Joseph Joestar/History

Battle Tendency


Joseph is introduced as Jonathan's grandson having moved to New York with his grandmother Erina and seems to have naturally inherited the power of the Ripple (波紋, Hamon). When an old family friend Speedwagon is reported dead in Mexico, Joseph takes it upon himself to go check it out. His curiosity is piqued when he is attacked in New York City by Straizo, an old friend-turned-vampire. After being led on a wild chase in which his prepared attacks ultimately prove to be futile, he witnesses Straizo's suicide by the Ripple.

The Pillar Men
Joseph goes to Mexico in search of Speedwagon, revealed to be alive in a secret underground Nazi facility where the Nazis are trying to revive a man who seems to have been trapped in a stone pillar for 2,000 years. Here Joseph meets the Nazi Stroheim. Unfortunately, the Nazis are successful in awakening the man, who is christened "Santana" before he kills most of them. Joseph and Stroheim battle Santana and manage to defeat him, though Stroheim is fatally wounded.

Joseph then heads to Rome, where three more "sleeping pillar men" have been discovered underneath the Colosseum. In Rome, Joseph meets Caesar, a trained Ripple user near his age who is supposed to show Joseph the ropes. At first, they are unable to do anything but argue; Caesar blames Jonathan Joestar for causing the death of his grandfather Will A. Zeppeli through his incompetence. Caesar brings a Nazi named Mark to drive them to the Colosseum, where they find the three pillar men, Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars, awakened. Mark is casually killed by Wamuu, enraging Caesar and causing the pair to fight him. Unfortunately, even with his American Ripple-Infused Clackers, the untrained Joseph is unable to stand a chance. Luckily, he manages to talk them out of killing him.

Wamuu and Esidisi both end up inserting a "wedding ring" inside Joseph's heart and throat. They explain that the rings are internal time bombs set to release poison into his blood if he does not defeat them and retrieve the antidote they carry within a month. Joseph realizes that he will have to train or die, and Caesar introduces Joseph to his master Lisa Lisa, who also reveals that the motives of the pillar men are to seize the Red Stone of Aja to become perfect life forms.

Ripple Training
Along with Caesar, Joseph begins his training under Lisa Lisa. She immediatelly forces Joseph to use modified mask to alter his breathing, enough for him to be able to keep it in control when using the ripple. She then puts both students in the 'Hell Climb Pillar', a pillar covered with oil that requires expert control of the ripple to climb. Without experience in the use of the ripple, Joseph has trouble to climb, but finally manages to do so thanks to Caesar´s help. In  the next weeks Joseph trains under the harsh Loggins, who teaches him how to breathe in for 10 minutes straight and how to breathe 10 times in one second. As his last test test, Joseph needs to defeat Loggin in battle,

Before the month is up, however, Esidisi finds out that Lisa Lisa has the Red Stone of Aja and comes to take it. After learning that Loggins has been killed, Joseph uses his new skills and clever strategy involving his wool hat to defeat Esidisi, thus earning the wrath of Wamuu and Kars (who had previously thought of him more as amusement rather than a threat). Joseph does not notice that Esidisi's brain had latched onto his back and the brain weaves itself into Suzi Q's body, mailing the Red Stone to Kars in Switzerland. By using their combined ripples to neutralize each other Joseph and Caesar force Esidisi out of Suzi Q's body, destroying him.

Road to Switzerland
While pursuing Kars and Wamuu, Joseph is reunited with the supposedly-deceased Stroheim, who has been rebuilt as a powerful cyborg by Nazi science. However, Stroheim's machine body is quickly cut in half by Kars' "Light Mode." In Switzerland, the group discovers the location of the remaining two pillar men. Knowing the remaining pillar men's vulnerability to sunlight, everyone is eager to face them during the day, sans Joseph. Caesar, unable to accept this, gets into a conflict with Joseph and heads to battle Wamuu alone, coming remarkably close to defeating him if not for his own vengeance. Caesar is, however, able to rip off the latter's lip piercing, containing the antidote to Joseph's poison ring. Before dying from his wounds and being crushed by a stone slab, Caesar uses his final ripple to make a bubble out of his blood containing the antidote ring. Wamuu sees this but, respecting Caesar as a valiant warrior, allows the bubble to float to Joseph. Joseph and Lisa Lisa arrive too late and Joseph finds the bubble but vows not to drink the antidote until he has personally beaten Wamuu.

