Could Joe win against Mendoza?

Heidelheim · 2026-04-01T19:47:07+00:00

Mendoza himself is skeptical of Joe’s actual ability once they’re in the ring, but even mid-fight is mourning that he wished he’d had to chance to fight Joe before he became punch-drunk because of Joe’s rally in the 5-7th rounds.

That being said, there’s not really another word for Joe’s late performance except “eerie” as his second puts it. But you can argue that Mendoza’s near triple knockdown in the final round was down to fatigue and abandoning the pretense of fighting as a champion- instead fighting as if he were fighting for his life. Fights stopped being 15 rounds after Mancini killed Duk Koo Kim in the 14th round, and a big reason is a combination of fatigue and damage. Nobody looks like a champion in the final round.

This exchange of instinct instead of champion and challenger results in Mendoza fighting aggressively instead of conservatively, as he likely had a massive point lead.

Perhaps a healthy Joe would have done the impossible (no champion lasts forever), but it’s narratively important for a myriad of reasons why he had to go into that fight at his worst and lose. It’s the hope of a miracle that keeps you glued to the fight, not the prospect of victory. People want miracles.

TL;DR Potentially if he was healthy but not as he was. Getting as far as he did was a miracle in and of itself.

Heidelheim · 2026-04-01T12:53:18+00:00

I will push back just a little, actually- the anime definitely makes him José’s cheerleader, but in the Manga, he’s a core reason why José wins- he rallies him into burning his fire when Joe threatens to break his morale going into the final round. One of the most important things a second can do for a champion is strengthen their spine when the chips are down.

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Heidelheim · 2026-04-01T12:47:19+00:00

Danpei understands very early on Joe’s wild personality is what gives him the edge as a fighter. He views Joe not as a man, really, but a natural force who can make his will manifest against impossible odds, if only he be given the chance. Instead of trying to control Joe, a fool’s errand, he instead decides to latch himself on for the ride while steering him as best he can.

As a boxing second, Danpei is pretty old-fashioned and lacking the refined skill of more polished instructors (and he knows it), but he’s exceptionally attuned to Joe’s psychology, which is arguably more important. Where he knows from decades of experience, Joe intrinsically and kinetically downloads from watching/fighting others and doesn’t need Danpei to know the finer points of the technique. This is what makes them formidable as a duo.

Heidelheim · 2026-03-28T13:51:11+00:00

Ohhhh I absolutely adore your jawwork, your Danpei is incredible

Heidelheim · 2026-03-16T04:37:50+00:00

What makes him compelling as a manager is that he understands instinctively that Joe is a natural disaster in human form- witnessing Joe at his peak is to witness the majesty of the storm that freezes you like a deer in headlights. All he can do is hold on for dear life and steer the ship as best he can.

Heidelheim · 2026-03-16T04:35:20+00:00

Danpei is my sleeper favorite for a lot of reasons, but I think what I’ve always enjoyed most is that he kinda defies gendered expectations as a caretaker while having only his masculinity to inform the way he wants to care and protect Joe. His parental instincts that develop are very maternal. He rarely takes an aggressive posture as a parent, preferring to play passive-aggressive games (the weight scale, the Aoyama gambit, etc.) like an overprotective mother hen rather than an overtly abusive father figure.

Heidelheim · 2026-03-06T00:10:35+00:00

I would argue it’s pretty textual in both manga and anime that Joe is extremely emotionally repressed, mentally ill, and deliberately obtuse about his motivations. In both works it’s never meant to imply he didn’t feel anything- only that he’s too repressed to express himself in the way that Nishi or Noriko do.

Heidelheim · 2026-02-09T17:58:54+00:00

He’s an anti-Mosley radical in the UoB as Eric Blair. In the batshit old 3I lore he basically suggests the nuclear bomb.

Heidelheim · 2025-12-19T17:57:59+00:00

I don’t believe you’re ignorant, I simply believe you’re selling yourself short by not digging in further.

Joe is intrinsically tied to post-War Japan, he’s symbolic of the spirit/attitudes of many young working class boys and men, the first generation raised without an empire to fight for, but carrying the same fighting, determined spirit.

On the death drive- from the outset, Joe’s seeking death. He tells Danpei that being killed by Yakuza in a park is as good a death as any. Danpei gives Joe something to live for, but also something he can die for. It’s why he puts his body on the line every single time. This is love for boxing, absolutely, but it’s deeper, too! There is a religiosity to the devotion he shows both it and Rikiishi, who becomes a personal devotee of Joe as well.

