I came into this manga because many people bring it up when discussing Hajime No Ippo, but after trying to read it, I'm just so disappointed in the series, that I wonder why the comparisons are made.
There's two big problems I have with Ashita no Joe that have made it impossible to go on.
The first is the art style, it feels like it's a comic strip style that was popular in America in the 1960s and 1970s, I often thought of the comic script Nancy for some reason. When I think of Manga I usually think of a refined art style that feels impressive, and Ashita no Joe is absolutely not in that style. It's a cheap exaggerated art style that works great when watching a cartoon like Popeye, but in a manga it just doesn't feel like the quality bar has been hit.
The thing is after reading 300 pages of this art, I just realized I was absolutely not enjoying it. But that would be ok except for the other problem.
The second issue is that Joe is not likable. About half way through the first volume I thought "ok, I start to see Joe turning around." and then he just goes back to doing "Bad things"... Actually let me take a moment, because that's a third problem.
The writing in the version of the manga I read was laughably bad. Multiple police officers accused Joe of doing "bad things". Not crimes, not specific acts, just generic "bad things". The juvenile writing really drags down what could be an interesting story. And the thing is there's numerous points where the writing just seems to lack the emotion. Again, this could be a translation error but I wonder if this was written for a more childish audience.
Which brings us back to the problem with Joe. It's not that Joe couldn't be a good character, or can't become a great character, but with the exaggerated art style, and a character who it's hard to root for, I'm not sure if I wanted to continue, actually I wasn't sure at the end of the first Volume, after half of the second, I decided I was over the story and character. Joe was just not likable enough to continue but worse, he had every negative trait to make people hate him. While that's part of the point of being a scarred child who grew up in rough times, I decided to give up on Joe, where as his eventual coach clearly didn't want to.
Perhaps I was expecting something that the manga is not. I wanted a manga about boxing. I've heard people call this a "Character study" but the thing is... Joe as a character was poorly written, the story did itself no favors, but the art style really didn't make me interested in the study as well.
I know this is a very highly rated manga, but for the life of me I'm not sure why. And the thing is at this point, I'm not sure I'm interested enough to find out.
Ps. I know this is currently the only negative review of 21 reviews for this. If you are upset by this, I recommend leaving your own positive review, or leaving a reaction. However commenting on my profile because you disagree is unnecessary, because ultimately this is written as a personal log of my opinion on the manga, not a discussion that needs to be had where you have to change someone else's opinion or review. A review is a PERSONAL OPINION and as such people's PERSONAL OPINION'S likely differ from your PERSONAL OPINION.
I'm sorry, people have sent me despicable responses, harassed me off the site because they disagree, and resorted to name calling, so I feel like I MUST point out that this is unacceptable behavior. If you have a different PERSONAL OPINION than me, tell other people. I honestly have never cared what your opinion of my opinion is.
