I protect this town and my mother

On behalf of this person…what happens…

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Overview

The hero of Volume 4 Diamond is Unbreakable. A Gemini born in 1983. The blood type is B. A freshman in Budogaoka High School who lives in Morioh, S city, M prefecture. In volume 4, he was 16 years old. (The story began in April; at that time, he was still 15. Though not depicted directly, in setting, he celebrated his 16th birthday in this volume.)

When the hero of Volume 2, Joseph Joestar was 65, he fell in Forbidden love with a Japanese female Tomoko Higashikata, who at that time was a college student. As a result, Josuke Higashikata was born secretly (However, for a long time, Joseph himself knew nothing about Tomoko’s pregnancy and his son’s existence).

For Joseph’s daughter Holy Kujo, he is a “half-brother of different mother”, so for the hero of Volume 3, Jotaro Kujo, who is Holy’s son, he is an uncle who’s 12 years younger.

At the age of 4, he suffered a high fever which lasted 50 days due to the curse of DIO (furious awakening of the Stand ability) same as Holy. His Stand ability was then awakened.

At the first sight, it might be hard to tell which part of his name can be read as Jojo. In fact, the kanji Jo (Jou) + on’yomi of the kanji suke — Jo in his given name can add up to be “Jojo” (This was discovered by the hoodlum seniors when he first appeared).

Until the hero whose name reads exactly the same as his of Volume 8 appears, he’s the only hero who didn’t follow the rule that “‘The first parts of given name and family name’ can add up as Jojo” if you don’t change the reading.

He was a nice guy whose trademark was the regent hairstyle, which was an anachronism comparing to the time of the serialization. Although sometimes simple-minded and stingy, he is manful when the time of decision comes, a very charismatic male. It seems that he’s very popular among the female students, but Josuke’s thought on this is unknown because there’s no reaction.

Appearance

Although born and raised in Japan, and has a Japanese name, as mentioned above, he is half English and half Japanese. Since his appearance is strongly influenced by his father, Joseph, he is quite handsome. He’s 185 cm in height and still growing (in later volumes, he was mentioned as 180 cm), tall and muscular for a 16 years-old. He’s even slightly taller than Okuyasu Nijimura, who is the same age as him and is also regarded as tall. Though the Star birthmark of the Joestar family can’t be seen, because in the original work there was no scene of him taking off his clothes, in the animation, after his reconciliation with Joseph, a scene where Josuke’s star birthmark can be confirmed was inserted.

There was a drastic change in design in Volume 4 of the original work. At first, Josuke was pictured as a tough-looking muscular man, close to the dramatic drawing style of Volume 3 (On the left side of the image above); but in the second half he was changed into a slim shape and his expression became mild too (On the right side of the image above).

A typical hoodlum style featuring remodeled school uniforms (Long uniform and baggy pants) and regent hairstyle. Accessories of anchor mark and heart mark was put around the neck of his school uniform, and peace mark and heart mark on the chest (if looked from the right, it becomes “LOVE&PEACE”). The chest part of the uniform was opened and fastened with these accessories. At first, he also attached a “J” shape accessory to his left chest. By the way, according to the inside story of the author, the manufacturer of his underwear is Moschino.

His undergarment which has two parallel zippers is of unknown shape in the original work, but in the anime version and live-action version, it becomes a tank top.

According to the cover image and color illustration, the clothing is arranged and more decorations are added, such as a giant heart logo painted at the back of his school uniform, or white gloves. In the illustrations after the serialization ended, he’s often found to wear slacks instead of baggy pants.

In the live-action version, all accessories are small. Like Jotaro does, all buttons of his long uniform are unfastened. Around this time, the author was particular about the design of heart, and Josuke was also affected by this.

Personality

He isstern-looking but mild (looks like) , outgoing and also friendly. And a little bit comedian-style. Unlike the previous heroes, he’s not only cool, but also plays a blockhead role, which makes him more like a human. His change of expression is also rich.

He has a strong sense of justice, and is very affectionate. He often puts himself in danger to stop the crisis in surrounding. Although his stand ability can’t heal his own wounds at all, he does not care about this, and stands up against the enemies. When Okuyasu was trying to kill him but was influenced by Keicho’s attack and was about to die, Josuke helped him, and ended up wounded himself. When Okuyasu asked him about why he did such an unreasonable thing, Josuke replied, “I’m just dying, I won’t die, that was the only thought I had just now”. Okuyasu, who followed Keicho’s evildoing.

