"Shakedown Road" (Story Arc)
"Shakedown Road" (『カツアゲロード』, "Katsuage Rōdo") is the fourth story arc in JoJolion.
It narrates Josuke and Joshu's misadventure in Shakedown Road, where they repeatedly get their money extorted.
Summary
The next day, at the breakfast table, Josuke asks Norisuke for a cell phone and the chance to go to school. Norisuke agrees but orders Joshu to escort him.
Joshu tests Josuke with a trigonometric problem, which he solves before Joshu asks him to walk with him to a different high school as a favor. Josuke and Joshu travel to Shakedown Road, known for its kleptomaniacal community. Joshu hopes to record himself being robbed to complain with evidence to the police for an earlier crime.
Arriving, Joshu unknowingly breaks a child's "compact" toy before her mother demands compensation; as does Josuke break a turtle tank in a nearby store window, apparently killing the turtles inside; for which the store owner extorts Josuke for ¥20,000 and a plan to pay off ¥330,000. Joshu captures the event with his phone; discovering that Josuke had stepped on leaves, he was moved almost instantly to the tank and then back, unaware.
Continuing, Josuke is confronted by three men who had been watching from afar, who accuse Josuke of having made one drop his cell phone into a puddle. Watching another recording just made, Josuke sees himself again slide backward, knocking into the man, then returning to his original position, again unaware. The men propose that Josuke deliver a package underneath a nearby flower pot to a nearby woman as compensation. Having been set up to exchange an illegal substance, Josuke and Joshu are soon arrested by a pair of police officers observing the situation.
Joshu analyzes suspicious actions between the woman and the gangsters during the exchange, localizing the effect to the ginkgo leaves scattered on the ground and intercepting their exchange of money, fleeing. While the policemen pin Josuke, the gangsters notice Joshu's sleight and give chase, quickly catching up using the ginkgo leaves.
Preparing to beat him, a nut and screw suddenly materializes on one of the gangster's hands. Confused, the man unscrews it, causing his hand to detach from his wrist. Panic rises among them as his other hand falls and more screws form before Joshu's Stand, Nut King Call, is fully revealed. Joshu escapes, reversing his Stand's effect before discovering his stolen money is, in fact, composed of leaves.
The policemen discover Josuke's package contains only candy and release him. Josuke reveals he had also deduced the power of the ginkgo leaves, and during its exchange, he had taken the money for himself with his Stand, which he uses to pay the pet shop owner in full for his case and turtles.
Josuke then makes a call to Yasuho while she is in class. Seeing Joshu's caller ID, she doesn't answer but noticing the origin of Josuke's call on her phone's map, Yasuho takes an interest in a nearby landmark named Joestar Jizō. Using her Stand ability, Yasuho learns that the monument was built as a memorial to a horse jockey named Johnny Joestar. Meanwhile, at Shakedown Road, Josuke comes across the statue and notices that the man the statue depicts has a hat similar to his own. The old pet shop owner decides to tell him the legend behind the statue, which he himself had heard from his grandmother.
Though Johnny came to Japan to teach military horsemanship, this was a cover-up for his true intention: to save his wife, Rina, from an incurable disease. Johnny, filled with an unbearable amount of grief, decided to do the unthinkable and returned to New York to steal the coveted Saint's Corpse, the only hope of removing Rina's disease. Narrowly escaping government pursuers, Johnny took the corpse back to Japan and hid it beneath the Meditation Pine near Morioh's coast. Johnny used the Saint's Corpse to cure his wife, but the disease was passed to his son, George Joestar III. Using Tusk's ability to force the curse out of George III, Johnny chose to take the curse upon himself. Tusk's ability then shot him in the head and knocked him to the ground, where a large boulder from above crushed his head.
With the shop owner's story finished, Josuke realizes that Rina is also a Higashikata and that his involvement with the Joestar and Kira families may not be coincidental.
Meanwhile, Yasuho returns to the Wall Eyes and the spot where she found Josuke. She pulls out a newspaper article dating back to November 13, 1901, the day Johnny Joestar was killed. On the same day, the article tells of a one to two-year-old soaked infant miraculously recovered near the Meditation Pine wearing a necklace of valuable gemstones. Yasuho suddenly notices a hole in the tree's roots right as a hand reaches out of the hole and drags her beneath the tree.[1]
Appearances
Chapters
- 018 (865). "Shakedown Road", Part 1
- 019 (866). "Shakedown Road", Part 2
- 020 (867). "Shakedown Road", Part 3
- 021 (868). "Shakedown Road", Part 4
- 022 (869). Morioh 1901
Volumes
- 04 (108). The Lemon and the Tangerine
- 05 (109). Morioh 1901
Trivia
- The story arc's original name, "Trouble with the Curve," was named after the Clint Eastwood film of the same name.
References
- ↑ JoJolion Chapter 22: Morioh 1901
