Morioh
<translate> Template:Location infobox
Morioh (杜王町, Moriō-chō) is a fictional town located within Japan's M Prefecture in the city of S, and the setting of the 4th arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Diamond is Unbreakable.
While the population of Morioh is small and relatively peaceful, living there before the introduction of the Bow and Arrow are several Stand users; among them Josuke Higashikata and the villainous Yoshikage Kira. After the Nijimura brothers take the Bow and Arrow, activity in the town takes a spike.
Morioh possesses several landmarks, the vast majority of them being connected to a Stand user.
Description
Geographical Description
(Even though S City is mentioned multiple times in the manga, the information below derives from the Light Novel The Book: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 4th Another Day, which was not written by Araki. As such, it may or may not be considered canon.)
S City of M Prefecture is a city adjacent to Morioh. It was undergoing many forays to new enterprises. People working there were seeking to take residence and came to Morioh, quickly expanding the town's population.
S City was much more modern than Morioh: people often compared life there with the ones seen on TV dramas. Some people that didn't want a rural life or to take a modern job went there after graduating high school in search of a job, but the market was competitive.
It is a reference to Araki's own hometown of Sendai, Miyagi prefecture.
Activities
Every year on July 1, rivers and beaches open up to the public in Morioh. Because of this, the date range from July to August is the season for traveling and tourism. 70% to 80% of the total tourism revenue of Morioh is brought in during this time. The number of domestic and international visitors coming from the Tokyo area or S city nearly doubles the population.[1] Each year, the town attracts around 200,000 tourists. However, the residents generally do not mingle with the tourists and local vendors approach them with an unwelcoming attitude like "If you're going to buy something, I'll sell it to you". Despite how their nature can be off-putting, the people of Morioh are generally good people after getting to know them.[2]
Popular Activities include vacation resorts, golfing, camping, fishing, picnicking, yachting, windsurfing, tasting local seafood and traditional Japanese products, and visiting the mysterious underwater palace. All are main attractions that ensure a good time in Morioh over the summer.[1]
History
(The information below derives from the Light Novel The Book: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 4th Another Day, which was not written by Araki. As such, it may or may not be considered canon.)
Morioh is a suburb of S City. Although it quickly developed during the 1980s, it was inhabited even in the ancient days of the samurai. It had many martial arts training grounds and vacation homes where its summer attractions may have come from.
Even now, there are still many villas of samurai left. Not much earlier, Morioh had been just a rural town where one could find only rice and vegetable fields. The country town was run mostly by agriculture business, and as a result people in there had hard and cracked hands. They often needed to check on the water in the paddy fields in the middle of the night. There was at least one area in the Northeast famous for an old summer retreat.
Morioh eventually underwent a transformation in an age where places all over Japan were improving. M Prefecture's government officials decided to invest money into Morioh to develop it, as its population was quickly increasing with workers from the adjacent S City. The streets were repaired, shops and markets were built, and pretty houses were lined up on the land that used to be rice fields. Power lines and telephone poles that harmed the views disappeared or were abandoned (including one that would later be bound to the Stand Super Fly).
With the development of town, many of the people came back to live in Morioh, among them Akari Hirai.
Morioh Landmarks & Places of Interest
The anime also states that while alive, Reimi attended the high school.
To see what is being served here, see : Tonio Trussardi's Dishes.
Ghost Girl's Alley (少女の幽霊に会える小道, Shoujo no Yuurei ni Aeru Komichi, literally "The Alley Where You Can Meet a Ghost Girl") is a hidden road located between the Owson grocery and Kisara Drugstore. The alley acts as a purgatory for Reimi Sugimoto and Arnold, being a gateway to the afterlife, and it is invisible to most ordinary people. Should a person ever wander down the alley and look behind them in the area between the mailbox and the entrance path, ghostly hands will emerge and drag the person immediately to the afterlife.[9]
The bakery was a favorite of serial killer Yoshikage Kira, who bought katsu sandwiches on a regular basis to enjoy with his "girlfriends."
It was renovated in Showa 58 (1983) and has an approximate length of 450 meters. The tunnel's curvature has resulted in a lack of proper lighting and a plethora of accidents.[10] At some point in time, the tunnel had a secret side room only visible to Stand users. The room was created by a hospitalized Yuya Fungami's Stand, Highway Star, and was used to lure other Stand users so that he could drain them of their nutrients.
Tomoko, Josuke, and the late Ryohei Higashikata live at 1-6. Okuyasu Nijimura and his father live at 4-1280.[6] Yoshikage Kira's villa is at 1-28, in the north-east part of Morioh. It takes 15 minutes to walk there from the train station.
Kira worked in the Market Regional Management of Morioh's district, beginning in 1993.
Non-canonical Locations in Morioh
The place is haunted by Mutsukabezaka, a type of yokai.[12]
The town library, featured in The Book.