Many girls will happily greet him and some are writing him love letters, very popular among female students of the same age. However, Josuke himself was pure and doesn’t do things like picking up and playing with women.

His favorite phrase is “Great!” . In addition to using it when impressed, he also uses it in the sense of “Crap” when driven into hot water.

He speaks in a hoodlum style which extends the end of the words. In order to sound relaxed while maintaining his manner, he speaks with adults with a way that ends sentence in “…su”. The first-person pronoun he uses is “ore”, but at times he will call himself “Josuke-kun”.

Despite being referred to as a “hoodlum high school student”, comparing to Joseph, when he was young, Jotaro when he was a student, and Giorno who wishes to be a hoodlum, his behavior isn’t so bad. Instead, he is second only to Jonathan in being a nice youth.

Even if the hoodlum group finds faults with him and tries to get him involved one-sidedly, he lowers his head without fuss and tries to avoid violence. And there’s no description of underage drinking or smoking (In the play, Jotaro has many drinking & smoking scenes. He almost never goes to school, tends to start a quarrel frequently, and sometimes even leave a restaurant without paying his bill. Comparing to Josuke, he is more of a typical, traditional hoodlum. As for Giorno, needless to say, from his first scene there’s always been display of criminal acts. In fact, even Jonathan secretly smoked a pipe in his childhood).

In the setting of the beginning of the original work, the owner of pachinko store said he is “a regular customer”, but in the work, Josuke himself says, “I can’t go in the pachinko store because of this style (Sheer Heart Attack battle).” Which one is right? As an aside, the hoodlum girls around Yuya Fungami goes to pachinko store dressing like a leader of a female gang confidently.

It might be easy to think that Josuke also does the “dine and dash” thing, confusing with Jotaro’s dine-and-dash comment, “I do not pay for food that tastes worse than its price”, but in fact, it was only Okuyasu who proposed that, “it is not necessary to pay because the dishes are served without permission and taste bad, so let’s leave”, when they think the The restaurant where customers are not allowed to choose the menu, and the chef will serve healthy food arbitrarilyis suspicious. There’s no actual depiction of dine-and-dash act.

Not good at dealing with reptiles. It seems that he’s afraid of them and thus unable to touch them (He once grabbed a turtle with bare hands when it was attacked by the hoodlums to save it, but it seems that, that was only his anger which helped him getting over it). When it is said that there might be a ghost in a vacant house near his home, he said “Ghosts are scary so stop it”, so he might have low tolerance with occult.

Although good at sports, he said himself that “Ball-related are a type of evil”. He never gets a score above 150 in Bowling.

He loves games, but doesn’t seem to read manga at all. He’s so unfamiliar with manga that he knows nothing about the popular youth manga. Completely opposite to his father whose hobby is manga collection. However, he does know names of Sazae-san and Arale-chan. Maybe he watches anime normally.

Since Volume 4 itself is more of a daily type, comparing to other volumes, it does not only show battle scenes, but also contains relaxing at home, fooling around with Okuyasu, drinking tea at a café, etc. Many depiction of a life-size high school student. Although there’s several scenes of him playing video games, which is his hobby, at home, all of them ends with a game over. So, it seems that his gaming skill is not good.

Though his grades at school is unknown, judging on his reaction when Koichi got a 0 point, Josuke’s grade may not be as bad. Because his mother is a teacher, there’s no reason for her to remain silent if Josuke’s grades are bad, but he is always playing video games leisurely, so it seems that there’s no problem with his grades.

He cares about fashion and appearance, and is brand-oriented. He always has facial tissue and handkerchiefs at hand, and takes them out when Okuyasu cried and when he found Mikitaka was bleeding. He cares about if his favorite shoes are dirty and saves money to buy new bags. Because he runs out of money once he uses it, he’s often broke.

For he has such a chary side, he plans to earn pocket money with the rich Rohan Kishibe as an easy target, using Mikikata Hazekura’s ability, and also thinks about ways to earn money by working with Shigekiyo Yangu in an effective and non-bad way. However, even if he runs out of money, he rejects getting money from others without doing anything.

