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{{Interview Infobox
|part = JJL
|cover = NoPicAv.png
|date = November 25, 2018
|interviewee = [[Hirohiko Araki]]
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==Interview==
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“The venue for the exhibition is The National Art Center. It’s much larger than any other venue in which I have exhibited my artwork, so I felt I needed something that could stand its own ground in a large space. The painter Akira Yamaguchi has once said ‘if you can draw something of the size of a manga, you can also draw something large’ and I thought this would be a good occasion to try that. And since it was going to be large, why not make the characters life-sized? I wanted to make paintings that made people feel a sense of unity—as if they were sharing the same place with the characters.”
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In addition to the large original artworks, the exhibition also includes numerous original artworks that are presented to the public for the first time, as well as works produced in collaboration with artists who are fans of JoJo, such as sculptor Motohiko Odani, and designer Kunihiko Morinaga of the fashion brand Anrealage. These works open our eyes anew to JoJo’s multifaceted allure: the “Stands” that materialize super-powers, the poses struck by characters inspired by Renaissance era sculpture and fashion magazines that came to be known as “JoJo dachi” (JoJo standing), or the memorable character quotes. But how did Araki conceive of this work with such expressive breadth?
The answer to this question was connected to Araki’s comment, that he wanted to “thank the manga world,” made in relation to the exhibition. “Gratitude to the manga world is directed to the young manga artists who are bringing excitement to the industry, and of course to my predecessors too. The idea for [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|JoJo]] was born of the desire to depict something different, something that doesn’t resemble the works of Osamu Tezuka, Fujiko Fujio, Tetsuya Chiba, or Katsuhiro Otomo—all great masters that I used to read. It simply wouldn’t have been possible without such predecessors.” The expression ‘something different’ does not imply that Araki is against the past masters. It rather points to the fact that the origin of JoJo lies in the process of creating ‘something new’ within the lineage of manga’s classic appeal, expression, and style, which Araki scrutinized in a highly logical manner. “Looking back, so many manga artists of the 1970s and 1980s were geniuses. It was also an era in which new forms of music and fashion emerged incessantly. Maybe making a debut and beginning to work on JoJo around that time was good for me.”
Araki mentioned horror films as another one of the sources of inspiration from that era. The 1980s are known to be a period of rapid development for horror film, as low budget experimental works were produced one after another. “I even imported videos of films that were not released in Japan. I was particularly attracted to zombie films. In zombie films, dead people come back to life and everyone is equal as there are no bosses, so the basic philosophy and rules of human society are turned on their head.” He also acknowledges that the various aspects of the bubble economy had an impact. That was translated into the rejection of the tournament format, which was at the time regarded as a crucial element of a popular shōnen manga. In a tournament format, the protagonist defeats a strong opponent and then goes on to fight an even stronger one. This would ultimately lead to an inflation of power, and the collapse of the narrative. Araki, instead, adopted a method where the protagonist encounters enemies during his journey, fights them in a more unpredictable sugoroku (a table-top game similar to snakes and ladders) format, and employs wit rather brute force.
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