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7/13/2018 index.html The Thread Unbroken: How 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure' Took Manga Out of the Boy's Club Jolyne, sixth protagonist of the 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure' series, and her Stand, Stone Free. 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] When reflecting in 2006 about how he came to design the hero of the sixth entry of his Shonen series, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure creator Hirohiko Araki remarked, "Back then, it was an era when it was unthinkable to have a female character taking punches... I felt that I might not be able to draw that with a female character, and that readers wouldn't be able to keep up, but as I lived on longer, I started to think that men and women are the same..." While not a wholly revolutionary thought, this was the mindset that catapulted #JJBA out of the boy's club for good. It's the moment a titan of the bromantic beat-em-up genre stood up and said the ladies could officially dish just as well as the men. It was when I really started to engage not just with the artistic posing and the fantastic action, but with the soulful measures of this Bizarre Adventure. This is Stone Ocean, the story of Jolyne Kujo. file:///C:/Users/Ben/Documents/Creators.co%20Articles/4379171/index.html 1/7 7/13/2018 index.html Power, beauty, determination... tell me you aren't already in awe? 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] So a little bit of background if you haven't kept up on my #30in30 project: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is a long-running series of manga starting back in 1986/87 that tells the generational story of the Joestar family and their battle against evil. Jolyne is the sixth protagonist, descended directly down the bloodline of the first arc's hero, through her father, Jotaro, who lead Stardust Crusaders. But what is it that sets Jolyne apart from her predecessors? Why is she indelibly carved into my soul in a way that even Joseph and Josuke can't claim? If you keep saying Steel Ball Run is the best, why did this teenage delinquent change your life and make for your favorite part, Ben?! Honestly, I believe there are a number of factors at play, but let's tackle the big ones: resonance, resilience, compassion, and resourcefulness. Spoiler warning ahead! Resonance file:///C:/Users/Ben/Documents/Creators.co%20Articles/4379171/index.html 2/7 7/13/2018 index.html Let's just say Jolyne and I have a lot in common... 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] Jolyne is a complicated character, and that makes for a great groundwork for a story, as any writer will tell you. As a 19-year-old girl who's always danced on the edge of the law, the fact that we meet her as she's being transferred from temporary holding to a more secure prison in northern Florida keeps us on edge about how to trust her. She seems sweet, and even in the flashbacks about how she got stuck in jail, she seems to fawn over her boyfriend, Romeo... but she's also coyly avoiding the parts of her history pertaining to involvement with gang activity. What's really of interest is her relationship with her dad, Jotaro. She resents him for never having been around for her childhood, always having other things to focus on, always worrying about work or the next trip, eventually leaving her and her mother. She sees this man as proof that she shouldn't trust the permanence of anything but herself in this life, which is a common state for anyone who grew up with abusive or absentee parents. Seeing Jolyne snap with rage when her father suddenly shows up at the Green Dolphin Street Prison, trying to drive her life and tell her about some "mysterious looming threat," all she wants to do is spit in his face and call, "Bullshit!" file:///C:/Users/Ben/Documents/Creators.co%20Articles/4379171/index.html 3/7 7/13/2018 index.html Preach, girl! 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] Still, Jolyne keeps her cool (mostly) and wades through the visit with her absentee father. When it turns out the whole thing was a set-up by an enemy trying to take revenge on Jotaro and he ends up being disabled, our heroine changes her tune, however. The story becomes a redemptive arc, as Jolyne must fight to restore her father's memories and Stand to save his life, and stop the villain's master plot. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it's the sort of story you only get in fantasy, but the essence of it: getting that moment when the person who never showed you weakness can only rely on you, and you have to buck up and find what things are really worth to you? Well, we all like to live in that little bit of hope every once in a while. Resilience Even in the face of seemingly assured death, Jolyne shows no fear. 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] When you think of a ball of string, "strength" isn't exactly the first thing to come to mind. But Stone Ocean definitely shows us all the ways that a little wire can be the most impressive item in the world. You probably grew up with a great example of one, in fact: a baseball! And, yes, it's technically a cork center with yarn around it, but the theory stands. Or what about the woven threads of Kevlar? Much like these powerful "strings," Jolyne has more strength than appears at first glance, even to herself. file:///C:/Users/Ben/Documents/Creators.co%20Articles/4379171/index.html 4/7 7/13/2018 index.html OH! THAT'S A BASEBALL! (Sorry... Couldn't resist a reference) 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] You see, she wasn't always this way. In his book, Manga in Theory and Practice, Araki describes it this way: "Jolyne also goes through a process of losing her naivety. Stone Ocean is all about her inner growth from childish to badass." Take the chapter "Prisoner of Love," for example, where we see one side to Jolyne's strength: that of her integrity. At this point, Jotaro as been attacked by the mysterious Stand, White Snake, who stole his memories and abilities, rendering him all but dead. Jolyne manages to get to the shoreline where a submarine from Jotaro's contacts waits for them, giving the pair the perfect escape... But she only sends her father back for medical help. She has every reason to leave, use the Speedwagon Foundation's resources to clear her name! Except one... She can stay back and track down her father's attacker. And this is growth shown only in the first quarter of the arc - Jolyne still has so much of her journey to go through, yet we can still see what mettle she is made of. Strangely enough, this is the first time we really get to see this kind of growth for a protagonist in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure up to this point. Sure, we had Joseph's arc of "I'm a huge jerk" to "I'm slightly less of a jerk" in Battle Tendency, but that's about the furthest range we ever saw until Ms. Kujo hit the scene. True, others would continue to build upon it, but she set the framework, and her strength became my own in myriad ways. Compassion If we can't love are enemies, are we really any better than them? 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] In the preface to the first Stone Ocean collected volume, Araki said of his first leading lady, "it seemed interesting. And it could be a person with great humanity like the Virgin Mary. I felt I just had to make the protagonist a woman." While it's true that we could and have seen compassion from male leads (Josuke, in particular, was a highly empathetic young man), there's something special about having someone like Jolyne in the lead, dishing out the bloodbaths, but also calling others to mercy. Let's look at the source of the image above, after Jolyne and her friend, Hermes, defeat a mass of pond plankton gifted sentience and human-like form by White Snake's abilities (the series is called Bizarre for a reason, folks). Hermes is dead-set on killing the creature calling itself Foo Fighters once and for all, as it's an enemy that meant to kill them to guard Jotaro's memories and Stand, but Jolyne pushes her away and feeds the creature water. Despite her friend's protests, the young Kujo knows that if she gives mercy to Foo Fighers, then all she's doing is playing to its need to be alive, to be a file:///C:/Users/Ben/Documents/Creators.co%20Articles/4379171/index.html 5/7 7/13/2018 index.html person. It has no loyalty to their enemies, so why not try and win it over and see if it can give them information on the user of the mysterious Stand that attacked her father? Tempering strength with compassion is a hard path to tread, but it's one that Jolyne chooses time and time again, of her own free will. Resourcefulness Jolyne unleashes her Stand for the first time. 'Stone Ocean' [Credit: Shonen Jump, Hirohiko Araki] Clearly, all JoJos are masters of the art of resourcefulness, but I'd argue that Jolyne is the queen of them all, here.

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