Takagi: Masculine manga, eh? For example, what? What's your favorite manga?
Mashiro: Ashita No Joe!
Takagi: That's old...
Mashiro: Ashita No Joe!
Takagi: That's old...
Being a pretty influential anime and manga, Tomorrow's Joe has been referenced many times throughout fiction, especially in its homeland. Expect a lot of references to the Cross Counter or the last scene.
Expect spoilers, not only for Tomorrow's Joe, but other series as well.
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: In episode 3 of the anime, Hakari kisses a tired Rentarou in the cheek to "give him some energy". A happy Rentarou hugs her back, and then she recreates the iconic Joe's deathpose with a satisfied smile, complete with boxing bell sounds.
- Berserk: Puck does an impression of Danpei while egging on Isidro and Mule's fistfight.
- The preview for Dimension 8 of Cardfight!! Vanguard (V Series) reprises the scene in Dimension 7 where Ibuki keeps hearing Greion's voice in his head and turns it into a parody of the Christmas episode of Tomorrow's Joe, with Greion speaking in Gratuitous English and calling Ibuki "Joe Ibuki" to do a Carlos Rivera impression.
- An early episode of Digimon Tamers features an Imagine Spot of Guilmon and Calumon fighting in a boxing match. Not only the match ends up in the iconic cross punch, but Kazu is also shown wearing an eyepatch and doing a Dampei impression.
- Dragon Ball:
- During the Buu Saga, Goku and Majin Vegeta had that oft-referenced moment
◊. - And yet again◊ in Dragon Ball Super, during the fight between Goku and Goku Black.
- And again, but in a Generation Xerox version, during the tournament fight between Goku Jr vs. Vegeta Jr.
- During the Buu Saga, Goku and Majin Vegeta had that oft-referenced moment
- Fire Force: Episode 21 shows Captain Ōbi and Vulcan in a confrontation with Captain Giovanni. Vulcan unintentionally spoils Ōbi's plan to mock the other captain, leading to Ōbi recreating the last scene in disappointment.
- Food Wars!: When Soma Yukihira and Megumi Tadakoro meet Kanachi Konishi for the first time, he is shown pale and slumped on a chair in a recreation of the much-parodied Joe's pose.
- Gintama:
- On the episode 1-2 special of the first season, on the 22:31 mark Kagura starts jabbing and says "Cross Namida Bridge Carefully" while having Danpei's face.
- On episode 18, after Gintoki says "wow just thinking about it" on the 5:33 mark, he makes Joe's grin face while doing his "heh heh" laugh.
- On episode 19, at the 14:45 mark, Shimura starts acting like Rikiishi when he was trying to lose weight in order to fight Joe Yabuki in his weightclass. The water in the barrel is covered in wire like the water faucets in Rikiishi's training gym. Gintama then says "Why are you talking like a boxer who's begging for water but needs to make his weight?" which directly reference Rikiishi's weight loss.
- Great Teacher Onizuka:
- In an arc, while Murai and his friends are hanging from a tree in sleeping bags as human boxing bags, the man holding practice mitts for a boxer looks just like the coach Danpei Tange.
- In another arc, after Onizuka is manipulated into taking Urumi to Sea Gaia in Kyushu, he mimicks Joe's pose at the moment of his death, complete with a boxing ring.
- Hajime no Ippo:
- Loads of times, particularly the dual exchanges of fisticuffs between Makunouchi Ippo and the likes of Jason Ozuma, Ryuichi Hayami, Takeshi Sendo, or Iwao Shimabukuro as well as the cross-counter contest between Ichiro Miyata and cross-counter counter-specialist Arnie Gregory.
- Makunouchi Ippo's first fight with Takeshi Sendo ends with Sendo retiring on his stool a la Joe Yabuki's last stand against Jose Mendoza. Unlike Joe and his beatific smile that looked as though he were sleeping, Sendo went unconscious while still glaring at Ippo.
- Sendo is basically an Expy of Joe while Martinez is an Expy of Jose. There's also Wally, who borrows a lot of motifs and abilities from Harimau.
- Ippo's concussion doctor, Dr. Kiniski ( Dr.キニスキー ), is also a doctor that appeared in Ashita No Joe.
- Mamoru Takamura's tumultuous weight control experience is similar to Nishi Kanichi's weight control experience; Both are particularly large, naturally heavyweight men forced to cut down to middleweight, and as a result, they suffer greatly due to starving themselves to half-death in order to compete.
- Healin' Good♡Pretty Cure: Near the end of episode 18, Nyatoran experiences heartbreak and enters a pose similar to the ending. He's fine though.
- Hokuto no Ken: During episode 121 both Kenshiro and Falco, exhausted for the prolonged fight, simultaneously throw a last punch to decide the match. After showing each individual fist connecting to the other person's face, we see blood flying and then the "camera" moves to show a replica of the Joe/Rikishi original cross counter.It's not over: a manly faceoff ensues.