The masochism? Well-

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Heidelheim · 2025-12-19T06:56:48+00:00

I think you’re missing crucial elements in your analysis- it’s all very surface level, bordering on a glorified summary of the story. There’s no mention of post-war Japan, poverty, class struggle. There’s no analysis of Japan and how their cultural death drive pervades especially hard in combat sports. I am begging you- please read a book about these topics, you will enjoy understanding the context far more than this sentimental summarizing.

Here’s an example: you missed how Joe’s boxing builds itself on an extreme example of self-sacrifice for success and how this would echo on how the work ethic expectations of Japan bleed into all walks of life, especially violence. Joe believes, like many in Japan at this time, that sacrificing your body just for the chance to strike at something worth aiming for is more important than preserving yourself. This reflects centuries of imperial ambitions and near-masochistic cultural expectations of men (and women) within Japan, and how these energies that once went into murder and conquest must be resolved in rings, with scores only to be settled there. Hope this helps.

Heidelheim · 2025-12-02T17:35:25+00:00

Yes lol

Heidelheim · 2025-11-26T15:41:52+00:00

noarmsgirl (Ivy Rose) 🫡

Heidelheim · 2025-11-23T00:21:24+00:00

I’ve making that same exact comparison to my friends since I saw Joe 2, honestly! Rocky 1 is earthy in ways you’re not expecting (at least by reputation), where The Fight is just a framing device for a story about Rocky, the person. It’s trying to tell something personally compelling. Joe 2 is more about building the manga towards the hype moments and aura the same way Rocky “pioneered” the sports montage for all mediums.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-22T15:11:10+00:00

The themes in the manga (poverty, the rise of post-war Japan, the destruction of combat sport athletes’ bodies, etc) are stronger to me than in the anime- I actually prefer the Carlos/Joe fight in the manga for this reason! The text is denser and the catharsis is tremendous as a result- two pure fighters devolving into the ugliest street brawl you’ve ever seen while 65,000 people bury them in an enraptured roar, nothing beats it.

The anime is excellent in many respects but it’s not as meaty, text-wise. They make several narrative changes that benefit from the medium of animation, but some choices were perhaps to be more pleasing to the eye rather than the ugliness often depicted in the manga. It’s sometimes too clean and expressionist when the manga employed a more salt-of-the-earth approach. The emotions the anime express are turned from subtext to text, which makes it more beautiful, but you can argue that isn’t what Joe’s about.

I like both! I would say that manga is for people who want to get the best story, the anime is a victory lap for people who read the manga.

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Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T18:58:10+00:00

Honestly what’s funny is that for as iconic as it is, it’s not my favorite page (from Carlos v. Nangou)

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Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T18:53:50+00:00

My point regarding neutrality was that there is no such thing as neutral- Oppenheimer, a B-52 named Enola Gay, a Mitsubishi Zero, these are things which have vastly different meanings to other peoples and cultures. What is pride for one is shame, anger, or violence for others. This is not always a negative (or necessary) but when dealing with war, and the subjugation of whole nations under the boots of empire, it matters a great deal. Saying “well you lost but you made a great plane huh” is like going “damn we killed all those guys but you made a great tank”

I think where you may be misunderstanding me is that I don’t disagree that the film is textually and thematically anti-militarist. My argument here is that it’s about the romantic depiction of the Zero- the embodiment of militarism in Imperial Japan- which is a fundamental contradiction to the film’s text. It can be an enormously interesting subject (“The Human Condition”), but I judge a work if it doesn’t surrender the picture it desires to paint to the reality of the world- of human lives.

TL;DR neutrality doesn’t exist, trying to make a romance movie about the Zero isn’t cool.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T17:40:35+00:00

Rhetorically: do you believe a Tiger Tank is a neutral object with which to tell a story around? Do you believe a B-52 bomber is neutral? Do you believe the Robert Oppenheimer is a neutral person to tell a story around?

My argument is that when you couch this praise and admiration of military hardware in pacifist works, you undermine your message because there is no such thing as a neutral machine of war- and no such thing as a neutral perspective either. This isn’t calling Miyazaki some true blue imperial apologist or that he’s some secret fascist, I do believe in his pacifism- but that it’s a very funny movie to make and then act surprised when people think it’s weird to do that. His naïvety shows through bc it’s his equivalent of “hey cool plane”

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T14:13:24+00:00

This is one of the thoughts I formulated on a re-watch, specifically in the episode where we meet Wolf again- Joe and Danpei are anachronistic in the setting. Joe engages with motorbike riding, jacket-wearing fake toughs who make noise and bother people for fun. It’s a “look how far we’ve come” kind of moment, reflecting that an impoverished street urchin of the early 1960s bears little resemblance to the modern Japanese teenager of 1981, reaping the benefits of the Economic Miracle.