When he was informed that he was entitled to the giant heritage of the American real estate king, Joseph, he apologized to Jotaro, who was worrying that the Joestars would be troubled by their existence. That act surprised Jotaro, who was prepared to be beaten by Josuke instead of Joseph. He made a remark that he had given up his right to inherit because of his distrust of his father, who concerned nothing about him or his mother.

As mentioned above, he’s basically gentle, but once he gets angry, it’s impossible to handle. His mother Tomoko speaks of this feature of Josuke like “who does him resemble”, as if it was someone else’s concern, but any way you think about it, it was inherited from her. However, he also greatly resembles in that they get angry when a certain switch is turned on. Maybe he resembles both his parents?

The main conditions that cause Josuke to lose his temper are “when an unrelated family is harmed” and “When his hairstyle is degraded” .

If the hairstyle is degraded. He will instantly lose his temper, and attacks regardless of whether the opponent is superior. As will be explained later, there is profound reason for this rage.

If a villain stand user who goes beyond consideration harms his helpless family and friends, he will eye him in a way that’s scarier than death.

Perhaps because he has taken over the blood of Joseph as well as Jotaro has, he is rather quick-thinking. With a stand ability that cures wounds and corrects things, which at the first sight is not useful in fighting, he can use it effectively with his application skill. Although he has a comedian side, in emergency he shows calmness (according to himself, he is a “man who repels pressure”). Despite the appearance, he is good at advanced psychological and intellectual warfare. Therefore, he has a good affinity with Jotaro, who trusts him as a “reliable man”.

Although not as blatant as Jotaro in Volume 3, he is a fully completed character who is tough and characteristic as a warrior from the very start. Therefore, it is easy for him to be considered as a savior from Koichi Hirose, who is mentally and physically immature.

When he first met Okuyasu Nijimura, there were enemies, but after that he quickly becomes close friends. Because they live near each other, they go to school and leave school together, and spends lunch time and break time together despite being in different classes.

Although their wavelengths match each other well, there are also contrasting aspects. Josuke, who is quick-thinking and thoughtful, and Okuyasu, who is hasty and is considered as fool by both himself and others; Josuke, who is popular among female and Okuyasu, who is not popular; Josuke, who is a spender, and Okuyasu, who loves saving.

Josuke’s stand ability can’t heal the damage caused by Okuyasu’s stand’s ability. It would have been very difficult if Okuyasu is a wicked villain with high intelligence and cruelty. Luckily, he is a good man and a lovely fool.

However, Josuke is Josuke, in rare cases, he has an oddly weak sense of danger and a careless attitude when facing the kind of stands that can confine inanimate objects and creatures in certain space and the owners of these stands. At the same time, when facing unexpected reflex attacks together with Okuyasu, and when Jotaro was searching for a breakthrough quietly, he was more upset than Okuyasu and Koichi, shouting funny and stupid words; these things happen too.

In the battle when they first met, there were several lines in which Josuke spoke to Okuyasu with the “~su” tone, but it is not sure if he had mistaken Okuyasu to be older.

Stand Crazy Diamond

A humanoid stand with the ability to “heal broken things and cure injured people”.

See the relevant article for details.

Family

He lives in a normal detached house with his mother and his maternal grandfather. The address is 1-6 Jozenji, Morioh. His mother, Tomoko Higashikata, is a teacher with a bright and bold personality. Because regarding her son’s age, she is still young, their exchanges are more like the kind that happens between siblings, rather than between mother and child. At times, she takes a very rough action, such as keep kicking Josuke in the back when he was absorbed in the game and causing the game to end, but she understands the gentleness deep in Josuke’s heart well.

Ryohei Higashikata, who is his maternal grandfather and takes the role of his father, is a police officer who has been protecting Morioh for 35 years. Just like Josuke, he has a passion for fashion and a playful character, such as setting up a mysterious play called “to startle game” with Josuke. Josuke, who respects Ryohei, has decided to protect Morioh on behalf of his grandfather after Ryohei died.

By the way, in the setting, his grandmother was already deceased at the beginning of this story. Considering that Ryohei is only in his mid-fifties and thus too young to be called a high school student’s grandfather, he and Josuke’s grandmother might be couples with age difference and the grandmother could die of old age normally; but it is also possible that she died early like the grandfather. If the former is true, then both 2 generations of the Higashikata family would have had children with people with different ages….

