Hirohiko Araki

Toshiyuki Araki (荒木 利之), better known as Hirohiko Araki (荒木 飛呂彦), is a Japanese manga artist.

The series begins in 1880s England and follows Jonathan Joestar (nicknamed JoJo) and his adopted brother Dio Brando, who eventually tries to kill their father in order to obtain his share of inheritance.

When confronted, Dio puts on an ancient mask that turns him into a vampire.

Jonathan then learns a breathing technique named Hamon, which grants JoJo various powers to combat Dio.

Subsequent arcs of JoJo follow the descendants of the Joestar family, and many are set in different parts of the world.

The third and most popular arc, Stardust Crusaders, downplays the vampire story and Hamon technique, instead introducing a new power known as Stands, which remain the focus of the series today.

Still being serialized over 30 years later, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been adapted into numerous other forms of media and the manga had 120 million collected volumes in print by 2022.

Araki left Miyagi University of Education before graduating, and made his debut under the name Toshiyuki Araki (荒木 利之) in 1980 with the wild west one-shot Poker Under Arms, which was a "Selected Work" at that year's Tezuka Award.

His first serialization was Cool Shock B.T. in 1983, about a young magician who solves mysteries.

But the first series to display his signature amount of gore was 1984's Baoh.

It tells the story of a man who is implanted with a parasite by an evil organization, giving him superhuman powers, and follows as he fights against them.

It wasn't until The Gorgeous Irene in 1985, that his signature art style of buff, muscular characters came into its own, though it would later become more flamboyant.

He is best known for his long-running series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which began publication in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1987 and has over 120 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history.

Araki grew up in Sendai, Japan with his parents and younger identical twin sisters.

He cites his sisters' annoyances as the reason he spent time alone in his room reading manga, naming Ai to Makoto as the most important one to him.

He supposes that his father's art books were his motive for drawing manga; he was particularly influenced by the work of French artist Paul Gauguin.

After a school friend praised his manga, he began secretly drawing manga behind his parents' backs.

He submitted his first work to a magazine in his first year of high school.

All his submissions were rejected while other artists his age or younger were making successful debuts.

He decided to go to the publishers' offices in Tokyo in person to find out why, taking a manga, Poker Under Arms, that he stayed up all-night to finish.

The Shueisha editor he met highly criticized the work, but said it had potential and to clean it up for the upcoming Tezuka Awards.

His next series would become his magnum opus, 1987's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Baoh was adapted into an OVA in 1989; the manga was released in the US by Viz Media in 1990 (in tankōbon form in 1995), but the OVA didn't get a stateside release until 2002.

The September 2007 issue of Cell had a cover drawn by Araki with a ligase represented as one of his Stands.

In 2008, Araki drew the cover art for a collection featuring Yasunari Kawabata's short story "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

He drew the cover for the limited edition of Base Ball Bear's "Breeeeze Girl" single, which actually takes an image from the JoJo manga.

Also in 2009, Hirohiko Araki was one of five artists selected by the Musée du Louvre to create original works set at the famous museum.

His piece Rohan at the Louvre starred JoJo's Rohan Kishibe and was shown at the exhibit titled Le Louvre invite la bande dessinée ("The Louvre Invites Comic-Strip Art"), which was created to show the diversity of comics, from January 19 to April 13.

Rohan at the Louvre was highly praised.

The following year, Rohan at the Louvre was published in France and ran in Japan's Ultra Jump.

From 2011 to 2021, Araki produced JoJolion, the eighth story arc of the series, serialized in Ultra Jump magazine.

From September 17 to October 6, 2011, the Gucci store in Shinjuku hosted the Gucci x Hirohiko Araki x Spur "Rohan Kishibe Goes to Gucci" Exhibition, a collaboration between the luxury Italian clothing brand, JoJo's creator, and the fashion magazine Spur.

The exhibit celebrated the 90th anniversary of Gucci and featured a life-size figure of Rohan Kishibe, as well as numerous illustrations by Araki; including actual pieces of the brand's own 2011-2012 fall/winter collection and his own original fashion designs.

For Spur, Araki drew Kishibe Rohan meets Gucci., a full-color one-shot featuring Rohan Kishibe that ran in its October 2011 issue.

To raise awareness of the ongoing reconstruction efforts of the Hiraizumi ruins, that were damaged by the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in June, Araki drew artwork depicting the ruins.

It was released in the US by NBM Publishing in February 2012.

A "Hirohiko Araki JoJo Exhibition" opened in Araki's native Sendai at the end of July 2012 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, it then moved to Tokyo in October.

He drew the album cover for Sayuri Ishikawa's 2012 album X -Cross-, where she performs one of the series' iconic poses and is drawn wearing jewelry from the manga, the cover of the 2012 reprint of Tamaki Saitō's Lacan for Surviving, and the cover of the 2015 compilation album for composer Akira Senju.

Spur once again ran a JoJo spinoff by Araki, Jolyne, Fly High with Gucci starring Jolyne Cujoh from Part 6, in their February 2013 issue.

A free English translation is available on Gucci's Facebook page.