So I've previously talked at length about Ashita no Joe and have been asked to weigh in on this thread by Lunge. I've gone over all the points above and here's what I think.
AP and Speed: I've mentioned this before to Lunge, but I still believe that Harimau should be pixel-scaled to confirm the distance he's spinning. Half his height was used as a base diameter, but I don't agree with that, as that's assuming Harimau's torso + head are equal in length to his legs, which I don't believe is true, and he's very scrunched up while spinning; his back isn't straight when he does it, so some height is lost. As moment of inertia takes in total height, that calc isn't affected by scrunching, so the AP is fine. However, I still think the speed calc should be redone.
Acrobatics: I don't agree with this. Joe doesn't "outjump" Harimau, he jumps straight up to not be in Harimau's path and punches straight down. He does this tactic exactly once in the fight and the manga as a whole. You could argue that he could have sidestepped and punched then, but what hurts more, hitting someone who's spinning from the side or stopping their rotation very suddenly with a punch to the face? That's more of a testament to his boxing instincts than his acrobatic ability. Did he jump close to six feet in the air? Yes. Has he shown similar physical capabilities earlier in the manga like when he scales wall and hops fences? Yes. Do I think that qualifies him to get an acrobatics tag? No.
Intelligence: I'd settle for "Highly Gifted" when it comes to boxing. While the points Lunge made above are true, there's two points I'd like to go over:
1. While Joe has shown the ability to learn techniques quickly, he ultimately tosses it all aside with his usual strategy of "run in and keep swinging until the opponent falls" and frequently struggles against opponents that are very technical or equal in skill to him. I go over this point in more detail in my Joe vs Ippo Removal essay (
here), so I'll summarize my points really quickly:
-When fighting Carlos, his definite equal at that point in the manga, neither fighter could knock the other out and the fight devolved into a street brawl that ended in a draw.
-When fighting highly technical Kim Yong-Bi, Joe tried blitzing and ultimately got his ass kicked. Joe only got his hits in after his speech about Rikishi and got a knockout opportunity after a cut on his forehead triggered Kim's PTSD from the Korean War and rendered him a screaming mess. If Kim didn't have such an affliction, this wouldn't have happened and Joe would have likely lost.
-Jose dominated the final fight of the manga and Joe only got as far as he did due to luck early on and his massive pool of stamina. Otherwise, the rest of the fight proved that Joe couldn't hold a candle to Jose when it came to skill.
2. Lunge's wording about the konnyaku, aka "no guard," techniques, as well as the wording of the manga, implies something that isn't true. Yes, Joe did learn his no-guard techniques by watching that kid. However, that was back in the prison and he hadn't used those abilities for most of his professional career. Joe is nearly dead at that point in the fight and his brain has been rattled like a maraca at that point, hence why he's going off instinct and bringing out his first-learned techniques. This is supported by him using counters again, something he hadn't used since his fight with Carlos. Did he still copy those techniques through sight? Yes. Did he do so by going "Oh yeah, I remember that kid doing some leaning stuff six years ago in the prison, I'm going to try that now for the first time."? No.
Also, Joe copying the corkscrew punch from Jose was an unconscious action, since he did it twice in the final round, when Joe was barely conscious, and they weren't nearly as effective as Jose's.
Finally, Joe didn't come up with the no-guard technique by himself. The evidence page Lunge uses is misleading, mainly due to the translation. As I mentioned previously, Joe copied his no guard style from Aoyama in the prison and began using them himself. The page Lunge highlights is Joe going "hey, a really good way to dodge uppercuts is to lean way back. It works best with no-guard, as a traditional guard tightens up my muscles and lowers flexibility." Danpei also was the one to teach Aoyama the no-guard dodges and footwork, as Joe wasn't willing to learn traditionally and that was the roundabout way he was going to teach Joe. Also, if Joe's no-guard was such a genius move, as stated by Danpei in the panel (which was more a reference to Joe figuring out the details of the leaning move by himself, but that's beside the point), why did Joe stop using it and start relying on traditional footwork for most of his professional career?
So in conclusion, I think Joe is a very gifted boxer, but he is far from a genius
