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.
Synopsis
Battle Tendency (1938-39)
Joseph is introduced as Jonathan's grandson living in New York with his grandmother Erina and seems to have naturally inherited the power of the Ripple (波紋) Hamon). When an old family friend Speedwagon is reported dead 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. After being led on a wild chase in which his prepared attacks ultimately prove to be futile, he witnesses Straights' suicide by the Ripple.
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 Ripple 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 causing the death of his grandfather Will A. Zeppeli through his incompetence. They end up being present when three more sleeping pillar men, named Wham, ACDC, and Cars. Unfortunately, even with his American Ripple-Infused Crackers, the untrained Joseph is unable to stand a chance. Luckily, he manages to talk them out of killing him. Wham and ACDC both end up fixing "rings of engagement", internal time bombs set to release poison into his blood if he doesn't defeat them within a month, to Joseph's heart and throat. Joseph realizes that he will have to train or die, and Caesar introduces Joseph to his master Lisa Lisa, who also reveals that the motives of the pillar men are to seize the Red Stone of Asia to become perfect life forms. 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 had previously thought of him more as amusement rather than a threat).
While pursuing Cars and Wham, Joseph is reunited with the supposedly-deceased Stroheim, who has been rebuilt as a powerful cyborg by Nazi science. 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 the remaining pillar men's vulnerability to sunlight, everyone is eager to face them during the day, sans Joseph. Caesar, unable accept this, gets into a conflict with Joseph and heads to battle Wham alone, coming remarkably close to defeating him if not for his own vengeance. Caesar is, however, able to rip off the latter's lip piercing, containing the antidote to Joseph's poison ring. Before dying from his wounds and 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, allows the bubble to float to Joseph. 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-battle and the final showdown against Cars begins. However, Cars proves to be less honorable than Wham and breaks his promise to fight her one-on-one and sacrifices one of his weaker vampires in order to defeat her. Angered by Cars' treachery, Joseph then challenges Cars, who looks upon him as a weak ripple user and not even worth fighting seriously. All seems to be over in this fight against Cars until a newly rebuilt Stroheim and his Nazi soldiers, Speedwagon, and Smokey arrive to help Joseph. Though it is revealed that Lisa Lisa is Joseph's biological mother, Joseph is constantly prevented from hearing about this. The ultraviolet light seems to have killed Cars and saved the world, but Cars had placed the stone mask on his face and fused it with the powers of the Red Stone of Asia to become an ultimate life form.
Joseph and company frantically try to devise strategies to defeat Cars and Joseph manages to crash Cars into a volcano with a plane. However, Cars is able to cover himself in an armor of bubbles to protect himself from the molten lava. Right when all hope appears lost, Joseph defends himself from Cars' enhanced Ripple with the Red Stone of Asia, which causes the volcano to erupt and throw Joseph into the sea and Cars into space.
Weeks later, a funeral is held for the presumably-dead Joseph, but Joseph himself crashes the event and reveals that after he fell back down from the sky, he ended up in Italy where he was helped by some local fisherman and nursed back to health by Suzie Q and marries her. Joseph then returned 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.
Despite not having an offensive stand, however, he does defeat stand users like The Empress.
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 and becomes more of a father figure than a grandfather figure to Jotaro.
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. In addition, he uses techniques commonly present in stage magic to confuse his foes. Joseph also develops a stand after Dio pierces Jonathan's body with the Arrow, upon which it responded to Dio and Enya awakening The World. He is the only character in the series to use both the ripple and a stand.
Stand
Hermit Purple manifests itself as a tangle of thorny vines, which Joseph can wield as both weapon and defense.
Stand Origins: The Hermit card primarily gives a meaning of solitude, introspective, or soul-searching, which could 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.
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 (many immigrants after both World Wars did this in real life).
- His catchphrase (used often in Part 3) is, "Oh! My! God!". Sometimes, this will alternate with "My God!" or other such variations.
- He has survived three plane crashes.
- 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 prominent in series 2, although he does perform this feat again in series 3 just before he destroys Empress.
- Joseph's Part 3 design appears to have been inspired by Indiana Jones.
- Joseph's personality and hairstyle may have influenced the detective manga Kindaichi Case Files, as both protagonists incorporate 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...?
