DU Episode 14

Let's Go to the Manga Artist's House, Part 1 (漫画家のうちへ遊びに行こう その1) is the fourteenth episode of Diamond is Unbreakable and the eighty-eighth episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It covers Chapter 318 through most of Chapter 321 of the manga.

Summary
Hazamada brings Koichi to the home of famed manga artist Rohan Kishibe, who gives them a tour of his studio. Despite being creeped out by how far Rohan goes to perfect his manga, Koichi and Hazamada can't resist the chance to sneak a peek at his new manuscript. The moment they do, however, they fall under the power of Rohan's Stand, Heaven's Door, which allows him to open their bodies like a book and read all of their secrets. After learning of Koichi's encounters with Stand users, Rohan writes a safety lock in one of Koichi's pages, preventing Koichi from attacking him. He then proceeds to take pages from both Koichi and Hazamada as material for his manga, leaving them with no memory of what just happened. That night, Koichi senses something amiss when he discovers he's lost 20 kg, but suddenly forgets about it just as he prepares to inform Josuke. The next day, Koichi finds himself at Rohan's house again, with Josuke and Okuyasu following closely behind.

Manga/Anime Differences

 * Removed Rohan's lines about how reading common peoples' lives is of great interest.
 * A flashback scene of Toshikazu in a book store is added.
 * In addition, the Stand user Masazo Kinoto can be spotted during this scene with his back conveniently obscured.

Commentary
"Rohan finally appears in this episode. I was personally in charge of several storyboards for this series and they aren’t given randomly. In fact, I am systemically given the first episode of each new cour, so Episodes 1, 14 and 27.

I was also responsible for about a third of the directing. If I had to remember one thing from it, it would be the compositing around Heaven’s Door. Its power lacerates the face off like an open book, visually speaking, so we had to pay attention to each page separately. Concretely, the operation consists of creating content for each of the pages and then incorporating it and sticking it as naturally as possible inside the book. Suffice to say the process has been long and tedious, and no one was spared. You could say that Heaven’s Door is such a fearsome Stand its effects can be felt by the production studio (laughs).

About the content of the episode, we wanted to highlight the comical elements of this arc. This is why a lot of the drawings have such a comical look. At the same time, we had to correctly dose the disquieting, even sinister atmosphere that Rohan exudes. The mangaka’s face is really rich in expressions, and in general it is a pleasure to animate this character. As a nod to his work, the direction adopts an editing style of some shots into panels, like a comic book. The episode ends like this, leaving Rohan’s case hanging, with Koichi coming back to visit him as if nothing had happened… It is the ideal transition into episode 15."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries

Trivia

 * This episode adds a few changes to the ending theme animation, such as adding Rohan drawing manga, Akira Otoishi playing guitar and Joseph Joestar holding Shizuka.