Joseph Jostar

The prototype for the creation of Joseph was the famous characters of Han Solo from Star Wars and Indiana Jones ^[2] . Araki wanted to avoid the problem of a poorly designed character, as was the case with Jonathan Jostar from the first part of the Phantom Blood manga. However, according to Araki, the new protagonist named Joseph turned out to be very similar in appearance to Kensiro, the protagonist of the manga Fist of the North Star . Fearing accusations of plagiarism, Araki made his character an eccentric, lazy sly person who actually parodies himself ^{[3] [4]} .

At Battle Tendency , Joseph is a tall, physically fit young man with brown tousled hair and green eyes. He is impulsive, eccentric and cunning. During the battle, he takes every opportunity to overcome the enemy and can make controversial actions. Nevertheless, his goal remains noble and is to protect people from the threat of vampires ^[5] .

In Stardust Crusaders , Joseph is already an older character. His hair turned gray, but he still retains an athletic figure, although he is no longer as strong and witty as in his youth. On the contrary, he often demonstrates his frivolity, nevertheless remains an extremely important ally of Zetaro Kujo . Its stand - “purple hermit” - is named after the Hermit’s card and represents spiky vines capable of immobilizing or strangling the enemy, the stand is also able to indicate the target’s location, transmit images and thoughts to a TV or camera ^[5] . It is noteworthy that in the OVA-series he is shown in blond, although in the manga he is gray-haired and has dark hair by nature. The same is true with his character. If in OVA he is shown as a serious-minded old man who has led his life, then in the manga and series he is still, as in his youth, full of enthusiasm, cunning and sense of humor, which partly serves as a comedic character ^[6] .

During the plot of Diamond Is Unbreakable, Joseph is just a shadow of who he was before. He is deeply old, cannot walk without a cane, has hearing problems and is suffering from senility. Joseph is defenseless, not so energetic and peacefully living out his last years. Suffers from forgetfulness. All this is due to the fact that he stopped practicing Hamon.

In extreme situations, Joseph screams Oh noǃ / Oh shit / Oh my goodǃ or Holy Shitǃ

The main character is 2 parts of the story and one of the main ones is in 3 parts and the minor character is in 4 parts. He is the grandson of Jonathan Jostar. His father died, and his mother escaped after the killing of a military man. It is known that the father was born shortly after the death of Jonathan, and his mother was picked up by Erina as a baby during a shipwreck ^[5] . Maybe like his grandfather to use Jamon, very insightful and prudent, almost always predicts the actions of the enemy. After Speedwagon reports victims in Mexico from a mysterious man from a convoy, Joseph is attacked by a vampire, but defeats him. He goes to Mexico and discovers an underground object where the Nazis are trying to revive a man who was imprisoned in a stone pillar more than 2000 years ago. After rebirth, a man from a column kills all people, but is defeated by Joseph. Joseph later goes to Rome, where “3 more people from the column” were discovered to you, Esidisi and Kars. It turns out that they once created stone masks. Joseph begins to train the Hamon technique with Caesar Zeppeli, the grandson of Antonio Zeppeli. Later, he promised people from the convoy that he would definitely become stronger, and Aisidisi put a ring in his throat that would kill him in a month if he did not defeat him and did not get the antidotes on the Aisidisi ring. In the end, Joseph defeats all the people from the column, but loses his left hand ^[5] .

Six years before the events, Stardust Crusaders moved to live temporarily in Japan, where he briefly entered into an affair with Tomoko Higashigata, who resulted in the birth of an illegitimate son from Joseph - Josuke.

Joseph is 69 years old in Stardust Crusaders 3, but he is still full of energy, due to the awakening of Dio, he gets a stand and pulls Zetaro out of prison and helps him understand his strength and defeat Dio. It turns out to be killed for a time when Dio injures Joseph and sucks out his blood, but later, through a blood transfusion of the defeated, Dio returned to life ^[5] .

In 1999, it was shown that Joseph arrives in Morio and meets his son for the first time and accidentally finds a completely invisible newborn girl who owns the Achtung Baby booth and, not finding her parents, decides to become her new father, calling Shizuka Jostar.

The overly emotional reaction of the character to various difficult situations and dangers, accompanied by shouts like Oh Noǃ, Oh my Godǃ, Holy Shitǃ, became an Internet meme ^{[7] [8]} , an object of parodies ^{[9] [10]} and even merchandise ^[11] .

As part of the merchandising with the image of the character, many different accessories were released; T-shirts ^{[12] [13]} , collectible figures depicting a young and old character ^{[14] [15] [16]} , key rings ^[17] and more ^[18] .

Criticism

Richard Eisenbase from the Kotaku website noted that despite the frivolity of the story itself ( Battle Tendency ), the character himself turned out to be smart and incredibly interesting, able to predict the tactics of opponents and actually dragging the whole story behind him. According to the critic, it is a pleasure to watch how the character again and again finds himself in difficult and hopeless situations, but thanks to his ingenuity, each time he turns the situation to his own advantage ^[19] . The Comics Alliance website devoted a separate discussion to the character and the plot of the manga, where various critics expressed their opinions, for example, Zia noted that adding negative qualities to the hero on the contrary makes him more interesting; he is impudent and uses his ingenuity to confuse the villains, and then explains his ideas. According to the critic, Joseph sees the world as crazy and inconsistent, following some inconsistent rules. This, in the opinion of the critic, partially recalls the deeds of the super-hero Mr. Miracle authorship of Jack Kirby. Claire Napier, on the contrary, did not agree, calling Joseph "aggressively stupid", fickle, "glass" idiot, who is not able to correctly express his emotions, but only arranges a theater in front of other characters. Claire compared the character to Song Goku in his extreme condition and contrasted it with Kensiro from the manga " Fist of the Polar Star ", as an example of a truly worked out character ^[20] .

Ji Winterfield from the My Anime list website noted that Joseph’s temperament and his unwillingness to retreat from his goals made him a favorite character in the eyes of many viewers, who he remains to this day ^[21] . Also, according to critics of the MyAnimeList website, Hirohiko Araki, despite following the traditions of the shonen genre, sought to challenge the established concepts of masculinity through the image of the character and deliberately deprives the character of the stereotypical positive qualities typical of the main male characters in literature, creates him an eccentric image, and also a female mentor (the father died in the story before the main events and did not possess superpowers), which also became a challenge to the plot stereotypes. This, according to the critic, looked especially daring in the 80s, when Japanese and Western society were much more patriarchal than today ^[2]

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Character List
• Dio brando
• Jotaro Kujo