Joe, Tomorrow is about the Boxer, not Boxing

By Eireann Mannino  |  27 December 2020   

Sakamoto filmed their interviews periodically between 1995, just after the loss of Tatsuyôshi’s first world title, and premiered the documentary at the 2015 Tokyo International Film Festival, 6 years after his final bout. A brief exposition covers the first 5 ascendant years of Tatsuyôshi’s pro career, and with little else, we drop into a career at its first moment of crisis.

With Joe Tomorrow, Sakamoto does’t aim to satiate a hunger for training or fight montages, nor does he pour over archival photos or staged setups for artistic effect. Indeed, this is not a film obsessed over technique, either on the part of its subject or in its own construction. One might be tempted to say that the almost brazen simplicity and poetic clarity of the film’s structure reflects Tatsuyôshi’s own honed tactics inside the ring and sheer honesty outside.

Joe Tomorrow is an uncommonly pure character study that delves into this legendary boxer’s mind frame, revealed entirely through the athlete’s own words, issuing from the trust shared between director and subject. Tatsuyoshi is ever present in the frame, and from interview to interview he ages before us… though he never seems to change fundamentally as a person.

Rise and Fall and Rise And Fall

Jôichirô Tatsuyôshi, called Joe for short, was born in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture in Japan in 1970. He grew up largely under the single parenthood of his father who happened to be an avid fan of boxing, and who looms large in Tatsuyôshi’s dialogues throughout the film.

That his pro record appears less than remarkable dismisses the extent of both his meteoric rise, overlooks the impediment of injury along his course, and says nothing of his enduring popularity. Tatsuyôshi won the Japanese Bantamweight title in only his fourth professional bout (1990), and took the WBC World Bantamweight title on the occasion of his 8th (1991) in a match against Greg Richardson, the fastest of any Japanese boxer at the time for both. 

For some perspective on the scale of his WBC title win, it has been matched only once in the intervening 30 years, by Nobuo Nashiro (2006).

His dips and rolls are huge and sometimes feel like he is one whole second ahead of his opponent. 

Tatsuyôshi is also never terribly concerned about occupying center ring. To the contrary he likes to work clockwise around his opponents, maintaining a relatively long distance that he can easily close with his over 5ft jab (one of his most powerful weapons).

Again this makes his technique crystal clear from an observational standpoint, though his offensive precision is sometimes muddied by a brazen willingness to eat punches.

Tatsuyôshi would lose his initial WBC title on his first defense against Victor Rabanales (1993), from whom he would reclaim it as an interim title two bouts later. Sadly he was forced to relinquish that interim title due to a retinal injury, one of two such injuries that would sideline him for a year and nearly forcibly retire him precisely when he needed to carry the momentum of his ascent. 

Alas, Tatsuyôshi would persist past his stated intent to retire after two title defenses, losing to Veeraphol Sahaprom on his third. Before aging out of pro licensure in Japan at 36, he hit a high note note with two wins in 2002 and 2003 respectively during a span of spotty activity. 

After 5 years outside of the ring, Tatsuyôshi would inexplicably resurface in Thailand in 2008, banking one more win and one loss for his pro record before falling into the tacit retirement that continues to this day. The tacit nature of that retirement, and the boxer’s relationship to the very idea of retirement, is one such focus of Joe Tomorrow.

These are merely the anecdotes of Tatsuyôshi’s career though, and while there is undeniable drama in the peaks and valleys, Joe Tomorrow takes us not into the cliff notes but into the mind of that boxer. Sakamoto’s film flows inside the gaps of those anecdotes, and lets us observe the self analysis of a man who is not only a boxer, but also a father, a husband and a son.

In what is ultimately a series of self-reflections, one can see and hear the relative consistency of Tatsuyôshi’s thoughts, compulsions and ideas over time while he adapts to circumstances and modifies his targets. He exhibits an uncommon ownership of his stubbornness, uncommon in that it is both unapologetic and yet somehow unpretentious. Sakamoto said in an interview, that it wasn’t so much Joe that changed over time as it was himself.

Inside and Out

As a boxing film, Joe Tomorrow defocuses the minutiae of the sport itself, and narrows its depth on the existential and philosophical element. Tatsuyôshi’s bouts are shown not in their entirety but in brief series of 2 or 3 still frames, yet one’s heart still sinks or swells depending on the result. Sakamoto brings us to Tatsuyôshi after these pivotal bouts and life events, such as the passing of his father, to catch him in that liminal space between reflection and prediction.