He has a complex feeling towards his real father, Joseph. When they first met, for reasons like “(he is) a father who I’ve never met since I was born and yet suddenly appears at this point of time” “I’ve seen it many times when my mother cried when thinking of Joseph”, their relation was strained; after many twists and turns, he began to view Joseph differently, depictions of them two going out has increased in number; things like this shows that their relationship has improved. He used to call Joseph “Mr. Joestar”, treating him like a stranger, but at last he came to call him “Jojoi” with familiarity.

He frankly respects Jotaro, who is his consanguineous nephew, as a respectable elder. Although Jotaro is his nephew, the former is 10 years older than himself, so he calls him “Jotaro-san” throughout and speaks in an honorific tone. At first, he tried to avoid involvement due to the complexity of his relationship with the Joestars, but after that he developed a strong trust with Jotaro through the battles with stand users. “The invincible Star Platinum, please do something!”

Origin of the regent hairstyle

When he was a child, Josuke, who had a high fever due to the curse of DIO, had his mother Tomoko try to drive him to the hospital in a record-breaking blizzard, but the tires were buried in the snow and they were stuck. A hoodlum youth with Regent hairstyle and long uniform (that is to say, just like the present Josuke) and many wounds suddenly showed up, and use the long uniform, which was his medal, as the underlay of tires and pushed the car out. Because of that, Tomoko and Josuke arrived at the hospital and survived.

Later, Tomoko searched for the boy to show their gratitude, but was unable to find him and didn’t know his identity at all. (In anime version, the boy’s lines in this reminiscence scene was represented with subtitles, like in the old silent movie, so there was no voice.)

Josuke had a strong admiration for the boy’s action at that time, and decided to imitate his characteristic hairstyle which he saw in a haze. Thus, for Josuke “to disparage his hairstyle = to insult the boy who was his lifesaver and a hero in his heart” . This is the reason for the aforementioned rage.

Also, according to the author’s inside story, he fills the wound in his heart caused by his father’s absence with the existence of the boy who he admires. Turns out the “lose his temper when his hair was tampered with”, which can easily be treated as a joke, is a rather heavy and serious setting.

By the way, besides the hairstyle, that regent boy’s physique and facial features (though the eyes are not visible) are very similar to that of Josuke, so during the serialization, there was a voice among the fans that “Isn’t this Josuke himself who goes back to the past from the future?” At the end of Volume 4, the appearance of Bite the dust made the thought that “to time-slip using stand ability” more realistic, and that caused the voice to go higher. But in the end, there’s no such thing as Josuke returned to the past in this volume.

Later, Araki was asked about this case. In his talk with the director of the OVA Special, he was asked, “Didn’t Josuke meet himself in the past?” He replied, “That is Josuke’s memory.” (It is widespread that he replied “Oh, there was such a thing (laugh)” but that is not the truth Reference URL).

In the original work of full-color version, it is clearly painted that Josuke’s hair and school uniform are purplish, but the hoodlum boy’s hair and uniform are blue.

Also, the novel TheBook mentioned this rumor.

Thus, despite the author’s clear denial, until now there’s still a firmly-rooted urban legend which says “That is the future Josuke”, “It was a foreshadowing but was then unable to be recovered”.

The reasons could be: the point that the depiction of hiding the face is meaningful, the point that time-related ability appeared in Volume 3 and that Bite the Dust had appeared, and the thought that “It makes no sense to let a mob character play the important role of helping the hero”.

On the other hand, there are also many thoughts like “It is because Josuke was helped by an ordinary person who has nothing to do with him and only helped him out of selflessness, that this story feels good. If the one who helped Josuke is himself from the future, it could not be an impressive story and would have be ruined”, and many feels that it is not good in the first place that “Despite the author’s denial, one still decides that it was a hint as merely a reader”.

Despite the author’s official opinion, it somehow becomes the stormiest topic in Volume 4.

Furthermore, before the regent boy’s story was revealed in the Rohan battle, in the beginning of Volume 4, when Josuke’s hairstyle was (he thought was) tampered with by Jotaro, he said, “Even myself do not know why I am so offended! There must be no reason for this anger! It is instinct!”. So, which one is true?

In anime version, these lines are cut for the consideration of scenes.

