Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The first anime adaptation had a Big Lipped Alligator Character created specifically for the anime (as in, he didn't appear in the manga): the eccentric old man who acted as the doctor of Tange Gym for a few episodes before the writers removed him from the plot entirely without any explanation of what happened to him. He is never mentioned again after that.
Fridge Brilliance: Nishi's abrupt personality change wasn't because of characterization marching on; it was because the juvenile prison scared him straight. Considering how juvie can be, it's perfectly understandable.
Fridge Logic: The interpretation that Danpei found Joe dead in the last scene is fallacious as corpses do not have the strength to hold themselves up like how Joe does. However, it's possible Joe died after the events of the main story. (Also, Died Standing Up is a common trope, even if it isn't realistic.)
Harsher in Hindsight: The scenario of Joe possibly dying due fighting a full 15-rounds match against the world champion while weakened from the diet to make weight would happen in real life in 1982, when Kim Duk-koo challenged the lightweight world champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini and died in part due his struggle to make weight weakening him for the fight.
He's Just Hiding: Believe it or not, but when the manga had been completed, Joe's fate was actually hotly contested as the readers didn't know whether he was alive or if he had died. It even took Asao Takamori to confirm Joe's death at the end of the issue. Until Tetsuya Chiba debunked whatever Takamori said, saying that the ending was meant to be ambiguous.
Ho Yay: Joe and Carlos. Joe at one point tells Carlos that he "fell for him all over again".
If you don't know by now, Rikiishi dies from injuries sustained from his match against Joe.
Yoko and Joe were in love with each other.
Joe dies.
Jerkass Woobie: Yongbi. On one hand he was a survivor of the horrifying Korean War at quite the young age, saw his mother die in front of his very eyes, and later killed his father due to a terrible mistake. But on the other hand, his sordid past clearly gives him a sense of entitlement; it makes him feel that he's better than anyone else in the sport, looks down on boxing as just a game that shouldn't be treated with any passion just because there are rules in the sport, and looks down on Joe especially for struggling with his weight, just because nobody else he knows had to go through what he did. Not a good way to win sympathy points.
Joe himself becomes this during the prison arc when it looks like Danpei has given up on him for Aoyama. He's pretty much all alone and surrounded by people who really want to see him get hurt at that point. Of course, it gets better when it turns out to have been a Secret Test of Character. Hell, Joe in general can be this before he (mostly) drops the Jerkass part; at the end of the day he's still a runaway orphan with trust issues and who, until meeting Danpei and his True Companions, had never really experienced any real kindness.
If another series parodies Ashita no Joe, the part they will reference is most likely the Cross Counter move or the final page.
I remember Joe. Explanation It has become a thing for English-speaking fans to write lyrics of "Joe Forever" (the ending credits song of the movie version of Ashita no Joe 2) in the comments of Ashita no Joe-related YouTube videos, to show that Joe Yabuki will remain in their hearts despite being implied to have died at the end of the film.
Moral Event Horizon: After Joe humiliates Wolf in the locker room brawl, Wolf retaliates by beating up the neighbourhood children that Joe hung out with. Yeah, while Joe was a terrible Jerkass to him, it's not like the kids had a lot to do with that.
Parody Displacement: Very few western anime fans have ever seen the original series. But the show has been parodied for so long, and by so many creators, if you've watched a lot of anime, you've seen Joe.
The Problem with Licensed Games: Legend of Success Joe. It's so bad it's been considered to be one of the worst games for the Neo Geo.
The Scrappy: Harimau has been called a racist character and some feel that the stunts he pulls in the ring are outside the boundaries of the series' rules of realism (backflipping, walking on the ropes at the end of the ring, etc). It doesn't help that he communicates mostly with sounds.
Signature Scene: In Japan, this series is an all-time classic. In the West, it's known primarily for the often-homaged scene where Joe dies at the end.
Values Dissonance: The first anime often had Noriko's parents bickering, which is fair. It gets worse when they get violent with each other at one point - and this is Played for Laughs.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Tomorrow's Joe has been loosely associated with late 1960s Japan's left-wing movements, thanks to manga's rising popularity amongst the youth — a popular Zengakuren slogan was "(Asahi) Journal in the right hand, (Weekly Shōnen) Magazine in the left hand"note 右手にジャーナル、左手にマガジン / "Migite ni Jānaru, hidarite ni Magajin" (or "Journal in the hand, Magazine in the heart"note 手にはジャーナル、心はマガジン / "Te ni wa Jānaru, kokoro wa Magajin"), reflecting the teenagers' reading trendsnote Other non-JoeShōnen Magazine hits of the era include GeGeGe no Kitarō, Tensai Bakabon, the author's own Kyojin no Hoshi, or Takao Saito's Muyonosuke. Yet another variation of the slogan substitutes Magazine for Heibon Punch. Perhaps the most notorious reference was in the Yodogo Hijacking Incident, where the Communist hijackers' initial statement ended with "We are Tomorrow's Joes", probably reflecting themeselves with the main protagonist's daily struggles.
On the other side of the political spectrum, notorious far-right writer Yukio Mishima was also an avid fan of the manga. A popular anecdote is that he once went directly to the Shūkan Shōnen Magazine office at night to buy an issue that came out the same day, since scheduling issues prevented him from buying it during daytime.
Woolseyism: While it had a few adaptation problems, the Italian dub of the anime had two instances of this trope:
In both the manga and the Japanese version of the anime, Mendoza and his staff often spoke in English. In the Italian dub, all their English phrases were translated in the Spanish expected from a Mexican man.
In the original, the gloves Mendoza had custom-ordered in Mexico specifically for the match so they would have less padding were of the Winning brand, a Japanese brand with the reputation of making the best boxing gloves in the world. The Italian dub altered the visuals to make them made by Cleto Reyes, a Mexican brand that is also well known for making every single glove by hand and with less padding than others-precisely the ones who a Mexican champion would custom order boxing gloves to.
challenged the lightweight world champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini