Joe is an interesting blend of characteristics.

He's your typical pessimist, and probably with good reason; he's not very lucky. He's always the one bad things happen to. As he put it, "you can always rely on him... to fall off a cliff or into the mud". He *has* fallen off a few cliffs, has fallen into the mud, he was the one who kept getting knocked over when Puppetmon was manipulating the digidestined like dolls, he nearly drowns several times, he has allergies, gets hayfever, breaks out into hives in the dark (what the heck?) and his pants ride up when he walks, supposedly.

Thanks, we really wanted to know that last one. -_-;

He's always ready with a little dry comment or something sarcastic to say; he's good at shooting people's suggestions down. Or he's complaining about some issue related to his health. He gets seasickness, hayfever, allergies, hives, you name it. Plus you know his vision obviously is imperfect (I'm amazed his glasses are still in his possession, let alone intact, after everything that's happened ^_^;), he's clumsy and uncoordinated and has a good relationship with gravity (often falling over).

Seasick Joe

Maybe he just convinces himself he has some of these problems because his dad is a doctor. Anyone here seen "My Girl"? The girl in it is convinced she has a bunch of horrible diseases because she lives in a morgue or something and is constantly subject to death and medical reports, etc. It might be the same sort of thing here. All I know is, I've never noticed him acting like he has hayfever or anything, just complaining about it.

As Digimon focuses around at least eight central characters, you know not all of them can afford to have a lot of individual attention given them, although I think the show does things quite well in this respect. What I'm getting at is, not all the characters can be talking all the time, so often characters just have to have little snippets of input at a time. A lot of Joe's input IS stupid comments about his supposed physiological problems, that's why they've got a mention.

Underneath it all, I think he just doesn't have a very good self-esteem. WereGarurumon's Diner is a good example of this. In it, he mentions how the kids at school voted him "most likely to chicken out", and also doesn't seem to think anything of it when Matt blows up at him and distrusts him. He seems like he's used to it.

Why else do I think he doesn't have good self-esteem? He constantly makes pessimistic comments, as I've already said, which indicates he doesn't expect good things to happen. That might seem like a statement of the obvious but there must be a reason why.

He's probably the sort who gets picked on in class. He does mention in one episode that the kids in his class voted him "most likely to chicken out". (This was right after he almost got killed by Vegiemon to save TK by jumping off the roof, *lol*.)

He obviously feels the pressure from his father to perform well, although he does seem to enjoy studying on its own merits.

The other kids also often don't listen to him or his opinions so much, although Sora listens to him the most. Although he is the oldest, he doesn't have much authority in the group.

One episode was focused around that concept, actually; Joe's low self confidence. Gomamon recruited Biyomon and Sora to help build it up again and they elected him 'leader' of their little group. It worked, as he convinced himself they really thought he was brave, so he decided he was brave too, and even when he was actually scared out of his little mind, he didn't want to show a weak face.

Think brave!

Reliable people are usually predictable, but Joe isn't, really. "You can always rely on him to fall into the mud or off a cliff..." Seriously, sometimes he reacts to danger by freaking out or wanting to run away, at other times he becomes angry and stands up against the monsters.

He doesn't really stick up for himself when it's not a life-or-death situation, though. Sometimes he tries to, but people tend to take advantage of his good nature, like when everyone dumped their yearbooks on him and made him phone all the people in them instead of doing it themselves, and the Vegiemon that made him stay and work in the diner, which he did although he could have escaped if he tried. Probably his sense of responsibility came into both those situations.

Joe's kind of awkward and expresses himself kind of awkwardly. Heheheh... when his Digimon has a victory he goes psycho and sometimes jumps around.

"Nice work, Ikkakumon! You naaaailed 'im!"

He's used to being blamed for things, and one of his problems with being in the real world is worrying about being blamed for the destruction caused by big monsters. Sometimes his priorities are a bit screwed up, or he thinks weird things. Once, everyone was walking silently and all the kids' thoughts were shown after Whamon's death. Most people were thinking how awful things were, and there's Joe paranoid-ly thinking that everyone is probably thinking bad things about him. ^^;;

When he's not semi-hysterical or muttering little positive comments like "I knew it, we're all going to die", Joe is generally a pretty calm and easy-going sort of person. Actually, I don't know why I said that; I was about to write that he rarely gets angry but then I thought of him shouting at Sora, yelling at his friends after they spent all the money, screaming at Gomamon after he ate all the food, etc etc.

Joe seems to care about food a lot. ^_^;

Anyway, it's odd that I think of him as calm because he's not usually but when he is being normal or conversely, when the situation is really grim, he can often be quite straightforward, matter-of-fact. I guess it's just the image I have of him, like how I think of Mimi as 'nice' although she isn't usually, and Sora as reasonable although there are lots of times when she isn't.

I guess the example that comes to mind of Joe being a calm and reasonable sort of person was when he went off with Mimi and she felt bad but he reassured her and told her simply that he thought she was brave.

The three expressions you are most likely to see on Joe's face are a) a kind of sad, wistful look, b) anger or c) him freaking out/yelping. ^_^.

I was thinking about the Myer-Briggs test, I'd say he was an ITSJ, which is Introverted-Thinking-Sensing-Judging. (As opposed to Extroverted-Feeling-Intuition-Perceiving, I *think*.) In short, he tends to think logically and carefully rather than basing his opinions on feelings.

One scene I particularly like is when he sings for Shogungekomon. He got up there to sing quite enthusiastically, which was surprising (I'd expect him to be kinda shy or something)... singing's like an expression of the soul, right? And he goes in there with this really precise language, like, "I'm attempting to sing a song, a song that will waken you and aid all the Gekomon who are loyal to your world view and the idea of you being in charge..." Hahah, that cracks me up. (And also the look on everyone's face when Gomamon and Agumon sing. ^_^.)

Joe gets a reasonable amount of character development in the series. All of them do, really, although TK and Kari get less than the others. But the episodes that feature Joe usually do feature him pretty well, except for "Joe's Battle". In it, he went off by himself to 'find himself' and find some strength he'd need or something... to learn to stop being a doormat.

So, after this cool buildup, what happens? NOTHING! He finds Matt and then they all go to fight Piedmon. I mean, what's with that? I mean, Matt and Sora both get these 'deep' scenes where they agonise over their own value, and Joe just wanders around looking for people. -_-.

Anyway, I don't have much else to say, really, although I guess I could go on for a lot longer. Sorry this page is a little disorganised in its structure. I guess, to sum up: Joe's one of those rare people who becomes extremely strong under pressure. He's kind of cowardly and a hypochondriac, has low self-esteem and makes little dry, sarcastic comments, plus he can overreact sometimes. Yet, he's always counted on, he's a nice guy and learns to become strong, calm and dependable.

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