Glass Joe

Glass Joe (グラス・ジョー) is a fictional boxer from Nintendo's video game series Punch-Out!! He first appeared in the arcade game Punch-Out!! in 1984, and three years later made his home console debut with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game of the same name. His most recent appearance was in Punch-Out!! for the Wii. In the aforementioned games, he is the first boxer the player fights, and hence the weakest. The character was originally designed by Shigeru Miyamoto for the arcade game. Makoto Wada revised Glass Joe's appearance for the NES version, while Eddie Viser redesigned him once more for the Wii game; the character was voiced by Christian Bernard in the latter.

Glass Joe is considered by critics to be a racial stereotype of French people, due to his weakness and cowardice. The stereotypical characteristics of Glass Joe were emphasized even more by the developers of the Wii game, Next Level Games. For example, they included cutscenes that depicted the character as a lover of luxurious things, such as gourmet coffee. Glass Joe is considered an icon of Nintendo, and one of the most well-known characters in the Punch-Out!! series. His name has been used as a negative title attributed to sportspeople as a consequence of their poor performances.

Concept and creation
Glass Joe is a French boxer hailing from Paris. Before the match against Glass Joe, his record is shown to be one win to 99 losses. He is the player's first and weakest opponent in every Punch-Out!! game he appears in, and is notably skinnier than the series' protagonist, Little Mac. Glass Joe's low level of difficulty has been attributed to his poor blocking and reaction time. He possesses characteristics of racial stereotypes of French people, including cowardice and weakness, which are demonstrated by his quote "Make it quick... I want to retire" in the NES Punch-Out!!

The character was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto for the original Punch-Out!! arcade game. The name "Glass Joe" was conceived by Genyo Takeda as a play on the fact that the character has a glass jaw, which signifies his inability to take a head blow. Glass Joe's appearance was later revised by Makoto Wada for the NES Punch-Out!!, and by Eddie Viser for the Wii game of the same name. The character is voiced by Christian Bernard in his Wii appearance, for which his dialogue in between matches mostly consists of counting to ten in French. Next Level Games, the developer of the Wii game, introduced cutscenes to depict Glass Joe as a fashionable Frenchman. They showed him in front of Parisian landmarks – the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower – and associated him with "fancy coffee" and French foods such as baguettes and croissants.

Appearances
Glass Joe's debut was in the first Punch-Out!! game for the arcades in 1984. According to an editor of UGO Networks, the character's role in the arcade game was to give young players a sense of accomplishment, and motivating them to spend quarters trying to beat the more difficult opponents that appear later. Afterward, Glass Joe appeared in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for the NES in 1987, which was later renamed to simply Punch-Out!! While he did not appear in Super Punch-Out!! on the Super Nintendo, he was referenced in the game's manual as having opened a boxing school for potential fighters and that Gabby Jay was a graduate of his, achieving his one and only victory against Glass Joe. Glass Joe's most recent appearance was in Punch-Out!! for the Wii in 2009, for which he was one of the first characters revealed before the game's release. The Wii Punch-Out!! features a mode called "Title Defense", wherein all opponents are modified to be more difficult to beat. In this mode, Glass Joe is wearing protective headgear. The cutscene before this fight shows a doctor performing an X-ray examination on Glass Joe, and prescribing him the headgear because of his weak jaw. GameSpy's Ryan Scott stated that the character "[lulls players] into a false sense of familiarity" in the regular mode, as other opponents in the Wii game were made more difficult than in their previous appearances.

Impact and critical reception
Glass Joe has become an icon of Nintendo, and is considered one of the most identifiable characters in the Punch-Out!! series. Glass Joe's name has been used as a negative title applied to real-life sportspeople such as Derek Anderson, Darnell Dockett, and the players of the North Penn football team. ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote that the fight between boxers Wladimir Klitschko and Chris Byrd was like watching "Glass Joe become the champ in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out". New York Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett stated that "the last thing you want to be is a Glass Joe". The character was featured as part of a series of trading cards depicting the Punch-Out!! boxers.

