How Hirohiko Araki Makes a Character

[Music] JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a really popular series both in Japan and all over the world and there are a lot of people who love Jojo but some may find it hard to explain why exactly they love it so much I'm sure some of you have been in a situation before when someone asks you why do you like Jojo or why should I watch Jojo and you might say something like Stan's bloodlines musical references or or muda muda and after stumbling over your words for a minute or so you'll probably just end up saying you've just got to watch it and honestly it can be difficult to sum up what makes Jojo so special or even what the series is vaguely about in just a few words because there are so many different aspects to the series that make it what it is in the book manga in theory and practice written by JoJo's creator hirohiko Araki he goes into great detail on what he believes are the four fundamentals of manga structure themes characters story and setting and what brings these four fundamentals into fruition and holds everything together is the art so when looking at iraqís philosophy for writing manga you can almost immediately see how this concept has been applied to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and helps us the readers understand why the series just works no pun intended so when looking at how a Rakhi visualizes his fundamentals it's important to take note of how they are arranged you have characters story setting and themes which is much larger looming over the previous three fundamentals because your mangas theme needs to be taken into consideration when creating your characters story and setting world sir manga won't be consistent to quote Araki he says when creating a manga it is incredibly important not to simply draw on a whim but to be conscious of the four major fundamental elements as you draw am I making good characters is my story acceptable am i join a coherent setting are my themes consistent and steady are my drawings good enough and quo so if one of the four major fundamentals aren't given enough attention or thought your manga will suffer for example if you have poor characters your readers won't be interested enough to follow their journey no matter how your other elements are and if you don't have a solid and consistent theme your mangu won't feel complete and have that element that holds all of the others together and if your isn't strong enough then you won't be able to properly express all of the other elements so you could only imagine how difficult it is writing manga and constantly trying to keep all of your fundamentals in equilibrium but by far the most important fundamental that should be given the most attention is characters Araki himself says of the four major fundamentals characters are supreme if you have effective characters in place you will be undefeatable taken to the extreme this means that compelling characters negate the need for a story or a setting that's how incredible they are and after hearing this it's clear how a Rakhi feels about his characters and this is reflected in Jojo as the series characters are undoubtably its strongest element so in today's video we'll take a deep dive into how hirohiko Araki makes a character broken down into 5 chapters pre-planning creating protagonists and antagonists how to create empathy the difference between creating men and women and Iraqis influences so let's get started by looking at how Iraqi prepares to make a character I mentioned earlier of Rocky's book manga in theory and practice and throughout this video I'll be citing Araki from time to time because that's largely where I found the most information on a Rocky's character writing process so to quote a rocky on his character pre-planning process he says when I'm creating a new character before I do anything I always write a character history I have done so for over 40 years since before Jo Jo appeared in print to me it's akin to a chef's secret seasoning and here is what that character history she looks like it's pretty impressive isn't it especially when considering Araki has filled one of these out for every major character in all of Jo Jo and probably even for some of the betterment and minor villains too like less Quadra from part 5 although I doubt Araki writes one of these or completely fills it out for absolutely every character because in some cases it just wouldn't be necessary like a lot of the part 3 minor villains but I think it's cool that you can really tell when a Rakhi goes through this process because it works it's like how Oh Rocky compared this process to a chef's secret seasoning and for a lot of main cast members and great minor villains like risotto Riccio Ringo wrote again in Tom o Tamaki you can really taste a rocky spice it's also interesting to look at just how much detail goes into the character history sheets you have the more important traits like height weight personality special skills and fighting styles that give you a good idea of how to draw the character and how they'll behave in fight but there's also the most minor details that may never even be revealed in the manga so why write them a rocky says not everything to make characters history sheet will end up on the pages but it serves as a necessary base to determine how characters will react to the situations in which I place them which makes sense to always keep consistency and is why I Rock you will write