Soft & Wet

"Soft & Wet... When my soap bubble touches something and breaks, I take something from there."

- Josuke Higashikata, JJL Chapter 4

Soft & Wet (ソフト＆ウェット) is the Stand of Josuke Higashikata, originally belonging to Josefumi Kujo, featured in JoJolion.

Appearance
Soft & Wet is a humanoid Stand of a streamlined, robotic form, light in color, and similar in height to Josuke.

On the top of its head is a five-pointed star bound with a circle. Horns roughly two-thirds the width of its head grow from the region of the ears, shaped as tapering pentagrammic prisms. It has round eyes, shaped as slotted screw heads; vertically dividing very small, slight, round pupils. Its face has a thick gap running from the top of the forehead past the bottom of the chin. Initially, Soft & Wet had large holes in the sides of its face, and shorter, lined "horns".

The front of two broad plates covering its torso is cut like its face in the shape of a large anchor; as well as in a line beneath both arms and between the base of its back and shoulders.

Its feet and hands are covered with plating, as are the sides of its hips and shoulders, both of which are shaped like sharp hearts and bear a five-pointed star. It has fine arms and legs, with dark, exposed ball-and-socket joints supported by short exterior cables. Its pelvis is bare and mechanical. The gaps in its plating reveal a deeper surface, covered in a fine pattern of horizontal ridges. An internal structure is visible at its profile, showing blocks approximating human centers of mass.

The design was created to match up with Josuke's outfit, rather than its ability. Araki imagined a sailor's uniform combined with the flotation devices in a life vest. In later chapters, its torso takes on a more 'heart-like' shape. It also gains a circular jewel under its neck, and its shoulder pads become triangular, jutting out of its shoulders perpendicularly. Its ears have also grown a bit longer since it first appeared.

Soft & Wet is white and purple in the colored manga, but, is yellow and green in the video games adaptation of the series featuring it.

Josefumi's bubbles were initially featureless. After his fusion with Kira, Josuke's bubbles now bear a five-pointed star, similar to Kira's bubbles, and appear to be a sort of fusion between two bubbles of different sizes.

Personality
Soft & Wet's Stand cry is "ORA ORA ORA ORA" similar to other members of the Joestar family, however every so often an "ORA" is switched to an "ARA". This could be the consequences of the fusion of Kira and Josefumi, being corrupted and altered.

Pre-Equivalent Exchange
Soft & Wet is a humanoid close-range Stand. It possesses enhanced strength, demonstrated first when it breaks a large portion of an apartment wall with a single back kick, and is also capable of extremely rapid hand-to-hand combat. The extent of the damage it can inflict is limited, however, as it is unable to break rocks.

Its strength in melee exchanges compared to other Stands has been further demonstrated in the brief encounter with Yotsuyu Yagiyama's Stand, I Am a Rock. Despite its volley of fast-paced strikes, Soft & Wet easily avoided and overcame it with a single 'Ora'-articulated strike.

Bubble Generation
Soft & Wet generates star-embedded floating bubbles, which must make contact with its target to work effectively. However, Josuke can control where the bubbles can fly, allowing him to send them where they are needed. The bubbles are actually comprised of tiny cords vibrating at super-high speeds, giving them the appearance of spheres.

Josuke often takes direct advantage of his bubbles and their properties. The bubbles have some lifting power, allowing Josuke to envelop others like Yotsuyu Yagiyama in a giant bubble and lift them in the air, as well as help him reach vantage points. Josuke has also enveloped himself and allies with giant bubbles to take advantage of their situational protection.

In addition to this, Soft & Wet is able to create bubbles utilizing existing substances, as demonstrated when it creates a shield from a bottle of water during Josuke's pursuit by Blue Hawaii.

As the story has progressed, Josuke has developed this ability. Early in the story, he would often use one bubble, but later on, is shown conjuring dozens upon dozens with a quick flurry of strikes.

Plunder
Soft & Wet's signature ability is to "steal something from [an object] and take it for itself", which works in conjunction with the bubbles. Josuke can thus steal aspects or properties of inanimate and living things. Said properties seem to also be smaller objects that come from a bigger object. Examples include:


 * A human's sight: After bursting near Joshu's eyes, Josuke's bubble completely blinds Joshu for a few seconds, making it appear that Joshu's eyes have popped.
 * The water contained in a human's body: With one bubble, Josuke covertly punctures several ~5mm holes in a woman's body in order to quickly drain her of water and provoke thirst.
 * Sound: Josuke steals the sound from a wall or a light switch, preventing any noise that would have been caused upon breaking it or turning it off.
 * His own facial hair: Josuke uses Soft & Wet while shaving his face when Hato and Joshu are in the bathroom as well. Soft & Wet's bubbles in the shaving foam pop onto Hato and Joshu's faces, planting Josuke's hair onto their faces instead.
 * A cat's fur: Seemingly without pain, Josuke removes the majority of a live cat's fur and relocates it, in the shape of a cat, in order to obscure the view of a security camera.
 * Friction: Josuke removes the friction from a floor, creating an ice-like slippery surface.
 * Smell: Josuke traps an odor and various into a bubble and has it attached to his foe Born This Way. When the bubble bursts, he can track down the Stand's user by smell and sound.
 * Small objects: Josuke when fighting the A. Phex Brothers filled his bubbles with screws and nuts to fire out upon bursting.

The stolen objects can stay in the bubble and are still able to bust later (as shown with the bubble with the sound of the light switch). The exact quantity and type of object Josuke may steal, how long he may keep them, and how it is redistributed is currently undefined. According to Josuke, Soft & Wet's ability cannot be applied to himself.

While Josefumi Kujo was in control of Soft & Wet, this ability was described as "absorption". In one instance, he added too much ground pepper to his ramen, and used Soft & Wet to remove most but not all of the pepper that ended up in the soup. The aspect of absorption also allows Josefumi to fuse two similar objects together by absorbing and releasing differing components of their structure. This is primarily used on plants, with Josefumi demonstrating his ability to seamlessly graft a broken plant branch onto another plant, which he and Yoshikage Kira use after stealing a single branch of the Locacaca.

Post-Equivalent Exchange
In addition to its aforementioned abilities, Soft & Wet's gains properties after its original user undergoes equivalent exchange with the late Yoshikage Kira. Josuke's Soft & Wet is able to create bubbles which are a hybrid of its own and Killer Queen's, which are divided down the center with a visible seam connecting both halves. This lead to a change in Soft & Wet's ability, adopting properties of Kira's ability.

Bomb Creation
As a result of their hybrid nature, Soft & Wet's bubbles retain some aspects of Killer Queen's bubble-generation ability. These bubbles are able to pop with enough force to cause damage at close range, as seen when Josuke uses one to shatter Tamaki Damo's sunglasses. Josuke can also use this force to propel any small objects stored inside of his bubbles, seemingly with a degree of control over the direction they fly in. In addition to this, Josuke is able to injure opponents by popping bubbles which have been embedded under their skin, an ability that one of the A. Phex Brothers remarked bears a striking resemblance to the late Kira's own technique.

During the fight against Urban Guerrilla and his pet, Josuke seemingly detonates bubbles he had previously buried underground.

Gallery
Manga=

Trivia

 * Originally, Soft & Wet was planned to have the ability to attach screws to things, but the ability was ultimately given to Nut King Call instead.
 * The fifth volume of JoJolion mentions that Hirohiko Araki loves drawing Soft & Wet's ears.