Donatello Versus

"I can't die here! I have a right to be happy! (オレはこんなところで終わらない！オレだって幸せになる権利はあるんだッ！)"
 * The character featured in this article is sometimes referred to as "Donatello Versace".

- Versus to Enrico Pucci

Donatello Versus (ドナテロ・ヴェルサス) is a minor antagonist featured in the sixth part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean, specifically the "Under World" story arc.

Donatello is one of DIO's illegitimate sons, and the half-brother of Ungalo, Rikiel, and Giorno Giovanna. When he fatefully meets Enrico Pucci, he awakens his Stand, Under World, and battles Jolyne Cujoh and Ermes Costello in Orlando. Although he cooperates with Pucci, he has his own ambitions.

Appearance
Donatello Versus has short light hair with a black stripe in the middle which extends to the back of his head in the shape of a 'Y'. He has long sideburns which point toward his mouth, blunt bangs that cover his entire forehead, and two ponytails.

Versus wears a choker necklace that has a spiral pattern in the center. He sports a deep V-neck long-sleeved shirt along with matching pants. The front and sides of his shirt and pants have an excessive amount of thick loops. He has shoulder straps going through three front loops on his shirt, as well as two more straps from his belt which travel downward through the front loops on his pants.

Donatello's physical measures, such as height, foot size and blood pressure, are noted to be eerily similar to those of Enrico Pucci.

Personality
Beaten down by life, Donatello Versus developed a grudge against society and a desire to be happy at any cost. Having inherited DIO's ruthlessness and selfishness, Donatello lacks his father's manipulative or psychopathic tendencies. As such even though he is more outwardly well-adjusted, Versus is also much more rash and impulsive.

Donatello isn't opposed to cooperation or even following orders, at first putting his trust in and trying to mantain a respectful relationship with Enrico Pucci. However, Donatello's grudge gives him a sort of pride: feeling like he's being used he verbally snaps at Pucci when the priest begins doubting Donatello's abilities, and evenetually betrays him, considering it his right to inherit Dio's plan in the Pucci's place.

Donatello is as ruthless as he is desperate, equally ready to kill children and put his own life at immense risk to achieve victory. Combined with his single-minded drive and the tendency to loudly express his emotions, from smug giddiness to triumphant screams of joy, Donatello can get easily blindsided. When caught off guard Versus will quickly crumble under the pressure, as he fails to kill Jolyne and Ermes after Pucci's repeated comments acknowledging their strength, and eventually gets cornered and forced into submission by them.

Abilities
Under World allows Donatello to revive past events from Florida's soils and imprison people in them, forcing his victim to experience whatever happened.

Early life
Donatello Versus was raised by his mother and stepfather, a man who "did nothing but tell long stories of his womanizing ways," who his mother married at an unknown point in Versus' life.

After running away from home at age 13, a pair of baseball shoes fell from the sky onto his head. He put them on but was soon arrested and taken to court, where he learned the shoes belonged to real-life Seattle Mariners outfielder, originally to be given to disabled children as a gift.

Upon hearing the boy say (truthfully) that the shoes fell from the sky, the judge flew into a rage, disgusted by the fact that a 13-year-old boy would stoop so low as to steal from children less fortunate than himself. Versus was quickly deemed guilty on circumstantial evidence of stealing the shoes and was sent to a juvenile detention facility for six months, Versus' mother and stepfather not objecting to his incarceration.

However, four months after Versus' arrest, the true criminal confessed. The criminal was a professional burglar, who, after stealing the shoes, was afraid that he would be caught because the shoes were so famous, and dropped the shoes down a ventilation shaft on top of a building to get rid of them.

When word reached the facility he was being held in that he had been wrongly condemned, Versus had already been physically and emotionally drained, and he was almost too weak to even move because of a string of strange events that had occurred over the course of his incarceration. For instance, Versus tripped while walking in the field of the facility and his hand was impaled by a knife that had been buried there sometime before. Versus would find out the next day that the knife belonged to a corrupt guard who had been hiding it, presumably to threaten other inmates. As a result of this, the guard bullied and beat Versus regularly. His hand wound was finally treated two weeks after the fact, but worms and pus still infested the wound. Possibly as a result of this, Versus fell into a fever and nearly died. Another occurrence was that Versus urinated on a decrepit wall that crumbled and revealed the skeleton of a long-dead woman.

Stone Ocean
In 2011, Donatello crossed paths with Enrico Pucci after he was shot in the leg and jumped off the sixth story of a building during a botched burglary and was brought to an hospital. He thus met the priest and has half-brothers Ungalo and Rikiel. Pucci subsequently all revealed them their heritage and Stand powers. While Ungalo and Rikiel headed out to confront the heroes, Donatello kept on recovering at the hospital.

After he failed to eliminate Ermes Costello and Jolyne, Versus betrayed Pucci by stealing Weather Report's Memory Disc using his Stand, Underworld. An angered Pucci demanded Versus to give the disc back to him, panicked should Weather regain his memories. However, it's too late and Weather was later revealed to be in fact Domenico Pucci, Enrico's twin brother.

A cornered Versus remarked that since Weather has regained his old memories now, he wouldn't be an ally to neither Enrico nor Jolyne. Versus then escaped from the scene and decided to steal Jotaro Kujo's Disc from Emporio, believing it's what Pucci had been looking for to achieve "Heaven." However, he was quickly defeated and forced to drive to locate both Weather and Pucci.

Versus' final moments in the manga would come when Jolyne attacks Pucci with her Stand while Whitesnake activated its illusory powers. However, Jolyne realizes that she attacked Versus instead of Pucci, killing him.

Video Games
Versus appears in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle as the guide for the support items shop in Story Mode, using his Stand ability to dig up the player's support item of choice at the cost of gold.

Trivia

 * Versus' backstory is either a homage or a direct lift of the backstory of Stanley Yelnats from the novel, (and later feature film) , written by Louis Sachar. Unlike Stanley, however, Versus' life takes a turn for the worse after he is freed.

Site Navigation