traits like left or right-handed religion criminal record education sexual history do they have any plants or pets hobbies likes and dislikes and so many others but with all of these different categories it might be difficult to know where to start you could just start filling out whatever category the idea for the character starts with or maybe even a name would be a good place to start but interestingly a rocky begins every characters history sheet with this special skills category he says when I'm writing Jojo I'll often think of a character stand before anything else which means the first item I fill out on the character history sheet will be the characters special moves and abilities let's say I think of a character who can stop time I'll start there and see where that leads me do they need to be muscular to stop time what about their appearance is there any kind of hairstyle that might have something to do with time how would the relationship with time be reflected in the decor of their room and so on which is surprising to hear because I always thought that character stands were based off of their personalities but it turns out everything about a character design and personality are based off of their stands which explains how a rocky is able to create some really great characters who stand in person connect on so many levels like Foucault and Purple Haze and Josie and crazy diamond and after hearing Araki talks so much on his character creation process you can sort of deconstruct these characters going back to Foucault and Purple Haze for example so Araki would first come up with the idea for Purple Haze a very violent and ferocious stand with immense power and then he would move on to the character so what kind of character would possess the stand how about someone with a temper that keeps their anger bottled up inside them who's angry at themselves and angry at the world and when their temper gets the best of them they unleash that same pain they feel within to everyone around them like a virus and you can go through this same process with some of your favorite characters in the series and probably find some nuance between the stand and stand user relationship you may not have noticed on your first reader watch through and that's how powerful a simple character history sheet can be especially in Jojo when each character is created to complement their ability Araki says he got the idea for his character history sheets from seen actors preparing for roles in Hollywood saying an actor playing the part of a police officer might go to a police academy and learn how to move and act like a real professional the audience can tell in an instant whether something feels natural or not and the characters must strive to avoid giving performances that will shatter the suspension of disbelief but when the details come across as real they become a powerful tool to bring the role to life and that's generally how a rocky prepares to make a character which in theory sounds like a pretty foolproof system and a very thoughtful start to a great character so if some day I ever decide I want to write fiction books I would definitely make some character history sheets of my own so we've established how important characters are but among all of the characters a manga Co will create there is one that must stand above the rest and that is your protagonist protagonists are key to a successful manga and in some cases can carry an entire series given the proper motivation take the manga Naruto for example written by Masashi Kishimoto one of the most successful manga of all time and a lot of the serious success can be attributed to its protagonist Naruto and his motivation to become the next Hokage a title given to a villages leader and generally the strongest shinobi here's what Iraqi has to say about a protagonist motivation the most important part of a character is their motivation what does your protagonist want to accomplish if you can't clearly communicate their motives through their actions he or she is not a complete character Araki uses Goku from Dragon Ball as an example to further explain the importance of motivation and his words will also explain mine arto example from earlier and why a simple motivation can be so compelling his motivation is to become stronger and stronger it's a simple motivation that's easy to understand and has been shared by every boy which then makes room for deeper examination why does he want to become strong what would he do when he does because of this readers can conduct with the character and sharing the emotional highs and lows well other than wanting to become strong what else would be a good motivation for a protagonist well let's look at Jojo for example Araki generally seems to stray away from the typical pursuit for strength and makes a lot of his protagonists reactionary as in their motivation is determined by the antagonist and our hero's journey begins in reaction to what the villain has done for example jonathan reacting to do doing a whole lotta evil [ __ ] Joseph reacting to the awakening of the pillar man Johto reacting to do awakening and doing more evil [ __ ] and josuke reacting to a serial-killer tormenting his hometown although later in the series JoJo's motivations have a bit more variety and become more proactive like Johnny's journey towards self-improvement and giorno really been the first Jojo to take the initiative and fight against the evil in this world before it's