Summary
- Hirohiko Araki's non-Jojo manga are short stories but sometimes adapted to other media or animated, showcasing his diverse storytelling skills.
- Cool Shock B.T features a Jojo-like protagonist who pulls off clever tricks and schemes, combining elements of Joseph Joestar and Dio.
- The Lives of Eccentrics explores the lives of historical figures through manga retellings of urban legends, illustrated by Araki's assistant Hirohisa Onikubo.
Hirohiko Araki has been drawing manga for 44 years and counting, with most of that time spent drawing his seminal series Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s a rather unique strip as, in addition to living up to the ‘bizarre’ part of the title, it changes protagonists and settings with each part. Araki puts this down to getting quickly bored with the formula and wanting to do something different.
It shows in his other non-Jojo manga, as they tend to be short stories that would only fit an OVA. But some of these works have been adapted to other forms of media, have had mini-revivals of their own, or may be animated someday. Until then, these are Hirohiko Araki's unanimated manga strips.
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10 Cool Shock B.T
A Jojo-Like Protagonist
- MyAnimeList Score: 6.13
- Genre: Shōnen action comedy
- Start Date: September 1983
Born from his one-shot, B.T The Wicked Boy, Cool Shock B.T is about a boy who uses his intelligence and tricks to swindle bullies, soldiers, and other rivals along with his friend and reluctant accomplice Koichi. Sometimes he helps others avoid murder charges. Other times, he tricks one bully into stabbing another.
B.T is what fans would get if Joseph Joestar and Dio merged. He’s as sly as the Jojo Part 2 protagonist, with a wicked streak like the vampire. Araki ended it after two months, but it’s since been revived as Cool Shock Old B.T by Nisio Isin (Monogatari, Medaka Box) and Posuka Demizu (The Promised Neverland). The revival follows B.T and Koichi as old men continuing their tricks, with a bunch of Araki and Jojo references along the way.
9 Gorgeous Irene
An Unassuming Lady Assassin
- MyAnimeList Score: 5.88
- Genre: Shōnen action
- Dates: 1985-1986
Irene Rapona is a sweet young woman who’s bullied for her timid personality. But when she puts on her special makeup, she becomes Gorgeous Irene, an assassin who uses cosmetics against her foes. It has many of the hallmarks Araki would use for Jojo, from the fashionable poses to the musically themed characters.
However, it only lasted 2 chapters, as Araki didn’t feel too keen on doing a full-length shōnen story about a woman. It would take him another 13 years to do that in Jojo Part 6: Stone Ocean.
8 The Lives of Eccentrics
A Look At Historical Figures
- MyAnimeList Score: 6.95
- Genre: Seinen historical
- Dates: 1989-2003
The Lives of Eccentrics stands out as, while every story in the series is written by Araki, he didn’t draw every page. Many of the eccentrics’ lives were illustrated by Hirohisa Onikubo, Araki’s chief assistant during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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As the title suggests, it follows the lives of famous, often controversial figures from history. However, it’s less of a deep dive into the truth behind them, and more of a manga retelling of the urban legends surrounding them. Examples include Nikola Tesla’s rivalry with Thomas Edison, or Yoshio Kou’s attempts to make a human-chimpanzee hybrid.
7 Under Execution, Under Jailbreak
A Horrific Imprisonment
- MyAnimeList Score: 7.39
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Dates: 1997-1999
Under Execution, Under Jailbreak was inspiring enough to get adapted into a stage play, combined with another Araki short story. It's a part of Araki’s own Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan anthology series. It’s a prison thriller with a twist, as Prisoner 27 is sentenced to death with a unique execution.
He’s locked in a cell full of different traps. If he turns the light on, he gets attacked by bees. He tries to eat his food, but it’s a fish full of bones. His chair breaks into pieces, and his spork is full of holes. The sofa is a secret electric chair, and the floorboards are hiding nails. He’ll either live a life of torture, or die trying to escape.
6 Dolce, and His Master
A Cat And A Madman Lost At Sea
- MyAnimeList Score: 7.39 (as part of Under Execution Under Jailbreak)
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Dates: 1997-1999
In the stage play of UEUJ, the prisoner manages to escape via a boat, which leads into its second story adaptation, Dolce, and His Master. It was printed in the same short-story compendium as UEUJ. But it follows a different lead called Masago, an architect left adrift on a yacht with only the body of a drowned woman and his cat, Dolce, for company.