Skeleton Heel Stone
Joseph and Lisa Lisa, overwhelmed by Kars´s vampires, threaten to destroy the stone if they are attacked. The Pillar Men agree to dispute it in one fair, final one-on-one showdown at the Skeleton Heel Stone arena. Joseph´s match is against Wamuu in a deadly Roman chariot race-battle. Wamuu initially gets the upper hand, but Joseph still manages to counter his dangerous attacks and destroys Wamuu´s body, leaving only his head slowly suffering with the ripple. Joseph, in a sign of honor to the warrior, gave him some of his own blood to ease his pain.

Final Battle
Kars proves to be less honorable than Wamuu and breaks his promise to fight Lisa Lisa one-on-one and sacrifices one of his weaker vampires in order to defeat her. Angered by Kars's treachery, Joseph then challenges Kars, who looks upon him as a weak ripple user and not even worth fighting seriously. All seems to be over in this fight against Kars until a newly rebuilt Stroheim and his Nazi soldiers, Speedwagon, and Smokey arrive to help Joseph. Though it is revealed that Lisa Lisa is Joseph's biological mother, Joseph is constantly prevented from hearing about this. The ultraviolet light seems to have killed Kars and saved the world, but Kars had placed the stone mask on his face and fused it with the powers of the Red Stone of Aja to become an ultimate life form.

Joseph and company frantically try to devise strategies to defeat Kars and Joseph manages to crash Kars into a volcano with a plane. However, Kars is able to cover himself in an armor of bubbles to protect himself from the molten lava. Right when all hope appears lost, Joseph defends himself from Kars' enhanced Ripple with the Red Stone of Aja, which causes the volcano to erupt and throws Joseph into the sea and Kars into space.

The Aftermath
Weeks later, a funeral is held for the presumably-dead Joseph, but Joseph himself crashes the event and reveals that after he fell back down from the sky, he ended up in Italy where he was helped by some local fisherman and nursed back to health by Suzi Q and later marries her. Joseph then returned to America to find his friends bewildered and shocked; he comes to the realization that Suzi Q had evidently forgotten to telegram them reassuring his survival. Years later, Joseph, at the age of 67, bumps into a Japanese man in an airport. Joseph promptly punishes the man and subsequently explains his hatred of Japanese due to one marrying his daughter. In contrast, Joseph is content with his Japanese-made Sony Walkman and after putting his headphones on, he boards a plane to Japan.

Stardust Crusaders (1987-88)
"Oh! My! God!"

- Joseph Joestar's catchphrase for the majority of Part III

Joseph's daughter, Holy had apparently called him to Japan to help her son Jotaro, who had landed himself in a holding cell and refused to leave - claiming to be possessed by an evil spirit. Joseph arrives at the compound and at first, demands Jotaro to leave his cell. The latter ignores the request and uses the evil spirit to tear the little finger off Joseph's prosthetic hand. With no other choice, Joseph, in conjunction with his Egyptian companion, Mohammed Avdol, force Jotaro to unleash his "Stand" and trick him out of his cell. Jotaro admits his loss, and the group returns home where Joseph explains the manifestation of their stands is due to the recent awakening of the Joestar Family's arch-nemesis, Dio Brando.

When Holy develops a Stand which starts to leech away at her life, Joseph spearheads the effort to help her. Utilizing Hermit Purple, he tries to discern Dio's location (believing that by killing Dio, Holy's stand would disappear) - and is successful, thanks to Jotaro's Star Platinum noticing a fly in the background of the resulting photograph. Joseph, Jotaro, Avdol and newly joined companion, Kakyoin soon leave for Egypt by plane. During the flight, the group is attacked by an enemy stand user whom is defeated fairly easily, but manages to kill the plane's pilots. Joseph is forced to take wheel (despite having crashed a plane twice before) and manages to successively land it 35 km off the coast of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong
Arriving in Hong Kong, the group discussed their status over a meal. With Joseph's suggestion, the group decides to take a sea route through the Indian Sea that should get them to Egypt within 50 days. After inviting a random French tourist to their table, Joseph ordered the group some strange delicacies by mistake due to his inability to read Japanese Kanji. The french tourist, named Jean Pierre Polnareff, ends up impaling Joseph's prosthetic hand and quickly revealed himself to be one of DIO's men. At the Tiger Balm Garden, Avdol faced off against Polnareff's Stand, Silver Chariot. After defeating him, Avdol recognized Polnareff's chivalrous ways and chose not kill him. Jotaro then quickly removed Polnareff's flesh bud, just as he did with Kakyoin. At the dock, Polnareff asks Joseph about his prosthetic hand and decides to joins the group on their quest soon after.