directly threatened him which creates a nice little parallel between giorno and his father do as they both have a dream and actively work towards their goals here's a list of what Araki consider strong motivations and you can definitely see how he supplied some of these two JoJo's protagonists as well as how these are present in other popular Shonen manga self-protection to protect a loved one work duty or patriotism curiosity vengeance desires and pursuit of happiness but these are of course not your only options Araki says even simply boredom can be a strong motivation as long as what you choose interests you but moving on from character motivations another facet of protagonists of Rakhi holds extremely important is the philosophy that heroes fight alone saying if there's one criterion for a hero it's being alone when a protagonist is faced with an ultimate dilemma it must be one that the protagonist can solve and the protagonist must solve it with their own abilities and this concept carries into jo-jo but is able to be seen much easier in characters like Joseph and Joe throw than others because in Jojo our protagonists are usually fighting alongside the friends they've made along the way and it's rare to see just one of our heroes fighting by themselves but even in situations like this Araki is still able to exercise the idea of heroes fight alone by writing characters who don't rely on each other Araki uses bucho lotty's gained from part 5 as an example saying their connection is not that of leader and follower or of a brotherhood and when they fight they each stand on their own fundamentally characters who cannot fight without the aid of another can't be considered heroes when an audience sees someone dragging others into a fight they can't help but say hey don't rely on others Do It Yourself and even when allies are present when it comes to the fight heroes have no one else to rely upon and thinking about this when looking at a lot of the fights in part 5 we have our main cast who are almost always together but there is always one character who shines among the rest and this also explains where rocky will isolate characters or take allies out of fights even if it's done so pretty rudimentary like when giorno was crying out for help as he's being torn apart by babyface and Naranjo was like nah that's just Jonah waving at us but if giorno had helped there in that fight he wouldn't come off as a strong character who can hold his own and he wouldn't have grown as in this fight was when he learned his gold experience could heal himself and his allies so when Araki is creating his protagonist these two fundamentals are generally what he focuses on the most a strong and relatable motivation that aligns with most readers sense of morals and self-reliance but how about creating villains Araki believes that the allure of evil characters is their ability to express the ugly side of humanity saying when an evil character freely exhibits those normally hidden desires and acts in a way the readers cannot the readers can find great catharsis by providing an outlet for those ugly feelings that we all share you can depict a more lifelike range of emotions than those of only goodness and in doing so you can more effectively evoke readers empathy but it's not as simple as just making a villain perform acts of violence and terror because you have to write your villain in a way that can explain the reason why they act that way and ideally in a way that creates empathy which can be incredibly difficult Araki describes this process as a tremendously tall hurdle one that requires thought and planning to overcome so the way Rocky View is a complete villain is someone who the readers can accept and not in a way that makes us agree with them but to be able to understand them on some level and not have to question why they're evil as their characters should give some insight on how they've come to follow a villains path or rocky uses deal from phantom blood as an example that embodies his philosophy for villains saying indios case I depicted him as coming from an unfortunate operating saddled with a father with no redeeming qualities whatsoever I gave him a backstory that could explain his hunger for power and his willingness to become evil incarnate to obtain it deal wanted to get revenge upon the world for his terrible lot in life even if it meant taken an evil path and committing deeds contrary to morality and law in the end I think readers were able to accept that but this alone doesn't complete your villain as there is one other key ingredient to ensure a successful antagonist and that is to create a duality between your villain and hero without consciously creating your villain to contrast your hero you'd be wasting the potential of your manga because what use would two great characters be if there was no thematics in place to complete them let's look at josuke and kira from part four for example in essence these two characters complete each other as what one isn't the other is and this can be viewed from a simple yin and yang perspective one just and one evil but when we have stands it gives a rocky the opportunity to amplify the contrast between characters Kira and his killer Queen can destroy whatever they touch while Jos can crazy Dimond are the polar opposite and can restore whatever they touch but even before it stands this contrast can be done by simply the way you draw your characters a Rakhi says with Jonathan and do