Masago is at first happy to have the cat around, only to slowly succumb to madness. He fights with Dolce over candy, then tries to eat him. Their situation gets more dire as the yacht starts to capsize, and the sharks eat the woman’s corpse. The cat must choose between getting eaten by Masago, getting eaten by the sharks, or finding a way to avoid either fate.
5 Deadman’s Questions
Spinoff For A Jojo Villain
- MyAnimeList Score: 7.39 (as part of Under Execution, Under Jailbreak)
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Dates 1997-1999.
Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan managed to get a few stories animated. That said, it’s not the only spin-off from Jojo Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable. In fact, it might have the most spin-offs out of all the chapters.
Deadman’s Questions reveals what happened to Yoshikage Kira after the end of Part 4. He became a ghost, unaware of his previous life. He must spend his afterlife doing missions for a monk, like killing a child murderer, or investigating a mansion linked to multiple deaths in the area. It's a curious, fitting fate for the villain, as he’ll never find the peace he sought in life.
4 Oingo Boingo Brothers’ Adventure
A Different Perspective On Jojo Part 3
- MyAnimeList Score: 6.17
- Genre: Supernatural fantasy
- Dates: October 2002
This one is a bit of a cheat, as it has technically been animated. Oingo Boingo Brothers’ Adventure is all the chapters of Part 3: Stardust Crusaders involving Oingo and Boingo, but told from their perspective and in the art style of Boingo’s comic-based Stand Tohth. It’s also meant to be a published book within the Jojo universe.
The last few pages feature commentary from Rohan on how it got published, and what he thinks of its ‘unique artwork.’ As such, it could work as a Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan episode, though it might not offer much for viewers that they didn’t already get from their EDs.
3 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 7: Steel Ball Run
The Next Part In The Jojo Saga
- MyAnimeList Score: 9.3
- Genre: Seinen action adventure.
- Dates: January 2004-April 2011.
Considering Parts 1-6 have now been animated, it seems obvious that the next Jojo anime adaptation will be Part 7: Steel Ball Run. It follows a new continuity, starting a new multipart arc. It acts like an odd, Western-themed retelling of Part 1: Phantom Blood, as a Joestar learns a special ability from an Italian called Zeppeli to beat Dio.
Except the said Joestar is a paraplegic horse racer called Johnny. The ability is Spin, mastered by the quirky Neapolitan Gyro Zeppeli, and Diego ‘DIO’ Brando isn’t the main villain. He’s just a power-hungry jerk who, like everyone else, is racing for the $50 million prize in the titular Steel Ball Run. Also, like the other racers, they’re pawns in a wider scheme.
2 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 8: Jojolion
The Most Recently Completed Part
- MyAnimeList Score: 8.47
- Genre: Seinen action mystery
- Dates: May 2011-August 2021
Part 7 ended around the time the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami struck Japan in 2011, close to Araki’s home city of Sendai. He wasted no time returning to the area in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 8: Jojolion, which has the disaster striking Morioh. This reveals a curious anomaly called Wall Eyes, the body of Yoshikage Kira, and a naked amnesiac.
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Like Part 7, Part 8 takes inspiration from Part 4. Instead of a murder mystery, the amnesiac, taking on the name Josuke, is trying to figure out who he is. He ends up coming across a smuggling ring involving the Rokaka fruit, which can cure conditions via equivalent exchange. This part of the manga has recently been completed, though it’s unlikely to be animated without Part 7 getting first dibs.
1 Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 9: The JOJOLands
Araki's Manga Is Still Ongoing
- MyAnimeList Score: 8.37
- Genre: Seinen action adventure
- Dates: February 2023-Present
The most recent Jojo entry is unlikely to be animated anytime soon, since Araki started it relatively recently. It might not be completed for a while, given Part 7 took 7 years to reach its conclusion, and Part 8 took 10 years. As of this writing, Part 9 is a year and a half into its run, and takes Part 5: Golden Wind as its inspiration.
Instead of being about Italian gangsters, Part 9 sees Jodio Joestar on his way to becoming the richest person in Hawaii. He aims to do this via mastering the world’s ‘mechanisms’: abstract rules that govern power and wealth. For now, that involves running in a gang, but it takes an interesting turn when he comes across the Lava Rocks, stones that attract wealth. There may be more to those 'mechanisms' than Jodio thinks.
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