APADFTMOM Day 22: JoJo Week Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable

With some adjustments to how conflict is established, the fourth part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure provides the series with its finalized template for its storylines. There are many small changes between future parts to help keep things feeling fresh, but for the most part the series now has a set structure with which it can reliably frame its stories while keeping readers invested. Today we will be going over that finished product and showing how this part showcases how it can be used to great effect. We now make the jump from 1989 Egypt to a fictional town by the name of Morioh in 1999 for the fourth part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, titled Diamond Is Unbreakable.






Diamond Is Unbreakable, also known as Diamond Is Not Crash, tells the story of Josuke Higashikata as he meets the returning Jotaro Kujo, who informs Josuke that he is the illegitimate son of Joseph Joestar. Joseph himself arrives in Morioh as well, although his age is finally catching up with him and he is no longer as physically or mentally strong as he used to be. Jotaro informs Josuke that there is an increase of Stand users in Morioh thanks to a mystical bow and arrow that gives Stand powers to anybody who is shot with it and survives. Josuke agrees to help, and the two begin tracking down the bow and arrow to ensure the safety of the people of Morioh.




Josuke is the JoJo of Diamond Is Unbreakable and him fitting the JoJo naming convention is based on an alternative reading of the kanji that compose his family name, Higashikata. Josuke is a high school student who gives off the aura of being very cool but is actually a kind, extraordinarily humble person. Josuke has a decent number of insecurities and is a bit ashamed of admitting them, although some are apparent such as his nervous disposition while fighting. Josuke’s Stand is named Crazy Diamond and is a melee-based Stand similar to Jotaro’s Star Platinum but with the additional ability to restore things to their original forms when touching them.




Jotaro’s return in Diamond Is Unbreakable is an odd but necessary choice in order to pass the torch to the next protagonist. Jotaro is largely the same cool, collected person he was in Stardust Crusaders and shows up already involved in the current conflict, but he is put in a very fitting supporting role as Josuke’s mentor instead of brought back as the protagonist for a second time. This character pairing helps to serve as a reminder that while the art style of the series depicts characters as older than they are, Josuke is still essentially a child and his childlike mannerisms are made apparent when compared to Jotaro’s adult-like calmness. This could also be seen as giving Jotaro the childhood he did not have by proximity since he was roughly Josuke’s age around the time of Stardust Crusaders.




Diamond Is Unbreakable begins the series-wide trend of framing stories based around objectives rather than people. The story here sets an object as the goal instead of a person with the eventuality being that this quest will establish and lead to a villain. By the fourth part, a villain is not just expected but necessary in order to keep the flow of the series coherent. Each part is built on working towards an ending where a person who embodies all of the hardship through the story is pummeled mercilessly, so delivering anything less than that is unsatisfying and inferior.




Leaving the villain a mystery gives parts of the series an allure of intrigue, although that feeling is not as strong in Diamond Is Unbreakable as it is in future parts. The storytelling in early chapters of Diamond Is Unbreakable requests that the audience remain patient with it as it hops from lesser antagonist to lesser antagonist until the villain is finally named and the audience is assured that it can expect a build to one of the final battle scenarios that the series is known for. This is used to much greater effect in future parts where the story introduces and maintains multiple antagonists who could fit the highly coveted role and adds to the intrigue by teasing the reader with the idea of each of them.




Morioh as a setting is a big change for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure as a whole, despite not seeming that way on the surface. Up until Diamond Is Unbreakable, there was no general setting for any of the stories. Each previous part was a journey that took the cast from place to place. Even Egypt in Stardust Crusaders was only a loose setting as the characters traversed the entire country to track down Dio. Morioh represents a smaller, intimate setting that Josuke is extremely familiar with. The narrative couples this with its lack of villain to present an inverse of previous stories where the adventure is not focused on exploring exotic locations for its final conflict but exploring the people of Morioh.




A combination of elements give Diamond Is Unbreakable a much more relaxed feel when compared to previous installments. The story follows in the path of Stardust Crusaders by having the chapter-to-chapter plot be dependent on small monster-of-the-week style conflicts, but there is a level of familiarity with those conflicts as Josuke experiences them with and against his friends and fellow members of his community. Diamond Is Unbreakable could also be described as the coming of age story of Josuke as he balances a regular teenager’s life with his frequent involvement in life-or-death situations while guided into maturity by a series veteran and fan favorite.




It is also worth noting that Diamond Is Unbreakable is the part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure where Hirohiko Araki’s appreciation for music begins to shine. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is famous for its incorporation of names of songs, bands, and musicians into the series and is also infamous for the attempts to dodge these copyrighted materials during the localization process. Diamond Is Unbreakable puts this naming convention front and center via Stand names. Whereas Stands in Stardust Crusaders were named after Egyptian gods and the Major Arcana tarot cards, such as Star Platinum or Bastet, Stands in Diamond Is Unbreakable are named after the likes of Pearl Jam and Earth, Wind, and Fire.




Diamond Is Unbreakable is widely respected as one of the best parts of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure due to a mix of its phenomenal story, likeable characters, and memorable moments that JoJo fans have come to adore. Diamond Is Unbreakable has recently been released by Viz Media for sale in the west and is available on the Shonen Jump app but not as a part of their subscription service at this time.