Noriaki Kakyoin

Noriaki Kakyoin is a fictional character from the Japanese manga series, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. He is easily recognizable in his green and tight student outfit, green eyes, two cherry-shaped earrings and pinkish red hair with a unique "side hair". He may also sometimes wear shades. His Stand is Hierophant Green.

Story
Initially a student who has traveled to Egypt, Dio Brando sensed his Stand powers and asked him for a demonstration, which turned out to be a fight. Afterwards, Kakyoin is brainwashed by Dio using buds from his own cells into following his will, which is to kill Jotaro Kujo.

The manner in which he carries out his assault upon Jotaro differs from the manga and anime. In the manga (and the video game), the assault happens inside a clinic of the school when his Stand possesses the school nurse. However, in the anime, he attacks Jotaro by possessing the body of a female student with his Stand. He is defeated by Jotaro either way.

Jotaro soon discovers that Kakyoin was under the influence of Dio. Jotaro then used his own Stand, Star Platinum, to remove Dio's implant buds from Kakyoin's head in spite of the risk that it may openly attack both of them. Kakyoin is freed from Dio's slavery afterwards and he joins the heroes as thanks for helping him.

His appearance with sunglasses is a direct result of his eye injury from N'Dour's attack. In the fighting game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, (a follow up to the game JoJo's Venture), this appearance is named "New Kakyoin", or 恐怖を乗り越えた花京院 (trans: "Kakyoin who overcame his fears") in the Japanese version of the game. He has different attack methods and physics than the original.

Sadly he is killed in the final battle against Dio when, after using his time-stopping powers, Dio's Stand punched straight through Kakyoin's mid-section. Luckily, he manages to show Joseph and Jotaro the secret to Dio's Stand before passing away.

Personality
Kakyoin is said to be cold-looking from the outside, but his inner personality is completely different; he's a warm and loyal fighter. He will support his comrades actively, and he fights for things that are ethically right.

After the battle with Jotaro, he realizes his mistake of being used as Dio's pawn and to make up for that, he joins Jotaro in his quest to destroy Dio, even at the expense of his own life.

Some of his personality undergoes changes in the middle of the story, and this is attributed to the events after his encounters with Mannish Boy and N'Dour. He eventually sheds this "repentant" attitude. In addition to the above traits, he now has more confidence and has regained a lot of his pride.

He also has profound respect for his parents, remembering them right before his eventual death.

Stand
Hierophant Green is an elastic and remote Stand, capable of 'scouting' (as seen in the manga series in the fight against 'Strength') and performing actions from far distances. Kakyoin has wielded this Stand since birth. His Stand looks humanoid but robotic with yellow eyes, no distinguishable mouth, and green-colored appendages that resembles a watermelon in texture. The exterior features of the Stand sports a cream-white or beige color. The composition of this Stand isn't solid; instead it is a compact winding coils of itself that can unravel at a moment's notice. The Stand is approximately as tall as Kakyoin himself. Whenever the green appendages glow, the Stand is priming for an attack, such as Emerald Splash.

Kakyoin is the only protagonist to wield a long-range Stand in Part 3, and hence, is the first ever protagonist in the JoJo universe to do so.

The abilities of this Stand are the following:


 * Extend its appendages - The Stand can extend its bodyparts and tentacles to a theoretically unlimited distance.
 * Constrict an enemy - Using its own features of flexibility, it can hold, choke or pull a given object. Its true strength is unknown, but it is limited by the endurance of Kakyoin's body, as stated during the fight against Wheel of Fortune, when Joseph Joestar thought Kakyoin was going to use his Stand to pull their car to safety from a gorge, and said that the strain would tear him apart. Kakyoin avoided this by attaching a rope with a hook onto the car possessed by the Wheel of Fortune Stand.
 * Surround a given place with its own appendages - Just like extending his Stand's own parts, Kakyoin can make his Stand deploy several appendages of itself that would act independently. This is his basis of setting traps, like in the video games, and during his battle with Dio.
 * Possess and take control of an enemy - Kakyoin's Stand can be uncoiled completely inside a person. Fully exploiting this ability, he can turn anyone into his own marionette. If Kakyoin possesses an individual, he controls the person exclusively.
 * Shoot emeralds in high velocities - His Stand can emit emeralds and shoot them in rapidly multiple succession, like bullets. The speed and velocity the emeralds travel at is enough to crush objects like concrete and flesh.

Hierophant Green is also very sensitive to movement and can react very quickly. Its appendages can also deliver an electrical shock in some cases. However, his Stand is relatively weak in direct hand-to-hand combat, as a tradeoff of its great distance-based abilities.

In Video Games
It is noteworthy that even in the video games (excluding the Super Famicom RPG), especially in the fighting game made by Capcom, Kakyoin's fate in his own storyline is to die, whereas other characters had more pleasant endings, with the exception of Midler. However, because of how the dialogue was done in the game, some may argue that it could be open-ended, suggesting a possibility of his survival. The ending seems to imply that Kakyoin died on the trip home inside the airplane, possibly due to the wounds suffered in the battle with Dio, and him keeping quiet about it. This could be otherwise explained as fainting or severe weakening, in the absence of solid illustration that he did die. On the other hand, New Kakyoin's storyline in the game confirms his death, as it occurred in the original storyline from the manga.

The endings where Kakyoin survives the adventure is in Iggy's and in Avdol's storyline. This is because Dio attacks Iggy or Avdol first before Jotaro, Kakyoin and Joseph.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Arcade/PSX/Dreamcast)
As a playable character in these games, Kakyoin's gameplay is primarily designed for defense. A lot of his techniques reflect this; he also has limited forms of offense but plentiful techniques for striking back, punishing or even ticking. With the Stand activated, he can dash and doublejump in the air.

His Mystic Traps can't be sensed until it is deployed. It can be hit with another Stand attack, but some realize the position of the traps too late. With this technique used in conjunction with specials or super moves, Kakyoin wears down an enemy very quickly, even though the damage is limited.

The Wrap Snake, used both for offense and defense, is one of Kakyoin's feared moves. Without his Stand activated, he can join in and punch the enemy, but with his Stand activated, buttons can be pressed repeatedly to fire emeralds. Expert players can use this technique to hit the enemies weak point for massive damage from only this move alone.

Emerald Splash is best used as part of a combo. It has shorter range without the Stand activated, but reaches full screen with the Stand activated. The only downside is that the move cannot be integrated into combos in the way two in one attacks are performed. 20m Radius Emerald Splash is the powered-up version of this move, and without an active Stand in the part of the enemy, inflicts massive chipping damage.

Oshioki no Jikan demonstrates Hierophant Green's ability to enter a body of an enemy. This move is similar to Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu, but with one striking difference: it inflicts damage from within the body. While the damage it inflicts fares lower, the fact that it cannot be blocked and can be incorporated into combos provide pressure tactics in battle.

In JoJo's Venture, he has considerable offense power, however, he is slightly slow. This was changed in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but at the price of losing damage strength. He also gained a new super move that helped him in his offensives.

He also has one of the longest reaches in terms of physical attacks, in particular, with his Stand attack.

In popular culture

 * It is well known that the shoujo manga group, Clamp, were fans of JoJo. It is curious to note that in their later publication, Wish, the main angel character, Kohaku, highly resembles Kakyoin's hairdo and appearance. Ironically, the love interest of said character roughly resembles a hatless Jotaro, named Shuichiro Kudo. Although the angel is sexless, some fans have speculated this story is a shounen-ai interpretation of the two.

Noriaki Kakyoin