I base their characters off of the duality between light and shadow I use black and white contrast in my drawings to set them apart and something as simple as the contrast between Jonathan and do can really elevate the relationship between hero and villain and almost have a subconscious effect on the readers that makes it feel like these two characters were born to be enemies and that's a general idea of how a Rakhi goes about creating his protagonists and antagonists and the relationship between them a manga that's unable to create empathy as a manga without life an intern cannot be a success in order for people to care about characters they need to be able to understand their feelings and share those feelings be excited when the characters are excited and feel the heartbreak of characters low points and deaths but how do you create empathy with simply pen and paper and have readers genuinely care for your characters well part of it is everything we previously mentioned like making a character feel real through their history sheets and having a motivation that morally aligns with most people a Rakhi believes that a character with a righteous motivation is a surefire way to begat empathy saying the three principles of shown and jump our friendship effort and victory likewise Shonen manga readers will strongly empathize with what they feel is good and right and will reject that which they feel is unethical but it's not as simple as just making a character a perfect image of Justice that can do no wrong Araki says that this type of character will come off as fake and unlikable he also uses death notes Light Yagami as an example of a character who walks a fine line between empathetic and rejected as unethical as in each chapter of Death Note the readers opinions on the character can change and will question whether or not light is someone that can morally align themselves with but due to the grimwald dilemma light faces that doesn't make it an easy decision and captivates the readers so looking at the characters Araki has created in his earlier works he definitely followed the three principles of Shonen Jump closely making Jonathan in almost too righteous character but because of the nature of Jojo being a generational saga Jonathan was an exception to the rule because his character was setting the foundation for what have meant to be a Joestar so later in the series Araki would be able to create characters like Joseph and Jojo who would be more unethical than Jonathan but because they are joestar's and carried the same blood as Jonathan we know they're good people and as Jojo continued so would Iraqi pushing his characters more towards the border of empathetic and unethical eventually creating the character Johnny who I would say is the most morally grey protagonist in series and as a result feels the most real but when your characters Express very human desires that can impact their sense of morality it can be difficult to win them over to your readers and this is where Araki uses bravery as a means to create empathy upcoming spoilers for Jojo part 7 so if you haven't read steel ball run yet you can skip to the time on screen now imagine not having read steel ball run yet Wow anyways Araki uses Jonny as an example saying I often have my characters display bravery in my stories in JoJo's 7th arc steel ball run the villain president Valentine under attack by the hero Jonny stand begs Jonny to let him go and offers to bring back Johnny's dead friend from another dimension Jonny struggles with the choice whether he should bring his friend back to life or defeat his enemy readers are drawn in by the suspense they want to see how he will overcome this dilemma and that will keep turning the pages in anticipation and as we know Jonny overcomes his selfish nature and chooses to defeat his enemy and have his friend remain dead ultimately redeeming his character in the readers eyes through the empathy felt towards his bravery and although there are many other ways to create empathy and manga these are a few of the techniques Araki uses most and commonly implements into his characters [Music] some manga khmer feel that men and women and their stories need to be distinctly different through their personalities roles and implementations for example in some series the use of women characters may only be used for a protagonist motivation a romantic interest or a damsel in distress and your male character will fill the role of the hero trying to impress and win over the girl or rescue the girl that's been kidnapped by the villain but as times gone on the difference between men and women has become blurred and it's more likely today to see a woman fulfill the role of a hero or any role for that matter and when it comes to Jojo it's clear Rakhi doesn't feel the same as the other manga Capri viously mentioned he says in JoJo's sixth arc stone ocean I created a female protagonist named Jolene the only difference in the way a handle her as opposed to a male protagonist was not to draw her quite as beat enough but she faces battles every bit as brutal as the male characters who came before if anything sets apart male and female characters it's only visual so with the way a Rakhi approaches writing men and women you may ask if there's no difference between the two then how do you choose when to make a character female especially since women characters are a minority in Jojo a Rakhi says it's purely a matter of your own taste take you