<ref>{{cite book |last=Araki |first=Hirohiko |author-link=Hirohiko Araki |language=Japanese |date=2013 |title=JoJoveller |publisher=[[Shueisha]] |pages= |isbn=978-4-0890-8185-3}}</ref>
Battle Tendency
editLike other protagonists in the series, Joseph was designed to symbolize the part's story and setting, and to stand out among the previous protagonists in terms of appearance, clothing, and silhouette.[1]
Like other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
Stardust Crusaders
editWhen Araki started working on Stardust Crusaders, his primary goal was to create characters with different personalities compared to those from Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency, the previous parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure; for instance, whereas Jonathan from Phantom Blood is a traditional portrayal of a man of justice, and Joseph from Battle Tendency is a "cheerful and flashy" character, Jotaro keeps his emotions hidden, with the art of him depicting him as expressionless as possible. He was additionally designed to be taller and have more of a sense of weight to his body compared to Jonathan and Joseph, to make him seem fantastical, while his clothing – a school uniform – was meant to represent normalcy.[2] Jotaro was additionally designed to symbolize the part's story and setting.[1] Influenced by Clint Eastwood, Araki intended for Jotaro to be economical in his movements, and have "a presence that could be felt just by him standing".[2]
Araki used a "journey" structure for Stardust Crusaders's story, to avoid the power inflation common in "tournament" structures where progression and growth is handled by having each new opponent the heroes face be stronger than the last. This meant that progression was represented by the heroes traveling towards their goal. This allowed him to vary the opponents more by having them vary in how powerful they are; to avoid a feeling of cheap victories against the weaker enemies, he compensated by making them more underhanded or frightening. To keep readers focused on each battle throughout the story and not distract them with thoughts of the final showdown, as well as keep suspense high, Araki avoided showing the face of the final antagonist, Dio, only drawing him as a silhouette until his full revelation in the battle against him.[3]
Araki's editor, Ryōsuke Kabashima, pressured Araki into making a trip to Egypt despite Araki's dislike for travel, helping him in in depicting Egypt in the manga.[4] He ended up visiting Egypt three times throughout the production of the manga, and also made trips to each place the character visited during the journey, excluding some areas that were too dangerous to go to.[5]
Like other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
Diamond Is Unbreakable
editDiamond Is Unbreakable was created around the idea of mental and emotional weakness, with Stands created through exaggerating the viewpoint of characters who are obsessed with their own flaws.[6] Like other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
Araki had issues with writing the story developments surrounding Killer Queen, and worried that he had made Killer Queen too powerful for Josuke to be able to defeat it.[1]
With Diamond Is Unbreakable, Araki started shifting his character design work from the "muscle men" of previous parts to more slender characters; this was both due to readers losing interests in the muscular designs, and due to Araki wanting to do more with his interest for fashion in the manga.[1] Worrying that his art was starting to feel outdated, he also switched the way he drew male characters' eyebrows: when he started drawing manga in the 1970s, it was standard for male characters to have thick eyebrows, but with Diamond is Unbreakable, he switched to drawing thinner ones for the protagonist, something that was difficult to him due to how thin eyebrows to him were connected to mean-spirited characters or supporting cast in shōjo manga.[7] Like other protagonists in the series, Josuke was designed to be a symbol of part's story and setting, and to be distinguishable from previous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure protagonists in terms of his appearance, clothing, and silhouette.[1] Some characters intended to just be supporting characters ended up growing in ways Araki had not initially anticipated: for instance, he liked the way Rohan turned out, so he ended up using him more in the story, turning him into an important character.[8]
Reception
editAccording to Araki, he frequently received criticism from readers and the editorial staff that the antagonists in Diamond Is Unbreakable are too weak.[6]
Vento Aureo
editVento Aureo continued the shift in Araki's character designs that had started in Diamond Is Unbreakable, from the muscular body types in previous parts to more slender characters. This was both due to changing reader preferences, and Araki' wanting to incorporate his interest for fashion more in the manga. Like other protagonists in the series, Giorno was designed to symbolize the part's story and setting, and to stand out among the previous protagonists in terms of appearance, clothing, and silhouette.[1]
Araki used the name "GioGio" rather than "JoJo" as he wanted to be faithful to the Italian language, with its lack of "J" outside of foreign or obsolete words.[9]
Araki thought that in addition to being a good person, the protagonist needs to be a hero as well – which he thought would require the character to solve problems alone, through their own abilities; although the Bucciarati gang has a unified goal, they were depicted as standing on their own when fighting, and as a group of outcasts rather than a leader and his followers.[10]
