Jotaro Kujo

Jotaro Kujo (空条 承太郎) is a fictional character from the Japanese manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and the protagonist of Series 3. He has a recognizable attire of a blue trenchcoat-length school uniform jacket with yellow chains on the collar.

He also wears a trademark blue hat which, while torn in the back, often seems to blend with his hair. While they are first shown as being completely separate, later publications cause more uncertainty as to where his hat and his hair actually meet. His hat is most likely a Japanese student cap that was normally worn along with the gakuran prior to the 1970s.

He is also known for a quick and short temper. He is the only JoJo to make an appearance in four different series.

Storyline
"He used to be such a good boy... and now I don't know what's happened to him!" his mother laments right at the beginning of Series 3. Jotaro is Holly Kujo's son and Joseph Joestar's grandson. When Jotaro first appears, he turned himself in to the police because he believes his Stand is an evil spirit possessing him. To demonstrate, he steals a gun from a prison guard, and tries to shoot himself in the head -- a phantom hand emerges from his arm and catches the bullet, however, only Holly sees the hand. This act naturally earned the widespread fear of the guards and other prisoners towards him.

Joseph comes to Jotaro's aid with Mohammed Avdol. A brief fight ensues due to Jotaro's defiance, getting Avdol involved. After he is released from jail, and learns what his Stand is, Jotaro gets used to Star Platinum -- a fierce, muscular, vaguely Aztec-looking spirit with "the precision of a machine" and the ability to destroy virtually anything with a "Fist of the North Star"-like sledgehammer barrage of fists.

In the sixth story arc Stone Free, Jotaro becomes an oceanologist, moves to the United States, eventually marries, and his daughter, Jolyne inherits Stand powers. But she also inherits the tradition of adventures that Jotaro tends to get entangled in. She also adopts an outfit style similar to his at one point due to her fascination and respect for her father.

Personality and Appearance
He has a very tough exterior, and is even rather rough and delinquent, but he also is very dedicated, intense, and loyal. He is very intelligent, but usually lets his (or Star Platinum's) fists do the talking with the enemy, even though he often has to rely on his wits to deal with Stand users' attacks. Jotaro has a perpetual cooler-than-thou, slightly uninterested attitude, although he loves his mother and respects his grandfather. It is not that he is unaware of his own love and/or respect--rather, he thinks anyone can tell his emotions just by looking at him, and probably thinks further effort in portraying how he feels to be a waste of time. In the manga, he's constantly chased by adoring girls, whom he ignores or tries to drive away. He is the main target of Dio, who realizes that Jotaro is his greatest threat.

In Part 6, he also shows his protective father side, often taking near fatal blows for Jolyne and throttling her out of harm's way. After he is "revived", Anasui, one of Jolyne's companions who is enthralled by her, asked Jotaro to approve of marrying her. Although he first acted deaf, Jotaro got the picture when he saw Jolyne lean against Anasui's chest. Not ready to see his daughter married off right away, he pulled his daughter into his arms, leaving Jolyne clueless to their interactions. His father, a jazz musician, is thought to receive his namesake from Sadao Watanabe, a jazz saxophonist. His father is always on tour and is never seen.

Jotaro is both fierce and gentle, and he shows these traits in various scenes, from the fight with N'Dour to the encounter with D'Arby. One shining example is how he spared Noriaki Kakyoin, instead of destroying him outright, knowing that Kakyoin attacked him unwillingly and was under Dio's influence. The same happened for Polnareff, whom he saved as well. Both became invaluable allies to the end. Unlike with both D'Arby brothers, who got the full brunt of Jotaro's ferocity, he saw in N'Dour blind loyalty rather than greed and evil that was evident with the other enemies. Though still loyal to Dio, N'Dour respected Jotaro for his strength, despite being an enemy, until he breathed his last. In return, Jotaro gave N'Dour a decent burial in the desert.

Jotaro's appearance is interesting in that he exhibits an anime archetype exhibited commonly by "genius" characters by forever staying young through all of his appearances in spite of age.

His catchphrase is "Yare yare daze." It has no direct translation but it is usually translated to the effect of, "Gimme a break." It can also mean "Well well well..." or "all-right all-right...", since "yare yare" commonly translates to "Oh well..." It generally relates of being bored or exasperation. In the official Shonen Jump Advanced manga this is written as "Give me a !@$&*# break..".

