Josuke Higashikata

"Excuse me... What did you say about my hair?!"

- Josuke Higashikata

Josuke Higashikata (東方 仗助, Higashikata Jōsuke, 助 "suke" can also be read "jo") is the main protagonist of Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable. He starts the series as a high school freshman in the town of Morioh. His Part in the story begins while Jotaro is looking for him, as Josuke is the illegitimate son of Jotaro's grandfather, Joseph Joestar.

History
Josuke apparently developed his stand off-screen in the events of Part III, when Jotaro Kujo and company traveled to Egypt to kill Dio Brando. As a result of Dio being pierced by the stand-creating Arrow, Josuke, possessing the Joestar Bloodline that runs in Jonathan's body, develops a stand, but suffers a fever not unlike that of his half-sister Holly. He is then saved by a then-high school student with a pompadour, who throws his coat under his mother's car in order to allow their car to plow safely through the snow. This then inspires Josuke's admiration for the man with the pompadour.

Diamond is Unbreakable (1999)
Josuke makes his entrance into the JoJo universe as a caring, popular, and slightly naive teenager. Inspired by his police officer grandfather's (on his mother's side) sense of justice, he isn't afraid to fight for those in need. He is confronted by Jotaro with the need to eradicate evil stand users from his hometown, Morioh. He refuses at first, believing that it is not any of his business to worry about the threat posed by other stand users. However, he quickly changes his mind when his grandfather is killed by Angelo, a career criminal and murderer gifted with the power of the water stand Aqua Necklace. With a vow paralleling Peter Parker's, Josuke decides to deliver justice to stand users in his grandfather's place, after which much of the story focuses on "daily life" scenarios of the stand users. Eventually, however, a serial killer comes into the scene, and Rohan Kishibe and Koichi Hirose's encounters with the ghost of his first victim Reimi Sugimoto forces Josuke to gather the stand users he's encountered thus far and warn them of the killer.

After he defeats Angelo, he finds himself approached by his nephew Jotaro who explains to him about stands and the Arrow which is the catalyst of stands.

He finds out that a man in possession of the arrow has been creating the stand users and goes on to finds him and  his brother. The elder Nijimura explains that he made stand users in order to find one suitable enough to destroy his father who's mutated. Before Keiicho can further explain, he's killed by Red Hot Chili Pepper. Okayasu vows revenge by staying with Josuke.

He soon finds himself being attacked by other stand users on the way to Kira (who changes his identity) before finally witnessing his defeat.

JoJoLion (2011 alternate universe)
Josuke has been shown to have at least one alternate counterpart in the town of Morioh. The first, and most apparent, is the protagonist of Part VIII, who takes up the name written with a different kanji. The second is shown to be the current patriarch of the Higashikata family, Norisuke IV, whose birth name was shown in a family tree to have been "Josuke".

Personality
Josuke has a normal but crafty personality. He is nice to people and says Mr. and Ms. like a polite person, until someone makes him angry. The easiest way to do that is to mock his hair, which depending on how much someone makes fun of it, will cause that person to get beat up more and more as the insults go on. A random upperclassman student insulted his hair and got punched once and stepped on. Said upperclassman was healed afterwards by Crazy Diamond, but because it happened while Josuke was angry, his nose was restored improperly and never looked the same. When Rohan held Koichi and Okuyasu hostage and attempted to get Josuke to open his eyes and see his Stand by making fun of his hair, Josuke went berserk and landed him in the hospital for a month. (Ironicaly enough, this is what let Josuke save Koichi and Okuyasu from Rohan and Heaven's Door.) This sensitivity about his hair was due to Josuke choosing his hairdo to honor a man with the same hairstyle who saved both his mother and him in his youth. Whenever someone insults his pompadour, Josuke becomes rather violent, brutally punishing whoever insulted his hair (and, by extension, the man who saved him).

At the start of Part 4, he lives with his mom and did not know his father, Joseph Joestar. When he finally met him he did not want to have anything to do with him and yelled at him. But when he saw that Joseph was willing to give up his own life to save a baby he had just found, Josuke's attitude changed and he started to call him "dad" instead of "Mr. Joestar".

Josuke also has a sneaky streak for money which is shown a couple of times. When he and Okuyasu met Fatty, he came up with a plan to get money and other things from all over Morioh Cho, and used his stand powers to cheat the lottery. When he meets Mikitaka Hazekura, he takes advantage of his shape-shifting power to cheat money from Rohan. He also takes Joseph's wallet using a piece of a picture he gave him and Crazy Diamond. But even with that he is a dependable and friendly person who is always willing to protect people who need it. This causes him to become friends with some of his former enemies who in turn have helped him out.

Trivia

 * Due to his youth, it is easier to see what Josuke is feeling. Unlike Jotaro or Giorno this also makes him easier to talk to, though someone would have to try harder if he was upset about something or his attention was focused elsewhere.


 * Josuke and Koichi have the odd trait of "beating the evil out of people". At the end of part four the total number of people they've fought that became allies was six (Okuyasu Nijimura, Toshikazu Hazamada, Yukako Yamagishi, Rohan Kishibe, Tamami Kobayashi, Yuuya Fungami).


 * He is the only JoJo to never kill someone.
 * His favorite phrase is the English word "Great!". He often extends the word depending on the situation.
 * Japanese fans sometimes refer to Part IV with "hamburger patty", referring to the appearance of Josuke's hairstyle. This goes along the same lines as Part V being represented by chocolate cornets, which refer to Giorno's look.