By John Ancillotti, Staff Writer
An event on April 4, titled JOESTAR The Inherited Soul, revealed information about upcoming releases related to the popular manga and anime series “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” created by Hirohiko Araki.
The event was hosted by master of ceremonies Chiaki Matsuzawa and featured each voice actor for the show’s five protagonists so far. The story is split into parts, each part following a new character of the Joestar bloodline.
Part six of “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” known as “Stone Ocean,” follows Jolyne Cujoh. The voice actress Fairouz Ai revealed at the end of the event she will be voicing Cujoh in the upcoming season.
The “Stone Ocean” manga concluded in 2003. The current anime run began in 2012, and the most recent season’s finale aired in 2019.
Each season so far has been animated by the animation studio David Production Inc. Some fans noticed their name was not mentioned in the reveal of “Stone Ocean” and questioned if the studio is still attached to the project.
Throughout the day leading up to the event, JoJo fans got multiple terms trending on Twitter, including “Part 6,” “Jolyne” and “Stone Ocean.”
Some fans wished for the anime to skip part six and go straight to part seven. The seventh part of “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” “Steel Ball Run,” is the second highest rated manga of all time, according to MyAnimeList.
During the event, they shared statistics about the show. On the day of the event, production of the show had begun 3,309 days before. A total of 156 episodes had been produced, including the four-episode Netflix spin-off “Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan.” Staff members totaling 2,390 have worked on the anime, including 313 cast members.
The voice actors shared memories from production and reacted to popular scenes of their characters. Each protagonist’s voice actor did a live dubbing over a scene of their character, the scenes were voted in by fans.
Kazuyuki Okitsu, the voice of Jonathan Joestar, voiced over his character’s final scene.
Tomokazu Sugita, the voice of Joseph Joestar, voiced over his character reacting to the death of another character.
Daisuke Ono, the voice of Jotaro Kujo, voiced over the moment his character defeats the show’s main villain.
Yuki Ono, the voice of protagonist Josuke Higashikata, voiced over the confrontation between his character and part four’s antagonist.
Kensho Ono, the voice of Giorno Giovanna, voiced over a scene of Giorno and a companion defeating a minor villain.
Merchandise including figurines, pins, tapestries, clothing and more were also revealed during the event.
Fans looking to watch the two-anda-half-hour event with English subtitles had to pay 40 U.S. dollars. This led to pirated livestreams of the event receiving thousands of views. The English subtitles were auto generated, resulting in mistranslations.
ancilljm19@bonaventure.edu