GameDaily's Chris Buffa listed Glass Joe as one of the most unappreciated Nintendo characters, and expressed a desire to see him "with a fighting chance" in another game. The Daily Telegraph's Tom Hoggins described the character as a "deliriously entertaining creation" and a "wimpy French man". "jmanalang" of G4TV referenced his defeat of Glass Joe as a memorable moment in his video game history. In his review of Super Punch-Out!!, Allgame's Skyler Miller commented negatively on the character's absence, as he felt that it "[did not] seem right to have a Punch-Out!! game without him".

Racial stereotyping
Glass Joe's stereotypically French characteristics have been discussed by critics such as writer Sumantra Lahiri and Eurogamer's Oli Welsh. GamesRadar's Brett Elston wrote that Glass Joe embodies numerous French stereotypes, including cowardice, an affinity for fancy or expensive things, and that the population of France "apparently must live within 100 feet of the Eiffel Tower at all times". IGN's Craig Harris found the character to be a "generic, weak white guy" in his early appearances, but called his Wii rendition a "baguette-loving Frenchman who speaks in fluent Pepe le Pew dialect". One member of the Retronauts podcast stated that he had identified Glass Joe as simply a "weakling" until he learned more about French stereotypes. Wired's Chris Kohler used the croissants associated with the character as an example of how the game enhanced the ethnic stereotypes found in previous games. Buffa wrote that the stereotypes could be considered "funny or insulting", while Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis felt that someone "[would] have to have a pretty sour disposition to take offense at [them]".

Difficulty
Glass Joe's low level of difficulty has contributed to his iconic status. Nintendo Power listed the character as one of their favorite "punching bags" in video games. He has been used as a litmus test for the usability of NES controllers such as the U-Force and the Power Glove. GamePro's Will Herring called Glass Joe a "criminally fragile" character that fans of the series grew up with. GamesRadar editor Mikel Reparaz included him in his list of the "13 unluckiest videogame bastards". However, he added that there is something "weirdly poignant about a man who fights a hundred matches and loses all but one of them, but keeps on fighting". UGO's Chris Plante listed the fight with Glass Joe as the 15th greatest NES moment, and wrote that it was more memorable than the last in-game match with real-life boxer Mike Tyson. Other critics have mocked Glass Joe for his weakness. Elston commented that the character has "forever been the lamest boxer in the series" and that "he can barely throw a punch". GamePro's Dave Rudden listed Glass Joe as the 11th skinniest video game character, and wrote "the fact that his losses almost outnumber his weight speak [sic] more about his ineptitude as a boxer than the inability for skinny dudes to fight". GameDaily editor Robert Workman stated Glass Joe to be a "wuss" and a "no-talent schlub who has no business stepping into the boxing ring". Game Informer's James Cowan called the fight against the character a "total joke". Earnest Cavalli of Wired described Glass Joe as a "living metaphor for physical weakness".

While the character is known for his weakness, his appearance in the "Title Defense" mode of the Wii Punch-Out!! received attention for his increased difficulty level. Kotaku's Michael McWhertor found this incarnation of Glass Joe, who he described as a "frail French fighter" and a "perennial punching bag", to be surprisingly difficult. Editors for GamePro used the character's new incarnation as a demonstration of how difficult the "Title Defense" mode can be. Official Nintendo Magazine's Chris Scullion wrote that, while they were initially worried that the Wii game would be too easy, Glass Joe offset those worries. GameSpot reviewer Tom McShea stated "the sad fact is, you will lose to Glass Joe, for maybe the first time in your life". 1UP.com's Scott Sharkey found the difficulty of Glass Joe to be surprising after fighting Mr. Sandman, the final boss in the preceding mode. Nevertheless, Game Informer's Bryan Vore still considered him "tremendously easy".