to blackmail. Eventually the police arrest him, but while he is inside, Tange sends him a postcard detailing boxing lessons: “For tomorrow”. Joe is eventually sentenced to a minimum of 13 months in juvie. While inside, he continues to get postcard lessons from Tange, but he falls foul of another inmate named Toru Rikiishi, who also boxed before he ended up inside. The two’s dislike of each other ultimately leads to them vowing to have a proper boxing match, in which the much bigger Rikiishi says he will win within the first minute.
It is hard to review such a manga that has this monumental reputation in Japan. Ashita no Joe is a series which was loved back then and is still loved today. This is partly because of its central protagonist, and in particular his background. At a time when people like Osamu Tezuka were at the height of their powers, with his most famous work Astro Boy ending just as Ashita no Joe began in 1968. Compared to the famous superhero boy robot, Joe is a much more grounded, relatable character. Meanwhile, when you compare him to more modern sports anime and manga, he is also a character whose background is more tragic. As great as series like Yuri on Ice, Free! or Kuroko’s Basketball are, the central figures in these stories get way more support from their seniors than Joe ever does. Most of those characters come from loving families; Joe is an orphan, wandering around slums, and the closest he comes to having someone to protect him is Tange, the coach who trains him. Can you imagine any of the modern leads in sports anime going to prison?
One of things mentioned in the manga’s blurb, and indeed when you read up about Ashita no Joe elsewhere, is how the series became popular with certain kinds of audiences. In particular, the working class and left-wing college students, who connected with Joe: a young man struggling against the system, fighting against those who want to put him in his place. Who would not want to be on the side of a lad who has to struggle through life against what seem like an unjust world?
Released by Kodansha as a Vertical title, the company has gone out of its way to make Ashita no Joe a desirable series to buy. Released in hardback with a specially made cover designed by Matt Akuginow, and opening with some colour pages, the book is wonderfully put together. While there are no translation notes, small side notes are written in between frames. The fact that this hardback is a larger size than a standard tankobon means these notes are easier to read than they would be in a normal book. Edited by Daniel Joseph, with translation by Asa Yoneda and lettering from Evan Hayden, the book is a stunning read. I, for one, read the entire book in a single go. Some readers might struggle however, as the book itself appears not to be divided into chapters. The only break that comes in this collection occurs about halfway through when Joe is incarcerated.
However, to me these issues are minor. It is easy to see why this manga became so popular back in the day, and hopefully these new books will give it a new international audience. As far as I can tell, the only real downside is the price. If you want to get the hardback it is over £40, with Amazon selling a Kindle version for £10.99. Let’s hope this doesn’t put too many people off what is a great series.
Our review copy from Kodansha (Vertical Books) was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
