Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (岸辺露伴は動かない) is an ongoing series of  featuring the titular character, Rohan Kishibe, as the narrator and/or protagonist. These one-shots are intermittently published in various magazines such as Weekly Shonen Jump or .

A paperback volume compiling the first four numbered chapters, along with Kishibe Rohan Meets Gucci, was released on November 19, 2013. A second volume containing another four numbered chapters was released on March 13, 2019. The series has spawned an OVA adaptation, a collection of short stories, and a live action TV drama adaptation.

Summary
The Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan series is a set of short stories that revolve around Rohan Kishibe, a manga artist originally featured in Part 4 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Diamond is Unbreakable. They all feature Rohan, who frequently witnesses and subsequently makes an account of the supernatural phenomena around him. The stories are set in the original world of the JoJo story.

The first episode, At a Confessional, was published in Weekly Shonen Jump on June 24, 1997 and was later included in Under Execution, Under Jailbreak on November 19, 1999. It was created under the restriction set by the magazine that it couldn't be related to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. This was because the editorial department had a strict policy against spin-offs or side stories. As a workaround, Araki took inspiration from the 1950's TV show, , and made Rohan the narrator of the one-shot. The Japanese title, Rohan Kishibe Does Not Move, was initially derived from the fact that Rohan was not the main protagonist, but rather a "navigator" or onlooker of the story who ultimately does nothing. Araki himself believes that if he hadn't been prohibited from writing spin-off works at the time, he probably would not have centered the story around Rohan.

The second episode of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, Mutsu-kabe Hill, was published much later on December 4, 2007, after which the series began releasing more frequently. A paperback volume of the series was released on November 19, 2013, with a second following on July 19, 2018. Nearly every chapter of the series has been published in a different magazine, with hosts besides Weekly Shonen Jump including Jump Square, JOJO magazine, Ultra Jump, and even the women's magazine Bessatsu Margaret. Each episode is numbered, with the exception of two chapters produced as collaborations. However, the numerical episode order matches neither the order of publication nor chronological order.

Several characters from Part 4 appear in Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, including Yukako Yamagishi and Tonio Trussardi. The events of Part 4 are also included in Rohan's profile at the start of each volume. However, there are often cases in which the events of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan conflict with the timeline of Part 4, such as Rohan's age. Araki has also stated in JOJOVELLER that JoJolion is a world "adjacent to" the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan series, and elements such as Trussardi Restaurant, the Seiten Birdies, and Mutsu-kabe Shrine appear or are mentioned in both works.

The plot of each episode is generally divorced from the main JoJo's Bizarre Adventure storyline, featuring many esoteric creatures not appearing otherwise in the series, such as. Many of the stories involve Rohan using his Stand and wit to overcome mysterious phenomena encountered while conducting research for his manga, or Rohan narrating the experiences of another characters featured in the chapter.

Trip to Italy


After an incident forces Rohan to put his series on hiatus, he takes a vacation to Italy. While in Venice, Rohan accidentally enters a confessional where a man begins to confess his sins. The man tells of his youth when a starving vagrant came to him for food. Disdainful, he forced the vagrant to carry large bags of corn, ultimately leading to his death. However, the vagrant's ghost appeared, swearing to return and take revenge on the happiest day of his life.

After becoming rich and successful, the man walked cheerfully with his daughter and servant in what he thought was the happiest moment of his life. Suddenly, the vagrant's spirit possesses his daughter and reveals that he was behind man's prosperity from the start. The ghost explains that he wanted fate to judge him, demanding that he throws three pieces of popcorn into the air higher than the lamppost and catch it in his mouth. If he fails, the ghost would would cut off his head. The man successfully catches the first two pieces of popcorn, but misses the third piece after being blinded by the sun. As it lands on his shirt, the ghost cuts off his head. Yet the man still was alive, revealing he used his servant as a body double to trick the ghost. Rohan then witnesses the man leaving the confessional followed by the spirit of the vagrant and servant, who vowed to endlessly stalk him.