Bast Mariah
After receiving a call from the Speedwagon Foundation, Joseph informed everyone that Holy had only four or five days left to live. In order to speed things up, they then took a train from Luxor to Cairo.

The Genesis of Universe
(The information in this section derives from a Light Novel not written by Araki. As such, it may or may not be considered canon.)

Joseph appears in the Genesis of Universe novel in both chapters, where he is kept captive in Satanic Coupler with Avdol, but when he is rescued by the rest of the group, Joseph helps defeat the locomotive stand. He throws his metallic hand in Satanic Coupler's way, stopping it on its tracks. He also saves Jotaro from The Scribe Ani, damaging his stand, Ptah.

The Final Battle
He also deciphers the cryptic message Kakyoin leaves in regards to Dio's power. Joseph battles Dio and even uses the Ripple, but it proves ineffective. He is temporarily killed, but revived by a blood transfusion from Dio's (ie. Jonathan's) body.

The Long Journey Ends
Jotaro and Polnareff's injuries were dealt with by the Speedwagon Foundation. Since DIO had taken much of Joseph's blood, Jotaro asked for a blood transfusion from DIO's body to Joseph's. After using Star Platinum to restart Joseph's heartbeat, the transfusion began. The shriveled-up body that Joseph had after losing so much blood began returning to his normal muscular figure and Joseph fully revived. Joseph uses the opportunity and plays a joke on Jotaro, claiming to be Dio possessing Joseph's body which nearly causes Jotaro to attack him. Luckily Joseph is spared a beating by claiming it was a joke.

Later, Jotaro and Joseph took the remainder DIO's body outside, where it evaporated with the rising sun. They then gave one final moment of thought for Kakyoin, Iggy, and Avdol.

At the airport, Joseph and Jotaro gave a final goodbye to Polnareff, who was finally ready to return to his home country of France. Joseph asks Polnareff to come with him to America, knowing that the latter had no one waiting for him back home. Polnareff refused the offer, stating that despite being alone, France was his homeland. The trio gave their final goodbyes and left, promising to see one another again someday. In Japan, Holy awoke fully healed and freed from the curse. Even miles away, she knew her son and father were coming home.

Diamond is Unbreakable (1999)
Jotaro travels to Morioh upon discovering that Joseph has an illegitimate son there named Josuke. Joseph ultimately also ends up traveling to Morioh to help localize Akira Otoishi, though he has aged, can no longer walk without a cane, wears spectacles, is hard of hearing, and isn't nearly as athletic as he used to be. He seems to have lost the use of his Hamon abilities, though this may be due to his age causing him to be incapable of sustaining the required breathing techniques for it. He is still able to use Hermit Purple, however. Joseph serves a supporting role as a result, and isn't involved in the majority of battles in this part.

At one point, he discovers an "invisible baby" which turns out to be the stand user of Achtung Baby. When the baby's carriage becomes invisible as well and rolls down a hill to land in a pool, Josuke panics about not being able to locate the baby in the water. Joseph, however, cuts himself to stain the water with his blood, thus allowing Josuke to find the baby. He says he did it because he wanted to make Josuke proud. By the end, Joseph adopts the baby and named her Shizuka - this, however, leads to further conflict with his wife Suzi Q, who believes the baby to be another "secret child."

Stone Ocean (2012)
Though he does not appear in Part VI, Araki has stated that Joseph would be in his early 90's at the time during the events of Stone Ocean.

Steel Ball Run
His counterpart is not seen so far in Part VIII: JoJolion, however on the Higashikata family tree, his name is seen as the father of Holly Kira, and the son of George Joestar II. His name is also shown without a death year, showing that he might be alive as his original counterpart was in the same year as well.