Like other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
Because the finale of the story is set in Rome, Araki did a lot of research on the city to bee able to portray it accurately, studying its history, geography and infrastructure, and looked through travel guides while trying to memorize the pictures. After doing the research, he visited Rome in person to find out about things left unsaid in travel guides, such as what the side streets, traffic signals and signs look like and to get an accurate sense of the distance between locations in Rome.[11]
Stone Ocean
editLike other protagonists in the series, Jolyne was designed to symbolize the story and setting of the part, and to be distinguishable among the other protagonists in terms of her appearance, clothing, and silhouette.[1] Although it had earlier been a requirement for male and female characters to be written differently, with male characters being proactive, and female characters being passive and delicate, Araki noted that this no longer was the case, with "macho" women being acceptable: Jolyne was written the same way as Araki would write any male character, fighting in battles as brutal as any previous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure protagonists have. The only difference was that he had to draw her slightly less beaten up than male characters.[12]
Like other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
JoJolion
editLike other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Araki described the theme as "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", which he explained as a description for humanity's ability to grow and overcome hardships through one's strength and spirit, portrayed through people succeeding in fights through their own actions, without relying on machines or gods.[1]
In the first volume, Araki described the story of JoJolion as being the solving of a "curse" (呪い, noroi). Curses, he goes on, are the sins of the ancestors and this makes people "unclean" (穢れ, kegare), and if this curse continues it will only turn into "resentment" (恨み, urami). Another theme is that from birth we see things as black and white, but this produces a "friction" (摩擦, masatsu) from what humanity really experiences. From these, the "curse" is lifted, this being the goal of the story.
On the inside cover of volume 2, Araki explained that the "-lion" in the title comes from both the Christian concept of blessing and the gospels ("evangelion" in Greek), the Ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion, and lions.
Araki wanted to challenge himself by using elements of genres he had not been able to use during his time writing for Shonen Jump, such as eroticism, leading him to include many female characters, and depicting bare breasts for the first time in his manga works.[13]
Like previous JoJo's Bizarre Adventure protagonists, Josuke was designed to be a symbol for the part's story and setting, and to stand out among the other protagonists in what he looks and wears, and his silhouette.[1] Yasuho was made as a variant of the male character Koichi from Diamond Is Unbreakable; while Koichi represented friendship, Araki wanted to include romance in the story, so he turned Yasuho into a woman.[13]
To control the pacing of the story through art, Araki draws with varying levels of detail depending on what type of scene it is: action scenes typically are very detailed, while scenes he wants to be less intense are lighter on detail.[14] When writing, he divides each 45-page chapter into sections of four to five pages, based on the flow of the story and the amount of beats.[15]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Mitchem, Casey Lee; Silverman, Rebecca (2017-06-29). "Interview: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Creator Hirohiko Araki". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2017-07-08. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
- ^ a b Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 69–75. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 93–95. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Whalen, Amanda (2017-09-13). "JoJo, Fist of the North Star Creators Discuss Their Manga, Influences". Anime News Network. 2017-09-13. Archived from the original on 2017-09-14. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 159–161. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ a b Araki, Hirohiko (1996). JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken 45: Another One Bites the Dust (in Japanese). Shueisha. Dust jacket. ISBN 978-4-08-851895-4.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 124–125. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. p. 68. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (1996). JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken 47: Sayonara Moriō-chō - Ōgon no Kokoro (in Japanese). Shueisha. Dust jacket. ISBN 978-4-08-851897-8.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 159–161. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. p. 58. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ a b Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. pp. 58–59. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.
- ^ Araki, Hirohiko (2017). Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga. Translated by Collins, Nathan A. Viz Media. p. 184. ISBN 978-1-4215-9407-1.