Jonathan Joestar is a character created by the manga (also known as Japanese comic) artist Hirohiko Araki. He is the main character of the first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure which was first published in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine in Japan in 1987. This manga also had an animated adaptation in 2012. Jonathan Joestar is the first protagonist of a story in which generations of Joestars have a fate that leads them to fight for justice against evil; a quarrel that started when he was young and developed a rivalry against Dio Brando, his adoptive brother whose inner evilness increased when he received immortality thanks to a phantom mask he got trapped in. This protagonist is the embodiment of the “gentleman” ¹; raised by a rich English family, he was loyal, courteous, elegant, well-behaved and also from a good social position. He had good education, was taught to be courteous and skilled in many areas, intelligent and sporty, and was always pushed to make the Joestar family proud. As a big muscular man, he is good at rugby and boxing, being admired by his male friends and peers, not only because of his skills, but also because of his strong values that included honor and camaraderie. His physical strength seems to be important as a male figure that protects the honor of his family and his beloved, shy and submissive girlfriend ². Also, it is important to mention that he is supposed to be a 19 years old man but has a huge muscular body that is impossibly big in terms of human proportions; having a really small head in comparison to his body, the amount of muscular mass this character shows would not be able to attain in reality. All these characteristics might be considered as a depiction of the hyper-masculine prototype that was also popular in the 80s, which is when this series started.
In many episodes Jonathan faces his cruel destiny, and despite all the issues he faces, he always has to fight back against any situation. Displaying his courtesy and power, he usually solves things by fighting his enemy Dio Brando, at the same time standing proud and loyal to his values as a Joestar. In one of the episodes, Dio tries to poison Jonathan’s father to inherit his wealth as an adoptive son, but the clever protagonist notices this fact and fights him, throwing him downstairs as he claims that he will protect his family’s honor. Then, Dio escapes from the mansion and later on he puts the phantom mask on, emerging as a sort of immortal vampire. Once Dio escaped from the police after that incident, Jonathan starts a trip to defeat him and is able to do that due to the martial arts he trained for a long time. Also, in the final scenes, he also forgives Dio for all that he did because, as a gentleman, he stands honorable to the end.
The values of this character are that men have to be exceptionally strong, skilled and protective of their families and loved ones, ideas that might be considered a positive addition to society, but at the same time pushes the idea of men being stoical under any circumstance. Whilst the idea of men protecting the families could be not damaging, it can become a burden if all these expectations apply to men only, who also need to be cared for and protected as human beings. The value of men in society should not depend on how strong, impenetrable and protective they are, as everyone has the right to be vulnerable and not abused when behaving as human creatures with needs. It is not the size of the body or muscles that define how valuable men are, and it is not their duty to be the ones that provide support only, as they can also fail, and need help as any other person. Nowadays, many young men are raised just like in the past, taught that they have to be strong and tough despite everything, which has also led to high rates of male depression in the last decades due to this lack of connection with their own needs, promoting damaging activities towards others and themselves. It is important for people to be aware of their own needs to prevent mental health issues, which seems to be a big problem among men, and these ideas of the hyper-masculine man do not promote self-care, and are fed on the idea of men being tough and impenetrable, which ends up in damaging people and sometimes, even suicide³.
As Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures evolved, so did the characters. Even though it is not the same character that continues on the next stories, it is the same storyline with the same family members that continues the legacy of “the Jojo” of that time. The evolution of the Jojos kept changing with the years and in the last comics it was clear that the depiction of the protagonist had different values and approaches. In this instance I will mention Johnny Joestar (whose name is also Jonathan Joestar), the 7th Jojo of the series which has a completely different shape: he looks slenderer in comparison to Jonathan Joestar, and also the poses he does in the comics have a different body language that presents him as more vulnerable, even being the first disabled person to be the main character in these series. Even though Johnny still has the same stare as the main characters, the poses, body and even make up show a bigger influence of the western fashion magazines and androgynous culture in Hirohiko Araki, who has adapted this style in the last comics. As the perception of strength has changed with time, this character shows another kind of spirit, being disabled and still wanting to win against his fate. The reasons for this change might answer to a need to fit into other cultural standards, being Hirohiko a big fan of western music and fashion.
Bibliography
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gentleman
Patricia M. Rodriguez Mosquera, “Masculine and feminine honor codes”, International Journal of Social Psychology 2011 26:1, 63-72,
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1174/021347411794078499
De Sam V. Cochran, Fredric E. Rabinowitz, “Men and Depression: Clinical and Empirical Perspectives”, 2000,
https://books.google.ca/books?id=-bOVTz8HgDoC&lpg=PP1&ots=Gc4_fgwAuy&dq=men%20depression&lr&hl=es&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=men%20depression&f=false
Ishimwe Hugues
I enjoyed your choice and reading about JoJo Bizzarro, you made an amazing summary of a long series while also keeping to what only was needed for the assignment. The analysis of the the first character was profound from physical ability and looks to behaviors and ways they existed in the society around them. The comparison was also done well to the new character and the choice was complementing as the series tries to pick people of all differences to make the main character. your connection from how the representation of men in media like this enforces us to the idea of hypermasculine was great and especially from this anime we can see it here as the characters often monologue and describe their inner thoughts and most times they sound stoic as you said. This in turn increases the rates of depression and the source you provided for it gave me more insights into the relation. if you had also included sources that showed the correlation between those affected specifically with this type of media it would have helped as many people have done this research especially recently with anime and depression. the other choices of sources are great as I said and helped further your point, and also said that Araki (manga designer) fell out of love with the bulky characters that seemed out of touch with reality around part 4 of the series so he switched to a more realistic style hence the progression.