Hirohiko Araki: Combining Classical Art, Dad Music, And A Generational Curse

Hirohiko Araki is an infamous manga artist that has been the creator of one of the longest-drawn-out universes within manga and anime, his magnum opus: Jojo's Bizzare Adventure. His work has inspired countless others. His iconic style often has style and composition references in multiple forms of media, and even inspires many award-winning artists like Megan Thee Stallion. (Instagram post seen below)

Even western shows like American Horror Story, take elements of the show and incorporate them into their own genre. It has also been woven both consciously and unconsciously into pop culture, affecting how masculinity is portrayed, showing strong female protagonists, and having very similar storylines copied into movies, shows, and even novels. 

 

   Araki's motivation for creating his art is to take all of what makes humanity good (art, music, fashion, motivation, friendship, etc.), and combine it so that it can be celebrated by his readers and watchers. He incorporates high-fashion poses, ingenious outfits, names and traits of his favorite musical artists, and complex characters in each chapter, making it clear that Araki is not just publishing what sells, but having fun with it in his own way. 

    So while the series has been going on for 35 years, Araki always strives to keep things fresh and creative, often warping the color scheme and adding eccentric poses to have fun with his characters. Each part is vastly different from the next, to show this, below is the part number and a one-line description of the plot: 

Part 1: Vampires In 1800's England

 

Part 2: Classic Hero Saves the World (From Wham!, ACDC, and Cars)

Part 3: Classic Hero Journeys to Egypt to Save the World

 

 

Part 4: Small-Town Murder Mystery 

 

Part 5: Following the Rise of an Italian Mafioso

 

Part 6: American Prison Break 

Part 7: Cowboys Horse Race across America in the 1800s

 

Part 8: Amnesiac Gains back his Memory

As you can see from the limited descriptions and art style, each volume is wildly different, but still coincides with the same family (the story is about a generational curse) and overarching story. Araki also actively uses changes in color and distinctly wild styles to make every panel enjoyable compositionally. This ability to think out of the box, which has become a staple of his works, helps to distinguish the manga from other works with the same general audience. His style incorporates the line work from earlier American comics, and classical elements in terms of displaying characters and proportions. He makes something unique: where the characters do not have the same morals, ambitions, and characteristics but still strive for a goal, showing the uniqueness of humanity that Araki values very deeply. 

Araki also is known for loving to travel. In all of his volumes/parts there are different locations the characters see that pay homage to the great iconic architecture throughout the world.  One particular character, Rohan, who is meant to be an avatar of Araki's, goes to the Louvre. This allowed him to recreate great iconic works in his style like my favorite art piece: Nike of Samothrace. (pictured below)

This specific volume was actually sold in the Louvre while Araki hosted a gallery there. When asked about why he felt the need to have galleries, Araki stated that he wanted his art and characters to be appreciated, and he felt that often his work was consumed too quickly, he wanted his work to be more thoroughly celebrated. I think this displays Araki’s unique drive of creativity to interweave the lines often created between the culture, the artist, and the viewer, by explicitly wanting to engage with readers of his art and being obvious with his inspirations. This bleeds through as his playlist of inspiration can often be seen through character names, and you can very easily see this engagement by looking up "jojos" on a Spotify account. This playlist will be littered with themes and "Dad Music": Queen, Van Halen, Deep Purple, Dio, etc. Some fans even speculate that the show is based on "Get Back" by the Beatles.

 

    Araki also is heavily inspired by social issues, often taking his work to have political messages. In his Part 6: Stone Ocean Araki has his main character framed and put into a maximum security prison, where she sees the injustice inside and actively has to fight against it in order to save her father. This same part even goes as far to show racism and brutality in the United States. Discussing the modern impacts of slavery through both subtle and unsubtle storylines. 

*Japanese manga is read from right to left

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• Overall, Araki has significantly contributed to the culture by producing his art, but he also is not ashamed to be explicit about displaying and talking about his inspirations and creative process in his works, often dropping real names of brands and other creative artists to not only inspire readers through the themes of his stories, but also use everything that makes him happy within his culture to hopefully fulfill his readers.

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• Lastly, here is a video of his anniversary video where he explains very briefly his hopes for viewers and reflects on his life's work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s7wpoal1dI

*All Scans were taken from the official artwork, meaning there are often page breaks that warp the images. All other images belong to @theestallion on Instagram and Versace’s magazine archive