Joseph Joestar
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Joseph Joestar (ジョセフ・ジョースター, Josefu Jōsutā) is one of the starring heroes in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Joseph is the main hero of Part II: Battle Tendency, and also plays a significant role in Part III & Part IV. In his younger days, he had black hair and muscular build, but in his older age, he wears a hat and sports a yellow shirt and khaki pants. One of his hands is synthetic, a result of his fight with Cars.
Joseph is also one of the oldest human characters to appear, along with Yoshihiro Kira.
Battle Tendency (1938-39)
Joseph lives in New York with his grandmother Erina and seems to have inherited the power of the Ripple (波紋), Hamon), as he has a natural ability to use it. When old family friend Speedwagon is reported dead (or missing) in Mexico, Joseph takes it upon himself to go check it out. His curiosity is piqued when he is attacked in New York City by Straights, an old friend-turned-vampire. When he goes to Mexico, he discovers a secret underground Nazi facility where the Nazis are trying to revive a man who seems to have been trapped in a stone pillar for 2,000 years. Here Joseph meets the Nazi Stroheim.
Unfortunately, the Nazis are successful in awakening the man, who is christened "Santana" before he kills most of them. Joseph and Stroheim battle Santana and manage to defeat him, though Stroheim is fatally wounded.
Joseph then heads to Rome, where three more "sleeping pillar men" have been discovered. In Rome, Joseph meets Caesar, a trained hamon user near his age who is supposed to show Joseph the ropes. At first, they can't do anything but argue - as Caesar blames Jonathan Joestar for killing his grandfather Will A. Zeppeli through his incompetence. They end up being present when the three sleeping men awaken after their 2,000 year nap. These creatures are something like vampire gods; it turns out that they created the Stone Mask that turned Dio into a vampire. They are named Wham, ACDC, and Cars, and their goal is to find the "Red Stone of Asia" which, when used with a stone mask, will allow them to become ultimate life forms.
They are extremely powerful; even with his American Ripple-Infused Crackers, the untrained Joseph doesn't stand a chance. Luckily, he manages to talk them out of killing him. Wham and ACDC both end up giving Joseph "wedding rings" which are internal time bombs set to release poison into his blood if he doesn't defeat them within a month. Joseph realizes that he'll have to train or he's going to die, and Caesar introduces Joseph to his master, the beautiful (and extremely talented) Lisa Lisa. Before the month is up, ACDC finds out that Lisa Lisa has the Red Stone of Asia and comes to take it. Joseph uses his new skills to defeat ACDC, thus earning the wrath of Wham and Cars (who previously thought of him as an amusement rather than a threat).
While pursuing Cars and Wham, Joseph is reunited with the supposedly-deceased Stroheim, who has been rebuilt by Nazi science as a powerful cyborg. However, Stroheim's machine body is quickly cut in half by Cars' "light mode." In Switzerland the group discovers the location of the remaining two pillar men. Knowing Wham and Cars' vulnerability to sunlight, everyone is eager to face them during the day - except JoJo. Caesar can't accept this and Joseph and Caesar fight.
Later, Caesar battles Wham alone and is able to rip off the latter's lip piercing, containing the antidote to Joseph's poison ring. Before dying from being crushed by a stone slab, Caesar uses his final ripple to make a bubble out of his blood containing the antidote ring. Wham sees this but, respecting Caesar as a valiant warrior, he lets the bubble float away. Joseph and Lisa Lisa arrive too late and Joseph finds the bubble but vows not to drink the antidote until he has personally beaten Wham.
