SJ: There's been a major JoJo revival the last ten years with all the anime series being made. How does it feel to have your series reach new heights of popularity again after so many years? Araki Sensei: I'm extremely grateful for all the support from the fans. There are new, younger fans being introduced to the original manga after experiencing JoJo through anime and other mediums. The fact that there's a new generation of readers is the core of what JoJo is about passing the torch on to the next generation. Sometimes, maybe influenced by my physical state that day or some chemical change beyond my understanding, my drawings go better than I had anticipated and make me think, “This line is really great!” or “I nailed the curve of that cheek! It’s perfect!” When those drawings come like unexpected presents, when my art is better than me, I think that maybe it’s the god of manga descending to visit me." Araki Sensei: I think it can be applied, but I'm not too familiar with American/Western comics so I can't give specific examples. However, I believe that detailed, precise manga panel development designed to depict intricate emotions is the defining feature of Japanese manga, and that approach can be applied in various forms. SJ: How do you come up with the Stand powers? Do you come up with the character or their powers first?

The through line in all successful franchises, to Araki, is a strong goddamn character. This cannot be over-emphasized. The emphasis reflects Araki’s success with the dynastic narrative of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, if also the general direction toward which the manga paradigm has shifted. He goes so far as to say that in extreme examples, “compelling characters negate the need for story or setting.” As someone who has only ever failed to explain Araki’s storylines to the uninitiated, I daresay Araki doesn’t lie. He opens with the subtitle, “Returned to the Envelope Unread,” which reads as clumsily as he claims his failed submissions were in the beginning of his career. It is telling that he can’t describe his failures very well, because the leadfooted tone disappears when Araki starts discussing his triumphs. He is as good at talking about his greatness as he is poor at talking about his shortcomings, so I’d caution taking him too seriously when he waxes humble: His precision and planning behind proud achievements is as important on the confidence, even hubris, required to start any career in the arts. Araki’s methodology will do nothing if not impart confidence in craft. He calls his methodology the “Golden Way.” Hirohiko Araki clearly didn't write this primarily for a western audience. The market for "manga" written by western authors in Japan is nearly non-existent. The odds of a non-Japanese person publishing a hit in a magazine like Weekly Shonen Jump is-brutally- probably less than a fraction of 1%.

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keeping up a serialized manga requires great amounts of time and stamina. Missing a deadline will begin to exact a mental and physical toll, and once you finish your assignment and it comes time to face the next week’s planning meeting, you’ll already be exhausted in mind and body. Under those conditions, continuing to make good manga is not possible. If you can’t find time to do this kind of research, or even to watch movies or read books or other activities to help find ideas, you’ll wither as a mangaka."

Major props to him for admitting the earlier arcs were marginally defined by their abundance of dichotomies. I was drawn to it for the same reasons I was drawn to Sonic Adventure 2, Yin and Yang, and the colour grey. But while fantastic for superficial reasons, it's too reductive, as he admits and says he learned from (and I believe) later on. Perhaps JoJolion was a test of this, and that's where my complex feelings towards it lie. SJ: Much of the emphasis of your new book, Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga is on shonen manga storytelling—is your advice the same for other kinds of manga? Also, do any Western comics come close to capturing the manga panel development work you describe in your book? If so, which ones?Hirohiko Araki advice is an excellent contribute to the mangaka community; however, this book the reader will only get to the middle of Chapter 3 before putting the book down to take notes for contemplation of putting the puzzle together. The Shueisha Inc. who translated this from Japanese into English did not properly structure the paragraphs of this book. Blame Shueisha Inc. editorial staff for disrupting the flow of the story, not Hirohiko -since English is not Hirohiko's native language!

At the time, Star Wars (1977) was wildly popular, but I preferred Carrie (1976) and its tale of a girl with supernatural powers who exacts ferocious revenge upon her parents and bullies. I was well aware that what I liked and what became smash hits were two different things. But even knowing that, I couldn’t shake my desire to remain true to the things that I personally enjoyed, and that I thought were good, and to not hew to what was currently in vogue."Now, while the book is poorly translated in places, and the advice itself fairly vague or common (with exceptions, of course), I'd still recommend an admirer of Araki read this work. It is overflowing with enthusiasm and passion by someone who truly adores the form in a way few living mangaka do. It's filled with great tips for ALL artistic expressions - even a dancer might take something from his words. However, it's not for one who is unfamiliar with him, and would come of as simplistic, perhaps pretentious. He goes into great detail about how he creates characters, and even shows you his character template that he uses to think through his characters before he sits down and designs them visually. Steel Ball Run took an interesting approach to battle manga by focusing on a positive portrayal of a hero with a disability. What inspired you to create Johnny Joestar? Araki no cree que existe algo así como un manual para conseguir el éxito. Él cree en los puntos clave, los elementos existente en todas las obras de éxito, pero no en las reglas universales. Cada obra es una montaña. Y para escalar esa montaña, el autor debe encontrar sus propios medios, incluso si hace uso de un mapa. En otras palabras, Araki nos da las bases a partir de las cuales cada artista debe encontrar su método.

No hay truco. Ni talento ni genio ni excepcionalidad. Sólo el trabajo duro, metódico e inteligente de ir generando un diccionario cada vez más grande. Aprender lo que funciona, y explotarlo, aprender lo que no funciona, y evitarlo. Observar no hasta que la narrativa y el arte sean nuestra segunda piel, sino hasta que lo sean la curiosidad y la necesidad de observar. Some may consider the idea of a skill book to be something of a relic of the past. Beyond the concept of an instructional book which usually focuses around a base level skill set and on hobbies or learning the arts, the idea of a material that engages with a readership that seeks to benefit from an author’s experience in one way or another is something that is typically reserved for memoirs or other marketable genres for famous and well acclaimed people to offer insight to the success and failures of their career/life.This is a review of the book plus my thoughts on Araki's Jojo series under the new light of this book. Story. Araki says that story is the least important of the three. The explanation he gives is interesting. But I believe story has never been the strongest point of Araki's manga, so perhaps his emphasis on the other two fundamentals is unsurprising. You've spoken in other interviews about how you drew muscular body types in Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency because Stallone and Schwarzenegger were popular at the time. You've also said that you moved to thinner body types for Diamond is Unbreakable and Vento Aureo because readers were losing interest in muscle men and you wanted to do more with your interest in fashion. Steel Ball Run and JoJolion seem to represent another big shift in the evolution of your art style. What inspired the looks of Steel Ball Run and JoJolion?