The Ghosts of Rohan's Past
After Rohan's grandmother passes away, Rohan travels to Tuscany accompanied by an interpreter. The two visit a Gucci factory to investigate Rohan's grandmother's treasured Gucci bag, which has the strange ability to make anything placed inside it disappear. Rohan asks a leather goods artisan to fix the bag, though the artisan warns him that he does not understand the bag's true purpose. Later, the interpreter gets Rohan drunk and steals all of his valuables except the bag, leaving him alone and destitute on the street. Fortunately, he finds an umbrella to shield himself from the rain. Rohan finds a hotel, but is unable to pay for any of the rooms. However, a man nearby shows interest in Rohan's recently found umbrella, offering to buy it for the exact value of the bills Rohan had put inside the bag earlier. Rohan then comes to the conclusion that the bag had a Stand bound to it with the ability to exchange valuable items for their equivalents during misfortune. Rohan is able to rent the cheapest room at the hotel by selling his umbrella, but laments that he can no longer use the Stand after "fixing" the bag.

Rohan's next adventure begins with a story from his past. At the age of seventeen, Rohan moved into his grandmother's inn, with the only other tenant was a young woman named Nanase Fujikara. Rohan became intrigued by her and obtained permission to use her as a model for a character in his manga. One evening, Nanase told Rohan the story of Nizaemon Yamamura and described a painting he created by the name of Under the Moon, which Nanase described as "the darkest painting in the world." Suddenly, Nanase ran away into the night, seemingly crying over her recent divorce. A week later, Nanase returned to the inn, only to tear apart Rohan's drawings of her and disappear once more. Eventually, after redrawing the manga from scratch, Rohan succeeded in becoming a professional mangaka, and Pink Dark Boy began serialization.

A year after his grandmother's death, and ten years after Nanase's disappearance, Rohan is reminded of the cursed painting by chance and decides to travel to Paris in order to investigate it. There, he discovers that the painting is located at an abandoned section in the Louvre basement. Puzzled by the existence of a painting in an abandoned section, the interpreter Noguchi accompanies Rohan into the basement with Gaucher and two firefighters. When the group finds the painting, they are attacked by a ghost mob of their blood relatives, and all four of Rohan's acquaintances are killed in the same way the ghosts died. As Rohan is attacked by his grandmother, he suddenly realizes that the ghosts around him are the memories of his group's ancestors, and decides to erase his own memories with Heaven's Door. After the ghosts disappear, the amnesiac Rohan notices an order on his hand to erase the prior instruction, restoring his memories. Satisfied, Rohan leaves the Louvre and returns to Japan. In the end, Rohan's four unfortunate companions are considered missing; it is rumored that the painting was burned after being examined by scientists, though Rohan is unable to prove it.

A Series of Unfortunate Events


Bankrupt from buying a large piece of land, Rohan tells Minoru Kaigamori the story of a yokai he witnessed while investigating Naoko Osato, a wealthy woman who accidentally killed her secret lover, Gunpei Kamafusa. Naoko hides the corpse in her house, never straying far from it and collecting its blood as it bleeds endlessly. On the way back, Rohan stumbles into Naoko's daughter, who accidentally falls and hits her head against a rock, seemingly dying. Realizing that that the girl was Gunpei's child, Rohan uses Heaven's Door to erase the yokai's memories and prevents it from possessing him as well.

While discussing his next one-shot, Rohan's editor, Kyoka Izumi, mentions wanting to buy a villa in the mountains, which she claims makes anyone incredibly rich. Visiting the villa, a child butler greets them and warns them of the strict etiquette the villa's owners expect. Kyoka breaches etiquette by mistake, which causes her mother and fiancée die in a car crash. Rohan uses his Stand on the butler and discovers that the Gods of the Mountain test visitors by punishing them with the death of their loved ones. Because of is actions against the butler, Kyoka collapses due to a heart attack. After Rohan correctly eats corn, which was the next trial, Kyoka comes back to life. As his reward, Rohan asks for Kyoka's loved ones to be returned and carries her out the villa.