It is described as a western-style building situated just pas the shopping district, in front of the trains station. Its walls made of red brick and covered in thorny rose vines, hence its nickname the "Thorn Building". It has a front gate made of black bars reminiscent of an ancient foreign castle, also wrapped in thorny vines. The first floor of the library has the collection collection; the second floor of the library houses the science, technology and philosophy books; the third floor is where rare books and gifts to the library are kept. There are iron grating on all of the windows, except for one loose grating on a third floor window. It has been remodeled during the Meiji Era. There is the persistent rumor of a book that calls to help being kept somewhere in the library.
Chiho Futaba often meets with Takuma Hasumi in the library as they are both interested in literature. The Thorn Building becomes a battlefield for the fight between Takuma Hasumi and Okuyasu Nijimura, then Josuke Higashikata.
Maps
Residents
Video Games
All-Star Battle
Yoshikage Kira's residence (Kira Estate) and the street that serves as the location of the final battle (Morioh Town) are the two stages representing Part 4 in All Star Battle.
- Kira Estate (吉良邸, Kira-Tei)
- Stage Hazard: Yoshihiro Kira/Atom Heart Father attacks characters with a knife, traveling along a curving path.
- Situation Finish: Loser is thrown into a stack of books. One of them flips open revealing Yoshikage Kira's various nail clipping records and a message where he declares that he cannot be stopped in months in which his nails grow more than 30 cm.
- Morioh (杜王町, Moriō-cho)
- Stage Hazard: Lightning strikes the Pepsi sign as well as the puddles around the stage, damaging and stunning anyone hit as a result (Akira Otoishi is the only one who is immune. Instead his Power Gauge will be set to the first level.)
- Situation Finish: Loser finds themselves in Reimi's Alley before the hands of the dead drag them off into the unknown.
Eyes of Heaven
The location of the last battle reappears as a stage in Eyes of Heaven, with Café Deux Magots, grocery store Owson, and the Ghost Girl's Alley in the nearby area. A new stage, Boing-Boing Cape, is also available.
- Boing-Boing Cape (ボヨヨン岬, Boyoyon-misaki)
- Stage Gimmick 1: Anyone that falls off the cliff may be bounced back up due to the SFX created by Echoes ACT2, recreating Koichi's saving of Yukako.
- Stage Gimmick 2: Various "bouncing" SFX created by Echoes ACT2 can bounce players to various locations around the stage.
- Stage Gimmick 3: Various "sizzling" SFX created by Echoes ACT2 can harm and knock back characters who touch it, potentially into the "bouncing" SFX.
- Morioh (杜王町, Moriō-cho)
- Stage Gimmick 1: Players can ride and attack from Rohan's motorbike, allowing quick traversal of the map. The bike can also be picked up and thrown as an explosive, inflicting heavy damage and setting the target area on fire.
- Stage Gimmick 2: Café Deux Magots serves an espresso to players who stop by at the glowing table, restoring health.
- Situation Finish: The hands from Reimi's Alley grab the loser and drag them into the abyss.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor
Downtown Morioh appears as the default stage of the game.
Gallery
Trivia
- The "town's flower" is the Adonis, and the town's specialty is Miso-flavored Beef Tongue.[15]
- The town is actually based on Hirohiko Araki's hometown, Sendai. He states that Sendai was an old historical town but began residential construction in the 80s, causing new houses to be built everywhere. Intimidated by the rapid increase in strangers, Araki used this experience for the basis of the setting in Part 4. However, Araki felt using the real name of the city in his manga may anger people, so he changed the name to Morioh.[16] Morioh is instead a town within S City in M Prefecture, still referencing the real life city of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture.
- Due to a Japanese-to-Chinese-to-English translation error in the first released online scans of Part 4, "Morioh" was incorrectly translated as Duwang; this name eventually becoming synonymous with and defining of the scanlation.
- The residents of Morioh have a superstitious tradition. Whenever they narrowly escape trouble, they say "It's because of my good daily routine". People over 30 will respond "Yes, and people believe in fish heads too".[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 377: Yoshikage Kira's New Situation, Part 2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 354: Sheer Heart Attack, Part 1, p1
- ↑ Chapter 272: Josuke Higashikata! Meets Angelo, Part 4
- ↑ Chapter 273: Josuke Higashikata! Meets Angelo, Part 5
- ↑ Chapter 302: Yukako Yamagishi Falls in Love, Part 9
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 414: Cheap Trick, Part 3
- ↑ Chapter 383: I'm an Alien, Part 6
- ↑ Chapter 324: Let's Go to the Manga Artist's House, Part 7
- ↑ Chapter 333: "Rohan Kishibe's Adventure (4)"
- ↑ Episode 28: "Highway Star, Part 1"
- ↑ Chapter 403: "Let's Live on a Transmission Tower (6)"
- ↑ Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe - Episode 2: Mutsu-kabe Hill
- ↑ Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe - Episode 6: Poaching Seashore
- ↑ Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan - Episode 5: Millionaire Village
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>
tag; no text was provided for refs namedC274
- ↑ Hirohiko Araki Lecture
<languages/>
</translate>