- Ino-Head Gargoyle: After Saejima's Heroic BSoD, he does the famous "slumped in a chair" pose.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: When Okuyasu, at Tonio's restaurant, eat the mozzarella and tomato appetizer he finds delicious, he compares the dish to a Simon & Garfunkel duet, a sketch of Ucchan and Nanchan (a Japanese comedy duo) and to Asao Takamori's original manga with the art direction of Tetsuya Chiba.
- The anime adaptation of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War had Ishigami doing Joe's pose while Kaguya was trying to get him to study for his exams.
- Kill la Kill:
- Episode 1: Ryuko's first scene where she walks across a bridge into town, gets harassed by neighborhood gangs, and beats them up thereby earning respect, is inspired by the first episodes of Tomorrow's Joe.
- Episode 24: The episode's title comes from Ichirō Araki's "Hateshinaki yami no kanata ni" , the ending theme of the second Tomorrow's Joe TV series.
- Komi Can't Communicate has a minor character with Joe's hairstyle named Ashitano Jou as one of Komi's classmates in the second year. She turns white and slumps over just like Joe's death after asking Komi for her number, and can be seen donning boxing gloves in Chapter 306 to defend Tadano from the angry mob out for his life.
- On episode 5 of Kyuu Shinka Full Dive RPG Ga Genjitsu Yorimo Kusoge Dattara: Ginji sits down on a chair after fighting Hiro and does Joe's death pose with the same blue hue.
- Megalo Box is a Spiritual Successor to Tomorrow's Joe and is as such crawling with references to the original, from several of the characters being outright expies of Joe's character gallery (for one, the nameless main character takes the name "Joe" when he decides to become a pro boxer under a fake name) to several of the scenes; the Cross Counter in particular shows up during Joe's match against Yuri (the expy of Riikichi) in the final episode. Unlike in the original, Joe wins his battle with Yuri, and furthermore neither of them die.
- Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!: During episode 7, "Blue Coral Reef", Nyarko makes a direct reference to Daitarn 3, then after Mahiro bluntly tells her he doesn't like her, she goes totally pale, then the following Eye Catch shows her slumped on a stool, mimicking the way Joe sits after his fight with Jose Mendoza at the end.
- One Pound Gospel, Rumiko Takahashi's boxing manga, features Joe's death pose... Done by a chef exhausted from working himself to the bone.
- RaButa: Fuyu parodies Joe's pose after she finishes making a bunch of maid outfits by hand.
- Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals: In episode 34-B, when Tenten and Neji think that Lee has finally been convinced by Tsunade to take a break from his training, there's an Imagine Spot of Lee in a boxing ring doing Joe's death pose, complete with the bluescale color palette.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:
- In the First Episode, Kamina and Simon's escape attempt riding the pig-moles is a direct parallel to Joe's attempted prison break using pigs from the prison's farm.
- In the third episode , Simon and Kamina in their newly-combined ganmen (Gurren-Lagann) rushes towards Viral's Enki. Viral throws a punch, and Kamina throws a punch along the same line. When both ganmen's fists hit each other's faces, Dayakka yells out (in Gratuitous English), "CUROSSU COUNTAH!" and the shot takes on the same yellow hue with dark shadows as the punch from the first anime adaptation.
- Kamina's death itself was visually inspired by the ending of the second anime adaptation, having the same pose, smile, and bluescale color palette.
- Any of the episodes of Urusei Yatsura dealing with boxing would undoubtedly make a reference to Tomorrow's Joe, such as episode 43 "Fear of Meow" in which even the animation style is reminiscent of the show.
- Particularly many of the fights between Ryuunosuke and her Father mirror fights that took place in Tomorrow's Joe (for example the famous cross-counter punch between Joe and Rikishi).
- In Chapter 20 of Yuugai Shitei Doukyuusei, after masturbating all night with her vibrator, Miyakonojou sits in the same pose as Joe at the end of Tomorrow's Joe, and says she'd become... Miyako no Joe.
Film
- Creed III does quite a number of anime and manga homages, including the famous Cross Counter exchange between two rivals that originated from Ashita no Joe.
Literature
- In Run with the Wind (both the novel and the anime adaptation), Prince compares Nico-chan's wired-up cigarette box (as part of his efforts to quit smoking) to Rikiishi refusing to drink water.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: When Kuroto dies from overworking himself attempting to recreate Hyper Muteki, he makes the same pose as the position on the final page of Tomorrow's Joe, complete with faded colors.
Video Games
- In The Battle Cats there is a cat named Welterweight Cat who, in his Normal Form and True Form, Ectoweight Cat, looks a lot like Joe Yabuki, mainly due to his hair (no, not its fur). His True Form even mentions that he had a near death experience while losing weight for the next bout.
Visual Novels
- In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Sakura Ogami is found in the famous dead slumped over Joe pose after poisoning herself.