Joseph then defeats Wham in a deadly chariot race and the final showdown against Cars begins. First, he fights Lisa Lisa and, though he had promised to fight her one-on-one, he lies and sacrifices one of his weaker Vampires in order to defeat her. Angered by Cars' trickery, Joseph then challenges Cars, who looks upon him as a weak Ripple user and not even worth fighting seriously. It all seems to be over in this fight against Cars until Stroheim (who has once again been brought back to life because of Nazi Science) and the Nazis, Speedwagon, and Smokey arrive to help Joseph. It is here that the reader also finds out that Lisa Lisa is Joseph's biological mother. After using the powers of ultraviolet light, it seems that Cars has been killed and the world has been saved. But all is not as it seems. Cars was not only able to place on a stone mask that he had been hiding on his person, but had fused with the powers of the Red Stone of Asia to become the Ultimate Lifeform.
Joseph et al. frantically try to think of a way to beat this so called Unbeatable Lifeform and it seems that victory has once again arrived in Joseph's hands when he is able to send Cars inside an active Volcano. However, Cars is able to cover himself in an armor made of rock and protect himself from the molten lava. Right when all hope appears lost, the volcano erupts and sends both Joseph and Cars flying. Cars is sent into space and though he tries to fly back down to Earth to finish the job, he instead ends up frozen and doomed to orbit the earth forever.
Weeks later, a funeral is held for the presumed-dead Joseph, who crashed the event. It turns out that after he fell back down from the sky, he ended up in Italy where he was helped by some local fisherman. After finding and marrying Lisa Lisa's assistant Suzie Q he returns to America, to find his friends.
Stardust Crusaders (1987-88)
Joseph's daughter Holly calls him to Japan to help her son Jotaro, who had landed himself in a holding cell and refused to leave - claiming to be possessed by an evil spirit. Joseph soon realizes that Jotaro's "evil spirit" is actually a Stand and, in conjunction with Abdul, both gets him to leave the cell and explains things to him.
When Holly develops a Stand which starts to leech away at her life, Joseph spearheads the effort to help her. Utilizing Hermit Purple, he tries to discern Dio's location (believing that by killing Dio, Holly's stand would disappear) - and is successful, thanks to Jotaro's Star Platinum noticing a fly in the background of the resulting photograph. Joseph, Jotaro, Abdul and Kakyoin soon leave for Egypt. On the way, he survives yet another plane crash, and they encounter and battle a large number of stand users. Not having a stand with much offensive power, Joseph mainly serves an advisory role to the rest of the group.
He later deciphers the cryptic message Kakyoin leaves in regards to Dio's power. Joseph is temporarily killed, but revived by a blood transfusion from Dio's (ie. Jonathan's) body. He then plays a joke on Jotaro, claiming to be Dio possessing Joseph's body which nearly causes Jotaro to attack him. Luckily Joseph is spared a beating by claiming it was a joke.
Diamond is Unbreakable (1999)
Jotaro travels to Morioh upon discovering that Joseph has an illegitimate son there named Josuke. Joseph ultimately also ends up traveling to Morioh, though he has aged, can no longer walk without a cane, wears spectacles, is hard of hearing, and isn't nearly as athletic as he used to be. He seems to have lost the use of his Hamon abilities, though this may be due to his age causing him to be incapable of sustaining the required breathing techniques for it. He is still able to use Hermit Purple, however. Joseph serves a supporting role as a result, and isn't involved in the majority of battles in this part.
At one point, he discovers an "invisible baby" which turns out to be the stand user of Achtung Baby. When the baby's carriage becomes invisible as well and rolls down a hill to land in a pool, Josuke panics about not being able to locate the baby in the water. Joseph, however, cuts himself to stain the water with his blood, thus allowing Josuke to find the baby. He says he did it because he wanted to make Josuke proud. By the end, Joseph adopts the baby and named her Shizuka - this, however, leads to further conflict with his wife Suzie, who believes the baby to be another "secret child."
Personality
As a young man, Joseph was incredibly hotheaded, impetuous and confrontational. He was not very serious or focused, and tended to fool around. However, over the course of Part 2, although he never really lost his overall attitude, he did develop into a strong, focused hero. At crucial points in battles, he liked to predict his opponent's next sentence.