also of her Jose from Jojo lien who I made a variation of Koichi her Jose from diamond is unbreakable who Ichi represented friendship but I wanted to add romance to Jo Jo lien so I made the character a woman I included many other female characters in Jo Jo lien but that was because I wanted to include elements of eroticism so after hearing this it may seem that a Rakhi uses his female characters for romance but that's of course not the rule because stone Ocean was a part full of female characters that had very little romantic elements and what keeps Iraqis views on men and women consistent is that we've seen him create male characters that also fulfill a role of romance and erotica 'sm so to the people that deny any sort of queer subtext in Jo Jo I'll leave you with this quote from Araki some artists may think adding a woman might create an element of charm and therefore gain more popularity but I'm not so sure I agree I think that even if you're creating a manga that includes love and romance you can have it between two male characters as long as that fits with your mangas world as long as your characters are appealing you can get away with a world of all men you have nothing to fear and this quo is especially applicable at the JoJo's v Park golden wind that contains many elements of Mel errata system and a few heavily implied gay relationships but because of the world golden wind takes place in nothing feels out of the ordinary and men and women become indistinguishable and can embody whatever role Araki decides and lastly we have Iraqis influences which could have been the largest segment of this video considering how much of what Araki experiences in his life he applies to his manga but I don't see any reason to list them out because for one it would be impossible and two I could simply just say everything influences Araki and that's not an exaggeration just from reading Jo Jo as well as Iraqis author notes and interviews from over the years you'll start to find an endless pile of real-life influences stacking off everything from movies books author manga and religion to fashion music and industry icons a rocky even says he'll find inspiration in everyday objects lying around his home which is where the concept for stands like Whitesnake and cream starter come from as they're simply based off of CDs and shaving cream so instead of going into what we already know influences Araki like fashion and music how about we get more specific and focus on just one of Iraqis influences that inspired JoJo's most iconic character coming back to the philosophy of hero's fight alone the reason why rocky holds this idea to the utmost importance is because of Clint Eastwood saying Clint Eastwood's leading roles embody this image of a hero my father took me to see my first Eastwood film the good the bad and the ugly when I was in elementary school and that image has remained unchanged ever since of my characters the one who most markedly reflects the ideal heroes of Eastwood's roles is Jotaro Kujo just the way he stands Eastwood projects a commanding presence backed by intelligence and discipline as a character based on the image so too does Joe Tropos an intimidating figure just by standing with his hand in his pocket so to get into some like elodie for a moment if Iraqis father never took him to see the good the bad and the ugly a rocky may have developed a very different idea of what makes a hero and Jotaro may have never been created but thankfully Iraqi did see the movie and his Clint Eastwood art came to its climax in 2012 when Iraqi had met Eastwood and he performed Joe trow signature pose which I'm sure for Araki was a very special moment in this life but now I think we've reached the time for a conclusion so I hope this video and everything we talked about gave you a good idea of how hirohiko Araki makes a character and maybe even gave you a new appreciation for the characters within Joe Joe after hearing how thoughtful their creation process is but of course this is not everything as I'm sure rocky has a few hidden secrets and throughout the rest of his book and within interviews you can find a whole lot more on how he makes a character like specifics of how he decides to draw characters and the importance of clothing and accessories but this video has gone on long enough and let's just say it's better for you guys to go out and learn more on your own I also feel like I'm obligated to encourage you guys to go out and buy Iraqis book manga in theory in practice considering how helpful it was in the making of this video and it's also a great way to support Iraqi directly and his work but for now thank you all so much for watching like the video if you enjoyed and subscribe for more you can follow me on Twitter twitch Android my discord all linked in the description so with that said till next time and have a great rest of your day peace [Music]

Channel: xForts

Views: 673,582

Rating: 4.9746566 out of 5

Keywords: JoJos Bizarre Adventure, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, JoJo's, Bizarre Adventure, manga, anime, Golden Wind, Vento Aureo, King Crimson, stand, david production, JoJo Anime, Hirohiko Araki, xForts, Analysis, part 5, All Stands in JoJo, How Araki Makes a Character, character design, JoJo characters, Giorno Giovanna, Bruno Buccellati, Josuke Higashikata, Jotaro Kujo

Id: S2S9owjgfTo

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Nabs2099]

Wanna watch but lowkey don't like xforts