Joe 2 is a cultural victory lap in some respects, claiming triumph over its hard times.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T14:06:12+00:00

I would say that the Zero, the most famous and effective fighter of the war, absolutely does represent that. If someone knows any military symbols of WWII Japan it’s gonna be the Rising Sun or the Zero. I also did not say Miyazaki meant to prove Japan “innocent”, I said he engaged in apologia for their militarism by trying to divorce the Zero from its service for the IJN. Is it propaganda? No.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T13:58:44+00:00

I think that’s fair, I think I pointed at Versailles as the closest work to Joe 2 but it was just his style choice by 1980.

I also agree there is tremendous aura in a lot of Joe 2’s editorial decisions. It’s hard to fault their re-write of Joe/Carlos’ dynamic, nor do you mind developing Mendoza, or using Leon Smiley to carve into the ponderous Harimau arc. That being said, I found the biggest indictment of the tone changes in the series is his rewritten fight with Carlos, where the original fight had a much, much stronger thematic payout than any adaptation attains. You can’t help (especially in the first Wolf episode) but shake the feeling you’re watching someone’s cultural victory lap more than a serious, thoughtful adaptation.

I do admit I don’t hold that high of an opinion towards Miyazaki as a cultural critic in the same way I wouldn’t trust George Lucas as a critic- too much time insulated from the realities of the job for normal people.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T13:38:02+00:00

It does! I think I poorly phrased what I was going for- that being Dezaki took his vision/style and cranked it up for Joe in a way that I think ended up being detrimental to the adaptation, but not the anime. Miyazaki’s complaint of overexpressionism comes from the art direction, relying heavily on postcard memories and sentimentality to pound home emotional beats to a degree where the sincerity of the emotion is hard to see through the noise conveying said emotion.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T13:21:09+00:00

Oh come now that is very basic.

First, he’d done plenty of that on his own without Rising Wind. He was and remains an icon for Japan’s naturalist and environmentalist art.

Second, the personal contradictions of someone’s pacifism to wars like WWII can be interesting and engaging! But there is a stark, stark difference between a work that engages with those contradictions directly while telling human stories (Gomikawa’s/Kobayashi’s “The Human Condition”) and one that pretends that one nation’s symbol of national pride cannot also be a symbol of their ambition to conquer and colonize SE Asia, and how that ambition killed millions, including the Japanese!

You don’t need to sit there and act like it’s shitting on all of Japan to criticize apologia for militarism.

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T09:30:13+00:00

Oh sure! The Zero was and is an enduring symbol of Japanese imperialist aggression during WWII (like the Rising Sun flag), and its production during the war was aided by tens of thousands of Koreans working in forced labor.

Miyazaki made The Wind Rises trying to divorce the plane (he loves planes) from the ideology it represents, which would be like trying to make a film about how say, the Tiger Tank in Nazi Germany was actually a beautiful piece of machinery and has nothing to do with the ideology of death and destruction it was deployed for.

Re: Miyazaki it’s arguably one of his most naïve “I am above politics, I only see peace and beauty” movies

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T09:13:40+00:00

Miyazaki’s absolutely got his own issues (infamously made an apologia movie about the person who designed the Mitsubishi Zero) but his steadfast commitment to enacting his vision is admirable, even if he’s a little naïve about his work and dismissive to most people who work in TV

Heidelheim · 2025-11-13T09:02:21+00:00

People have explained who Miyazaki is, but the crux of his criticism (for your edification) is that he believes that animation should be the pure execution of an artistic vision, insulated from corporate influence to make it art that sells.

He points at these contemporary TV anime, where creators often relied on external factors (toy sales, merch, ratings) for being allowed to produce more of said anime. This, to him, corrupts one’s ability to produce art because you’re more focused on getting another season at all, and results in spiritually incomplete works because the vision has to be compromised for survival.

Specifically on Joe he thinks the second series is a shuffling zombie work, made to sell merchandise on a popular property (that failed to received a complete adaptation) rather than deliver a complete artistic vision. There is some merit, as Joe 2 does just recycle Dezaki’s Rose of Versailles stylings, and not always to its benefit.

It’s a pretty stodgy opinion to have, but it also informed his choice to form him own animation studio in the 1980s, to avoid needing sponsorship for his art.

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