From our other sites
The story
An anecdote Araki Hirohiko shared in a past interview has become a hot topic on 5ch. About one to two weeks before Part 2 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure wrapped up, his editor told him, “I’m sick of Hamon, let’s do something different for Part 3,” and in that short window he came up with what would become his series’ signature concept: “Stands.” The thread also brought up how Akira Toriyama was forced by his editor to redesign Cell in Dragon Ball multiple times, with posters agreeing that the more popular a manga gets, the heavier the editorial meddling — though they couldn’t agree on which JoJo part is actually the best.
About a week or two before Part 2 of JoJo ended, my editor at the time suddenly said, “I’m getting kind of tired of Hamon, let’s go with something different for Part 3,” and I panicked — like, “uh, now what do I do?”
Even so, they weren’t about to give me any time off, so I somehow scraped together “Stands” in about two weeks and dove straight into Part 3.
With “Hamon,” I’d been drawing ripple patterns to represent the characters’ powers, so I wanted to head in a completely different direction — and that’s how I landed on this new rule of characters fighting with humanoid-shaped energy.
Source: shueisha-mangaexpo.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Guess the author broke his own rule later on, then.
Sanma: "Oh yeah? What's the newest protagonist's name again?"
Ebata: "Uh… haven't actually read that one yet~"
Normally that'd be a red flag, but with JoJo it's kind of understandable, right?
Even hardcore fans often aren't keeping up with the latest part in real time.
Also, let's be real, the recent parts just aren't as good anymore.
I read up through Part 5 and quit after that.
Better than Part 4, too.
The art's really gone downhill lately.
Everyone's drawn with these skinny "bean sprout" limbs (slang for scrawny physiques) and dead-fish eyes now.
Part 7 is peak JoJo (aside from how Sandman got handled).
Everything from the fight against the President through DIO's final moments, plus the epilogue — all phenomenal.
"Original-members wave"? What kind of Hamon technique is that supposed to be?
Well, the previous villain, Frieza, had set an impossibly high bar~
Shonen Jump editors really are sharp, though.
A lot of them are like lyricists who can't write music themselves but know exactly how to shape a song.
If anything, Part 3 is the watered-down version — it's pretty boring watching it back now.
Then again, momentum matters so much in these things that maybe you can't ever afford to let the creator rest.
But yeah, the idea of turning energy into a character was genuinely brilliant.
Ginga went downhill hard after Akakabuto.
Right, and then they head to the "Nagoya" stand-in and suddenly everyone's living a perfectly normal civilized life — total tonal whiplash.
The plan was for a quiet, taciturn type like Giyu to be the lead, but the editor made the final call to switch it to Tanjiro.
First time I've seen that take.
I like Part 5 too.
The only parts I actually bought the tankobon for and read in real time were Part 5 and Steel Ball Run.
Plenty of people like it more than Part 3.
Apparently weekly Shonen Jump serialization back then basically meant nonstop all-nighters.
Same deal as Dragon Quest.
I like Part 5 too, though.
I bet Part 9 gets re-evaluated once it's finished too.
Honestly this series is just better binged in tankobon form than followed week to week.
Same deal as the Chimera Ant arc in Hunter x Hunter.
Makes you wonder what the actual plan was if they'd kept going with it.
it's really not THAT good.
That one's huge with American fans, for what it's worth.
I figured the way it handles corpses and body parts would've caused backlash, but I guess not so much after all.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Stands are a concept that first appeared in Part 3, which began serialization in 1989. The story that Araki invented them in a short span after his editor pointed out that Hamon had grown stale is relatively well known, having been recounted by Araki himself in multiple interviews. The thread also referenced Toriyama’s Cell redesign saga — his preferred second form was called “uncool,” leading to the third form — another well-documented account from Toriyama’s own interviews. Posters linked the two stories on the shared point that the more popular a manga gets, the heavier editorial intervention tends to become. Where opinions split was over which JoJo part is the best, with supporters of Parts 3 and 4 clashing against supporters of Parts 5 and 7, with no resolution reached. One easily misunderstood point, also noted in the article itself, is that Stands weren’t simply a reskin of Hamon — they were an entirely new storytelling rule: visualizing energy as a humanoid figure.
*This article was compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Araki Hirohiko: ‘About one or two weeks before Part 2 of JoJo ended, my editor told me he was sick of Hamon and wanted something different for Part 3, so I desperately came up with Stands’.”
Leave a Reply