Ashita no Joe Pilots

The pilots of Ashita No Joe contain 2 episodes titled Rikiishi & Aoyama. Most of the animation in these pilots would later be used in the opening & closing songs, however there's also some animation used only in the pilots. The instrumental version of Joe's Lullaby is featured in these specials as well as the same soundtrack played in the anime series.

Rikkishi Special is around 11 minutes in content featuring a quick summary of Joe meeting Danpei & Rikiishi. Essentially, highlighting Joe's character & motivations to becoming a boxer. The style of this pilot seems akin to a trailer to the series as it's narrator foreshadows key events along with Joe having some in thought narratives towards his goal.

Aoyama Special might be the 1st animated material ever produced for Ashita No Joe as the voice actors & some character designs are different from the anime series. This one begins with a brief scene of Joe Vs Wolf then summarizing events of how Joe met Danpei & his current position in Juvy. The rest of the special highlights the key scenes of Joe Vs Aoyama. Again, this pilot has a narrator foretelling Joe's commitment to the sport & eventual fight with Rikiishi.

As for pilots go, these were pretty good as it captures the spirit of the series even though both combined only make 20 minutes in length. Not much else to say but after watching these pilots gets a person in the mood to start watching or rewatching the series.

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To start with the watch order, I recommend watching the Rikiishi pilot before the Aoyama pilot. It flows better that way and while both are standalone, if you're going to watch both, I think that's what's intended. As for quality, they're pretty good. I recommend them.

More words to be long enough to post even though this is all I have to say. Not sure why there's a minimum requirement, I'm really just posting this to inform people about the watch order. No BBCode either which sucks because I'd have wanted to bold the names of the pilots. Welp, hopefully that's enough.

Two ten-minute introductory episodes to the classic anime series, Ashita no Joe, or "Tomorrow's Joe". If you want to get a good feel of what the series is about, this is a good way to do it in just ten minutes - if after watching one of the shorts you are still interested, then it's worth watching the whole series. In modern-day anime parlance, this might be considered a "PV".

"Tomorrow's Joe" is about a young, wandering, scrappy kid, on his own in down-and-out Japan of the time (late Sixties). He's a street brawler without purpose, who catches the eye of a former washed up boxer named Danpei, who makes it his life's mission to turn Joe into a real boxer.

Joe can be considered an analogous stand-in for the whole country of Japan, which is still suffering from the long-term after effects of a generation of poverty and suffering. Yet through the relentless hard work in the face of excruciating hardship and adversity, he (and Japan) can one day emerge victorious! The classic underdog tale that fits the time and the difficulties Japan was facing.

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Two pilots for Ashita no Joe. They set up the main plot points and lead characters along with displaying a future boxing scene that really shows the theme of this show well. I got into this series from Megalo Box, and I can see why that show was so good. The foundation for it are found in Ashita no Joe, and it's great boxing narrative. I can also appreciate the apparent upgrade in quality from the pilots into the show, and the art holds up surprisingly well for today's standards. I also wonder if Joe inspired Jotaro from JoeJoe's, because they have the same weird hat hair thing.

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