Summary
Mangaka can end up drawing all kinds of series, even after they make their most famous works. Yoshihiro Togashi made his name withYu Yu Hakushobefore doingHunter X Hunter. Akira Toriyama was already famous in East Asia forDr. Slumpbefore creatingDragon Ball. Then, after completingFullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa drewSilver Spoon, a manga about farming.
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Likewise, Hirohiko Araki’s manga career officially began in 1980, roughly seven years before he started work onJojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Before then, he was making all sorts of one-shots and miniseries, and he’s done plenty more in between illustrating the Joestar family’s adventures. But how do they compare to each other?
9Poker Under Arms
Araki technically started in 1978 when, at 17 years old, he submitted a story for the Tezuka Award calledThe Bottle. It didn’t win, and it wasn’t published in full, but it did get praise fromTenchi wo Kuraucreator Hiroshi Motomiya. Later, he spent a whole night drawing his next work,Poker Under Armsand took it straight to Shueisha for direct feedback. They criticized it but agreed to clean it up and publish it, making it his official debut.
It was a Western that saw two notorious gunmen challenge each other toa game of poker, only to be outsmarted by an old drunkard. As short as it was, the story got the readers’ attention. It won the Runner-Up prize at the 1981 Tezuka Award, earning commendations from Osamu Tezuka himself (“It’s thrilling and has an excellent composition that makes you think you’re watching a film”).
8Gorgeous Irene
Araki created other one-shots followingPoker Under Arms, like another western short calledOutlaw Man, andB.T. The Wicked Boy. They were all later gathered together in a volume named after its most intriguing story:Gorgeous Irene. It was about an assassin who could use makeup to disguise herself, change her personality, and take out her hits.
The strip was a prototype toJojoin a way, complete with the music-inspired character names (“Lauper”) andAntonio Lopez-inspired fashion poses. Irene’s makeup skills are similar to Hamon and Spin fromPhantom BloodandSteel Ball Runtoo. However, it ended after two parts due to Araki feeling he couldn’t draw women well enough for a full-length story. Instead, he switched to a male hero for his next project:Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
7Cool Shock B.T
BeforeIrene, Araki toyed with the idea of a Holmes & Watson-esque story with a twist: what if the Holmes equivalent was more like Moriarty? Its pilot one-shot,B.T. The Wicked Boy,did well enough to earn Araki his first weekly serialization.Cool Shock B.T.would continue the adventures of B.T. and his unfortunate friend Koichi. Art-wise, it almost looks Toriyama-ish in its childlike charm.
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But B.T. is no Goku. He goes to near-criminal lengths to achieve his goals, even if they’re as simple as impressing a crush or countering even worse kids. Yet this sly trickster aspect made him stand out from the more happy-go-lucky protagonists at the time. The strip would later get a one-shot sequel,Cool Shock Old B.T., by Nisio Isin and Posuka Demizu in 2021.
6Baoh
Baohis arguably Araki’s next most popular work afterJojo. It was his first battle shonen story, following its lead Ikuro Hashizawa after the criminal organization Doress turned him into a superweapon by planting the Baoh parasite into him. He escapes with the help of a psychic girl called Sumire but, fearing the parasite could spread, Doress sends assassins and monsters to finish him off.
Inspired byFist of the North Star, Baoh used various violent and gory techniques to defend himself, each named with big text splashes. He could melt people’s faces, lop their heads off, and electrocute everything around him. Plot-wise, it wasn’t particularly unique, butBaohstill gets referenced from time to time. He even got to fight theJojocast inJojo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle.
5The Lives of Eccentrics
BaohandCool Shock B.T.were popular but only lasted a few months each. Meanwhile, Araki would keep revisitingThe Lives of Eccentricsfrom its 1989 debut to its (as of this writing) last chapter in 2003. It essentially consisted of illustrated biographies of quirky famous figures, with some artistic license taken here and there for dramatic effect (e.g. the real Sarah Winchester wasn’t trapped in her Mystery House during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake).
All six of its stories were written by Araki, but he’d only illustrate the last two, covering the Winchester Mystery House and “Typhoid” Mary Mallon. The first four were about Nikola Tesla, Ty Cobb, the Collyer Brothers, and TV producer Yoshio Kō, and were drawn by his then-assistant Hirohisa Onikubo, who now does key art for theJojoanime. Though they’re not 1:1 accurate accounts, they’re intriguing, dramatic stories on their own merits.
4Under Execution, Under Jailbreak
Like theGorgeous Irenevolume,Under Execution, Under Jailbreakcollected Araki’s short stories. By 1999, Araki’s name was well established. The title story saw a prisoner sentenced to death discover his jail cell was also his death chamber via its deadly traps. In the second story,Dolce, and His Master, saw a cat trying to avoid being eaten by his master while they were lost at sea. Both would later be combined into a stage play adaptation in 2015.
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The next story,Dead Man’s Questions, was actually a spin-off fromJojo’s4th partDiamond is Unbreakable. It saw its villain Yoshikage Kira reduced to a ghost who was forced to carry out hits from beyond the grave for a monk. He doesn’t remember his past crimes, but he soon learns there’sno peace for him in the afterlifeeither. It’s an engaging read, but the volume’s 4th story would start off Araki’s most famous series of spin-offs.
3Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan
Appearing inUnder Execution, Under Jailbreak,Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohanwas originally Araki’s submission forShonen Jump’s Readers’ Cup ’97. It didn’t allow established characters, butDiamond is Unbreakable’s snarky manga artist got a pass because he wasn’t an active player in its debut story,At a Confessional.He just narrated the events, hence its Japanese title “Rohan Kishibe wa Ugokanai” (“Kishibe Rohan Does Not Move”).
Araki would bring it back as a series in 2007, where Rohan would either relate his stories like a Japanese Rod Serling or be its key lead. Not every story is a winner, withKishibe Rohan Meets Gucciessentially being a commercial for the fashion label. But its best tales, likeMillionaire VillageandDeoxyribonucleic Acid, would thrill and chill enoughto be both animatedand adapted into a live-action series.
2Rohan Au Louvre
Despite being re-released as part ofThus Spoke Kishibe Rohan,Rohan Au Louvrewas originally a separate release, made to tie in with the famous French gallery’s “The Louvre Invites the Comics” exhibition. It saw Rohan tell the reader how, when he was 17, he was shown a painting made with the darkest shade of black. Intrigued, he makes some work with the paint, but his friend Nanase destroys them, apologizes, then disappears from his life.
A decade later, he returns to the Louvre to see the painting again, only to find Nanase once more, and learn that some mysteries are best left alone. It’s essentially a double-length edition ofTSKR, with more time to build up to its horror and delve a little into Rohan’s past, making it a more effective read. Little wonder then that theTSKRlive-action series based its feature-length special on the story, releasing it in May 2023.
1Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Ultimately, it was obvious what Araki’s best manga would be.Jojo’s Bizarre Adventureis what took him from a rising star to being one of the biggest names in the business. Its different parts allowed him to experiment with his storytelling and artwork, mixing comedy with horror, action with drama, and even returning toGorgeous Irene’s fighting woman premise with its 6th partStone Ocean.
Still, its fame was initially limited to Japan, with just a limited Viz Media release,Capcom’s fighting game, and the 1990s OVA series giving it cult status elsewhere. But with time, that cult fame grew until David Production’s anime brought it into the limelight. Thanks to its popularity, the manga received a fresh translation and a much more widespread release, making it easier to catch Araki’s premier series in print worldwide.