Next, Rohan tells the story of his neighbors, the Mochizuki family, who are all cursed to die on the same day. The family stays together on the dreaded night of the Harvest Moon to avoid the curse, but strange events occur, and the eldest daughter almost dies from a hornet attack. Her boyfriend proposes to her, saving her from the curse as she is no longer a member of the family. The rabbit-like creature carrying the curse returns to the sky and promises to come back during the next harvest moon.

Intertwined Hearts
Rohan goes to Tonio's trattoria and eats an abalone risotto to cure his eye strain. Tonio then asks Rohan to help him harvest some disk abalones to cure his girlfriend's disease. Rohan and Tonio go poaching for the abalones, but they get stuck on their bodies and almost drown. Rohan uses Heaven's Door to command some nearby octopus to target the abalones on him and Tonio, saving them. After curing Tonio's girlfriend, Rohan has an octopus dish with Okuyasu, Koichi, and some punk.

In his next story, Rohan tells of a time when he was at a train station where everyone was distracted by their smartphones. Rohan is pushed onto the train tracks by a woman with a stroller and is almost hit by two trains. An obese man tries to help Rohan, but he discovers that they're both being attacked by robotic-like insects that feed off electromagnetic waves and control people to prey on the weak. The insects kill the obese man, who already had a heart disease, by harvesting his bioelectricity. Rohan saves the crowd from the incoming trains and cancels his meeting to write a new manuscript.

One day, Rohan is confronted by Yukako Yamagishi and Mai Katahira about Mai's daughter, Mao, who has strange physical characteristics and abilities, such as speaking in reverse and camouflaging herself. Despite Yukako's pleas, Rohan tells Mai that there is nothing to cure and that she should accept her daughter the way she is. Yukako later discovers that Mao's father was a sperm donor from Yamagata with a scar on his face. Mai also spots a man with similar features and follows him, but it turns out he also has a son. The man introduces himself as Obanazawa, and the two become close and get married. Yukako later reveals to Rohan that Mao had manipulated Mai into marrying Obanazawa.

The Melancholy of Rohan Kishibe


Rohan recounts an incident in which he competed with an avid gym-goer named Yoma Hashimoto over a remote that controlled the speed of their treadmills. As they approach the maximum speed of 25kmph, Rohan discovers Yoma's obsession with exercise has driven him to madness and murder of his girlfriend and many others. Using his Stand, Rohan outsmarts Yoma and causes him to fall out of the window on the 8th-floor of the gym. Upon seeing wing-like symbols form on Yoma's muscles, Rohan believes that Yoma was possessed by Hermes and decides to make a run for it, in fear of incurring the wraths of the gods.

In July 2021, Kyoka Izumi video calls Rohan to express her concerns about Hot Summer Martha's design. Rohan rebukes her feedback, and they eventually discuss going on an overseas trip after the pandemic ends. Stressed about not being able to go out and do research for his manga, Rohan becomes depressed and goes on a walk with his puppy, Bakin. He then discovers a mysterious shrine and enters it, inadvertently unleashing his dark side, Yabubako-Hoshi, who causes time to jump forward three months. When Rohan returns home, he finds that his house is in disarray, and a fangirl named Eve naked in his bed. Rohan tries to use Heaven's Door to put the shrine back to normal, however, the Yabubako-Hoshi notices and another three months pass. Returning home again, Rohan finds Kyoka without a pulse and is drugged by Eve with a syringe. Eve claims Rohan cheated on her with Kyoka, and reveals that she's pregnant with his child. Rohan uses Heaven's Door on himself to show her his true feelings for her. However, as soon as Eve gets close, Rohan uses it her instead and commands to go to the shrine and reverse its effects. Rohan accomplishes this everything back to normal, except that months that had passed were still gone.

