SPOILERS FOR ASHITA NO JOE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Introduction:
Ashita no Joe is a story following the life of Joe Yabuki and his road to fame as a boxer. In the first major story arc, Joe finds himself in a juvenile center, and while there he meets a man named Rikishi Tooru. They were destined to be rivals and fight in a professional boxing match, which ended with the first major defeat in Joe's boxing career. While Joe may have lost the match, his new friend suffered a very different fate. After learning of the death of Rikishi, Joe feels majorly responsible for the outcome of the match, and goes on a long trail of regret and longing for his friend to come back. Joe Yabuki soon after returned to the boxing scene, but due to the tragic event with Rikishi, Joe no longer can hit people in the head, and the possibility of killing another man in the the ring mentally hurts Joe, however he is not the only man that has a tragic event that holds them back. Meet Kim Yong-Bi.
The Tragedy of Yong-Bi:
Kim, as a child, lived during the time of the Korean War in 1950. His father listed himself in the army, in the process he left his young son and wife to fend for themselves. It was not long until Kim's mother was killed as a result of the war. Unable to even give a proper mourning to his mother, he ran away to the mountains to find some way to calm his hunger. Upon finally finding food, a beaten up soldier grabs him and admits to embrace him. Kim struck the soldier several times with a rock that was near the area, and ended the misery of that man. After some other soldiers show up to the scene, Kim finds out that the man he just killed was his own father. For a long while, Kim let himself starve due to killing another man, being his own father, over food.
The Match with Joe Yabuki:
In his match with our main character, Joe Yabuki, we get to see an interesting connection between the two. Referring to the beginning, when Joe's guilt of killing Rikishi caused him to never hit his opponent in the head showing that Joe never let go of the guilt and pain of killing his friend. Kim is held back by the idea that since the worst has already happened to him, he now has no fear to lose anything, boxing is nothing more than mere child's play. Joe ends up defeating Kim, but not before reminding him that he may have gone through a lot of hardship like himself, but neither of them compare to the hardship that Rikishi felt while putting his life on the line for the man he respected the most. This shows Joe's true acceptance of Rikishi's death and what could happen if you hold onto the past as he and Kim did previously. The one to overcome himself was the winner of this match.
Thank you for taking the time to read. This is one of my favorite series of all time, and I just wanted to shed some of light on the connection between Kim and Joe, as well as, the acceptance of loss.
