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Ashita no Joe (English title: Tomorrow's Joe) is a critically acclaimed boxing manga created by Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba in 1968 that was later adapted into an anime series and movie. While stupidly popular in its home country, it's almost completely unknown outside of it. Outside Japan it is also referred to as Rocky Joe or Joe. Masami Kurumada, author of Saint Seiya, has also stated that he actually created his first famous manga (Ring Ni Kakero) as a tribute to this one; additionally, Joe was also a direct inspiration behind Kyo Kusanagi of The King of Fighters, and the anime TV series Megalo Box was created as an homage to it in its 50th anniversary.
Joe Yabuki is a troubled orphan who runs away from the orphanage, wandering the slums of Tokyo until he meets up with former boxing trainer Danpei Tange, who teaches Joe how to box while the latter is in prison. While in prison, Joe develops rivalries and friendships with the other inmates (and these two groups often overlap) while developing his skills at boxing and trying to become the best in the world.
Ashita no Joe has been made into several video games, including a Punch-Out!!-like arcade game by Taito, the infamous Neo Geo game Legend of Success Joe, Ashita no Joe: Masseki ni Moe Agare! for the Game Boy Advance, and Sunday VS Magazine Shuuketsu Choujou Daikessen for PSP. There are also two live-aciton movies, one from 1970 (with Shouji Ishibashi as Joe, , Ryutarou Tatsumi as Danpei Tange and Seiichirou Kameishi as Joe's biggest rival Tooru Rikiishi) and one from 2011 (with Tomohisa "Yamapi" Yamashita as Joe, Teruyuki Kagawa as Danpei and Yuusuke Iseya as Rikiishi)
- The Alcoholic: Danpei at first. He gets better.
- All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game": Joe dies at the end.
- Badass: Joe, Rikishi
- Badass Grandpa: Danpei of course.
- Badass Spaniard: Carlos Rivera.
- Book Dumb: Joe, which comes back to bite him big time when it turns out there's a theory portion of the boxing license exam
- Byronic Hero: Joe Yabuki goes through many hardships... and he brings almost all of them on himself.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Joe can't tell Youko that he likes her due to being Not Good with People, to the degree that the day when he finally confesses... is the day when he dies.
- Casualty in the Ring: Two characters die this way. One of them is happy about it.
- Character Development: Nishi goes from a Jerkass leader of a group of delinquents to a Gentle Giant.
- Cross Counter: Trope Maker. It's also Joe's specialty.
- Downer Ending
- Eyepatch of Power: Danpei.
- Famous Last Words: Joe Yabuki's are: "Take these gloves and keep them for me... I hope you'll keep them for me...", and they go to Youko Shiraki. Some dubs (like the Italian one) take it further to a Dying Declaration of Love.
- Game-Breaking Injury: Joe's triple cross-counter fractures Wolf's jaw so badly that he has to retire.
- Gentle Giant: Nishi post Character Development.
- Go Out with a Smile: Joe has a gentle smile on his lips as he passes away after his last fight.
- The Hero Dies
- Heroic BSOD: Joe, after accidentally causing Rikishi's death in their fight.
- Heroic RROD: Joe's death at the end is from the exhaustion of his last match.
- Similarly, Rikishi's death is from the brain damage that Joe accidentally dealt to him with a too-well-placed cross counter in the sixth round, which kicks in right after the fight is over.
- Hot-Blooded: Joe Yabuki
- Japanese Delinquents: Joe, Nishi and Rikishi. In fact, all of them met in a juvenile prison.
- Japanese Pronouns: Joe was the first shounen hero to use the manly and aggressive ore pronoun, rather than the boyish and "non-threatening" boku. Ater him, shounen main dudes started to use ore too.
- Jerkass: Joe, through and through. His Jerkass tendencies rise to the point where you have to wonder why Nishi continues to put up with him. After the Juvenile prison arc, he is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Nishi himself used to be quite the asshole.
- The Lancer: Nishi becomes this to Joe after his Character Development.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: Rikiishi has this.
- Late Arrival Spoiler: A really infamous one at that, it seems no other medium can make a Shout-Out to this series without choosing the greatest spoiler moment it has, Joe dying in the match of his life, smiling on the corner of the ring.
- Locked Into Strangeness: Jose's hair turns gray once he beats Joe in the finale.
- Moral Guardians: They claimed that the manga was "teaching young children to be rebellious and anti-social towards Japanese family values" back when it first came out. They soon changed their mind, however.
- Not only in Japan, actually. When the anime was aired in Spain in The Eighties, people complained about exactly the same thing.
- My Greatest Failure: Danpei Tange became a drunkard after the boxer who he spent years training for the championship threw the fight for money.
- Nice Hat: Joe's newsboy cap, and Danpei's fedora.
- The Obi-Wan: Danpei.
- The Ojou: Joe's love interest, Youko Shiraki, is a girl from a rich family. Lampshaded by Danpei, who refers to her as "ojousan" ("young lady") rather than by name.
- Peek-a-Bangs: Joe's hair always cover one eye.
- The Rival: Rikiishi, for the majority of the series.
- Privileged Rival: Unlike Joe, he already had experience in professional boxing before they met and has the financial support of the Shiraki family.
- Say My Name: The original one. "JOE!!!"
- Self-Made Orphan: Asian-Pacific Champion Kim Yongbi, when he was a kid in The Korean War. once beat a man to death over a misunderstanding. He then realized that said man was his father. The incident scarred him so much that he was left with a phobia of blood.
- Title Drop: Multiple times in the anime.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Kim Yongbi, due to having accidentally killed his dad, is very scared of blood.
- Worthy Opponent: Rikiishi and Joe seem to see each other as this.