Sometime later, while working on his manga, Pink Dark Boy, Kyoka arrives and is impressed with Rohan's "drip painting style." She pretends to spill coffee on his manuscript, before noticing that Rohan is crying. Rohan then tells Kyoka of the time he was invited to the home of an eco-terrorist early in 2021, who wanted him to witness and recount his plans blow up a fossil fuel power plant in Morioh along with himself. The eco-terrorist hitches a ride in the car of Mitsuki Murase, a woman who recently cheated on her husband. Rohan tries to save Mitsuki, but the man ends up killing her and causes both cars to crash. The man then climbs out of Mitsuki's car and reveals his explosive body, which is rigged to detonate in a way that minimizes emissions. Ironically, Rohan uses his Stand to incapacitate the man by using gasoline fumes from Mitsuki's car. In the present, Rohan gets angry at Kyoka for spilling tomato sauce on his manuscript, but she reveals that she did it on purpose to cheer him up.

Publication
In Japan, Shueisha publishes the series in various different magazines before the individual chapters are compiled into volumes. The first volume released on November 19, 2013, and the second on July 19, 2018. Digital color editions were also published on July 19, 2018 and December 18, 2020 for each volume respectively.

Taiwan was the first country to publish the series after Japan. The two volumes were published in Chinese on September 14, 2014, and February 2, 2019 by Tong Li Publishing.

Star Comics published the series in Italy as "Così parlò Rohan Kishibe" on January 8, 2015 and November 13, 2019.

Delcourt published the series in France as "Jojo's - Rohan Kishibe" on April 6, 2016 and March 13, 2019.

Munhak published the series in South Korea on March 3, 2021 and May 14, 2021.

In Spain and Argentina, the series is translated into Spanish with the title "Así habló Kishibe Rohan". Ivrea España published the volumes in Spain on July 22, 2021 and August 12, 2021. Ivrea Argentina published the volumes in Argentina on June 10, 2022 and September 23, 2022.

In North America and the United Kingdom, the series is translated into English with the title "Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe", using the Western name order. The two volumes were published on September 27, 2022 and December 27, 2022 by VIZ Media.

Unlike the other international releases, the English and Spanish releases do not include Kishibe Rohan Meets Gucci due to Shueisha's request.

Other Media
An OVA adaptation by David Production was announced on April 15, 2016. The first two episodes were released as a promotional DVD to those who had purchased the entirety of the Diamond is Unbreakable anime adaptation. Another two episodes released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 25, 2020.

Three booklets of an anthology of short stories based on the series were released with issues of Ultra Jump from July 19, 2017 to December 19 of the same year, with a fourth following suit on October 19, 2021. The stories were written by multiple Japanese authors, including Ballad Kitaguni, Ryo Yoshigami, Yusuke Iba, and Mirei Miyamoto. The stories were later compiled into three volumes that released on June 19, 2018, July 19, 2018, and December 19, 2022.

aired a three-episode live action TV drama adaptation of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan in December 2020. The live action series follows a different format from the manga, choosing to adapt various chapters, short stories, and arcs from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure featuring Rohan into one cohesive storyline. The adaptation received good reception and continued with two more seasons that aired in December 2021 and 2022, as well as a theatrical film based on Rohan au Louvre, which is set to be released on May 26, 2023.

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Trivia

 * Josuke Higashikata, the protagonist of Part 4, is always shown from behind, with his face never drawn. According to Toshiyuki Kato, the director of the OVA, this is because Araki believes that "two protagonists cannot co-exist in the same work."
 * In a 2022 interview, Araki stated that he next wanted to depict Rohan traveling to a place he's never been before, like the, where he would get into a game-like conflict against its residents, similar to the Rock-Paper-Scissors Kid story arc.
 * The incarnation of Rohan Kishibe depicted in The JOJOLands displays a similar personality to the version of him seen in the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan series, and also owns a dog named Bakin.