It might have been before the settings were decided on the meta level… Since it was his remark when angry, he may not know what he was saying.

Or maybe for Koichi, who remembered this remark but forget the regent boy’s story, when read books, the image that in the sense of Rohan “Josuke = liar” has been settled.

Jojo Standing

Josuke has several typical poses. The pose where his right hand shows the palm, left hand horizontal with his waist twisting is famous as one of the Jojo standing.

The second most typical pose is on the cover of the art book JOJO6251, in which his fists were crossed in front of chest.

And also this one in the last episode.

Side story

• Although there is no direct contact, Josuke shares many features with the hero of Volume 5, Giorno Giovanna, including “Admiring a person they met in their childhood whose name is unknown, and takes them as the example of his life”, “illegitimate child”, and “seen from the previous heroes, they have the relation like ‘an uncle who’s younger’ and ‘my parent’s half-brother’ (Josuke is the half-brother of Holy, Jotaro’s mother, and Giorno is the half-brother of Joseph’s father, Jojo II.
• If you type “heijyou”, the character “仗” appears smoothly. …However, since the dictionaries of computer, tablet and smartphones have been enhanced, now you can directly type “Higashikata Josuke”.

The Jojos from Volume 1 to Volume 3 are all the only children, but for Josuke, he has a half-sister of different mother and an adopted younger sister (Jonathan has a brother-in-law, Dio, Giorno has Elder brother, Younger brother, and Johnny has an elder brother). His half-sister Holy is the same age as his maternal grandfather Ryohei Higashikata, and has a 40-year age difference with Josuke. He is 16 years

• His favorite phrases “Great-daze”, “Great, this guy is” , although sadly missed the award, was nominated for the 2016 Anime Buzzword Award.
• The Prince, who in setting that Josuke loves listening to, accidentally decreased all of a sudden in April, 2016, when Volume 4 featuring Josuke as the hero had started broadcasting (The fastest broadcast started on April 2nd, and 19 days after that, on April 21st, he deceased at the age of 57).

• The fourth volume is a multi-protagonist story. Many unique characters appear in this volume, including Koichi Hirose, who is the storyteller and shows rapid growth, Jotaro Kujo, who is the hero of previous work and has an overwhelming ability, Rohan Kishibe, who works as the hero of many spin-offs, and Yoshikage Kira, who is popular due to the unique character modelling while being a villain. All of them have episodes where they act as the hero, so there are several episodes where the hero, Josuke, didn’t appear.
• The author Hirohiko Araki often names Josuke as his “favorite character” and “favorite hero”. Different from the traditional hero image with a mythical hero feeling, he aimed to build a hero who is like an amiable friend around you.
• There are rumors on the Internet that Josuke will die later in a motorcycle accident, but that is a complete hoax. There is no source that Mr. Araki had said so, and this death theory was first found in 2ch, said on a malicious post that Mr. Araki said so in the art book JOJO A GOGO, which was just released at that time. Of course, in the art book, there is no such comment.
• Mr. Araki said he wanted to confine the Morioh town in the last episode of Volume 4 in an eternal world. In my heart, Morioh will always stay that way. Because I have no idea what will happen to Josuke after that. Because it is the “eternal” Morioh. He said so in an interview with Jump Remix. When asked about Josuke’s path after that by Mr. Otsuichi, who wrote the novelization of Volume 4, he also replied, “(at the time of the last episode) the world is closed and stopped in the eternal time. That’s why you can write. They can’t go out somewhere.” From this, the reason why Josuke did not appear in subsequent volumes (or rather that’s what Mr. Araki insists) can be seen.
• In OVER_HEAVEN wrote by Ishin Nishio, only his name appears. DIO’s note, which was burned by Jotaro, was restored to some extent at the request of SPW Foundation. And although it is a secondary creation, it is a rare work that mentioned Josuke at the time of Volume 6.
• Figure Skating player, Detective Tanaka was discussed because he acted as Josuke during Exhibition. Furthermore, the music used during the performance was “Diamond is Unbreakable -Main Theme- “, which was included in the soundtrack vol.1 of the anime version’s Volume 4.

Actors

Wataru Hatano (ASB, EoH, Ultra Jump CM)

Yuki Ono / Yo Taichi <Childhood> (TV animation)

Kento Yamazaki (live-action movie)

Related Illustration