In Part 3 he is much the same, only as an irascible old man with a temper and the same mischievous spirit as in his younger days. He is, however, much more easily surprised than he was in his youth. Being older, he is certainly more mature and serious. He and Jotaro, despite their hostility at first sight, manage to communicate with one another mentally. He is also able to offer advice to his hot-headed grandson.
In Part 4, age has weakened his mind and he appears to have become somewhat senile. He isn't nearly as confrontational as he was in his youth, even sadly accepting Josuke's demand that he not interact with Josuke's mother. He also appears to have lost some of his prior cleverness, as he is easily taken in by a salesman when buying baby things and ends up spending about $1,000 (shown to be about 135,000 Yen). Despite all his failures, however, he has become a well-meaning old man who is still willing to risk his life for others.
Powers
Joseph inherited the ability of the ripple from his grandfather Jonathan. This is on top of his Stand power. In addition, he uses the techniques of stage magic to confuse his foes. He is the only character in the series to use both the ripple and his Stand.
Stand
Hermit Purple manifests itself as a tangle of thorny vines, which Joseph can wield as both weapon and defense. They are relatively weak; however, Hermit Purple also provides Joseph with considerable telepathic ability, enabling him to sense locations or thoughts by projecting them into a camera, or a TV, or even into an image made from the sand of a dusty street.
Originally Joseph had no stand, but becomes one of the masters of the use of hamon power. These abilities stay with him even in Part 3, which still makes him quite powerful despite having one of the relatively weaker stands. Hermit Purple is the only Stand wielded by a Joestar (Johnny of the alternative universe may fall into this category) that does not have a humanoid appearance.
Stand Origins: The Hermit card primarily gives a meaning of solitude, introspective, or soul-searching, which would seem to symbolize Joseph's lifelong journey. It also carries a more direct meaning of teaching or advising, which is Joseph's main role in Part 3. It awakened in response to Dio and Enya awakening The World.
Trivia
- A minor point of controversy is the spelling of Joseph's name. Both in an official profile and on his tombstone during Part 2, his name is spelled "Josef Joestar" in plain English, while in part 3 his name is given as "Joseph". One explanation for this could be that Joseph naturalized his name to appear more American at some point (in real life, many immigrants after both World Wars did this).
- His catchphrase (used often in Part 3) is, "Oh! My! God!". Sometimes this will alternate with "My God!" or other such variations.
- Joseph has appeared in 3 story arcs, tying with Dio for second place in most appearances, and behind Jotaro who's appeared in 4 story arcs.
- Joseph collects comics and was a fan of Superman when he was young. He becomes a fan of Rohan Kishibe's works when he is much older.
- In a Fist of the North Star-like fashion, he'll verbally predict what will happen to his enemies and quote, often verbatim, what they will say. His enemy will then unwittingly repeat said prediction, shocked by Joseph's "mind reading". This is primarily in series 2, although he does perform this feat again in series 3 just before he destroys Empress.
- Joseph's series 3 design seems inspired by Indiana Jones.
- Joseph's personality and hairstyle may have influenced detective manga Kindaichi Case Files, as both protagonists love using tricks to confuse their enemies.
- Joseph is the only person to be able to use both hamon and a stand of his own - though he makes little use of his hamon power after obtaining his stand. Even when he did use his Hamon power, it rarely did him any good, especially when fighting The Empress and Dio, as both were unaffected by his Hamon attacks.
- In the PS1 game, his younger self (circa part 2) is an unlockable character.
- If his younger self is affected by Alessi's stand in the PS1 game, he is seen holding a Superman comic
Gallery
- Young joseph.jpg
Joseph (age 18) as seen in Battle Tendency
- Joseph OVA.jpg
Joseph (age 67) as seen in the OVA adaption
- Elderly joseph.jpg
Joseph (age 79) as seen in Diamond Is Unbreakable, holding Shizuka
- Joseph game.gif
image from the fighting game featuring Joseph
Disguised...?