In the manga, Jotaro is seen reading a Shonen Jump in his cell, with Shonen Jump being the magazine in which JoJo is published in Japan. These magazines also saved Jotaro from being fatally impaled by Dio's knives.

He is regarded by many as the most charismatic character of the JoJo series.

Stand
One of the strongest Stands in the JoJo universe, Star Platinum possesses superhuman senses, strength, stamina, accuracy and speed. It can see for great distances and at great magnifications. As an added bonus, it has a "Star Finger" attack in which it extends its finger to attack. It is similar to Dio's The World Stand, and, it turns out, can likewise be used to stop time, but that ability is only revealed in Jotaro's epic battle with Dio Brando when Dio was about to drop a steamroller on him.

The Star card symbolizes, above all, hope. This is very appropriate, since Jotaro is very much the young new hope of the series. Like other physically powerful stands, Star Platinum suffers from a narrow range of activity. It can only be active within a 2-3 meter radius from Jotaro.

Star Platinum resembles one of the enemies Jonathan faces in Series 1, and Jonathan himself on one chapter.

Star Platinum The World - After Dio's defeat Jotaro's Stand is the strongest Stand in the JoJo universe. Star Platinum The World, an evolved version of the Stand, appears near the end of Stone Ocean. At his peak, during his battle with Dio, Jotaro can stop time for as long as 5 seconds with his Stand. It's stated that Star Platinum can freeze time for longer, but 5 seconds is the limit for human endurance under stopped time. Jotaro hasn't fully recovered from his injuries in this appearance and is somewhat unable to maintain 5 seconds as well as he used to.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Arcade/PSOne/Dreamcast)
Jotaro's gameplay is more oriented on offense. He is a lot more effective with his Stand off. This is because of his Blazing Fists, and Jotaro's ability to attack the enemy by himself, while the Stand is attacking. This, in turn, increases the hits and the damage in comparison to attacks with the Stand activated.

As such, his gameplay is more on poking the enemy until he or she budges. Jotaro players are known to be very pesky and can cover a lot of ground in a short time, but their nature of gameplay requires them to put defense strategies on a backseat, to take advantage of the strength from his Blazing Fists.

Also, the inactive Stand version of Putzun Ora may not deal that much damage in comparison to the active Stand version by itself, but when the player attacks with Jotaro going around the enemy, the hits and damage become significantly larger than the latter version.

Star Breaker isn't too effective for poking gameplay, and is seldom used. The active Stand version can be charged until it becomes unblockable, but this takes too much set-up time to be very effective.

Jotaro's "Stop World" isn't as powerful as Dio's, and with the attack speed from Putzun Ora, players are forced to perform the move before the super meter is depleted of one level during Stop World.

In popular culture

 * In the NBC drama, Heroes, a fictional Japanese salaryman named Hiro Nakamura is a fan of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. In his blog, he states that he wants to "be like JoJo and Vaan and go on adventures". One of his powers includes time manipulation, a gift shared with both Jotaro and Dio Brando. Hiro later posts on his blog under the pseudonym of Jotaro Kujo.


 * He and Dio are selectable characters in the Nintendo DS games Jump Super Stars and Jump Ultimate Stars.


 * Daishi, ex-vocalist of the former Japanese Visual Kei group Psycho le Cému, dressed like Jotaro in Love is Dead, the last PV of the group.


 * In the video game Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, if the Sacred Fist subweapon is used without a spellbook activated, the protagonist, Juste, shouts "Ora ora ora!" and unleashes a flurry of extremely fast, blur-like punches. This is a reference to Star Platinum, Jotaro Kujo's Stand, which attacks in the same way. Additionally, in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, a soul called "Cagnazzo" can be obtained that makes a demon appear behind the protagonist and punch wildly whilst shouting "ora ora ora!" in another reference to Star Platinum.
 * Also, in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow one of the boss characters utilises time stopping abilities in conjunction with knives (Much like Dio) however, when stopping time he exclaims "Star Platinum!" Just as Jotaro does in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure videogame.