Inspiration – Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hirohiko Araki

About 2 years ago, I came across an oddly colourful and extremely outlandish anime series called “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure”. I remember hearing that title a few times in the past, but never really knew what it was all about, but the unique art and flashy style definitely caught my eye and attracted me to the series.

The Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Opening Cinematic:

What I’d discovered was a rich, decade spanning franchise full of style, flair and uniqueness that not only stood out from the usual crowd of media (not just anime/manga), but also realized that this series also influenced many aspects of popular franchises that exist today.

Jojo is a series detailing a multi-generational storyline following the different members of the Joestar bloodline and their respective bizarre adventures. The name ‘Jojo’ is a moniker applied to the protagonists of the different story arcs, since the nicknamed can usually be formed from their actual names (e.g. Jonathan Joestar, Joseph Joestar, Jotaro Kujo)The author of the series, Hirohiko Araki, was heavily inspired by western music, Italian culture and the artwork of Paul Gaugin, all of which can be seen in his manga and his signature, flamboyant artstyle. Very notable is the fact that the colourful, seemingly arbitrary use of colour in Gaugin’s artwork has transferred over to Araki’s work as he often uses random, arbitrary colours for his coloured pieces – in fact, most of his characters don’t have a set colour-scheme and he often draws them with different palettes each time.

http://s1079.photobucket.com/user/Plusme7234/media/jojo.jpg.html

While I love the series to death and it serves as a major inspiration for me and my own works, what I found most interesting about the series is how much it has influenced other, more well known series. For example, in the Street Fighter series of fighting games, two prominent characters clearly drew inspiration from two prominent Jojo characters: Guile was inspired by Rudolf von Stroheim, and Rose looks near identical to Lisa Lisa:

In addition, from the third story arc onwards, the a major ability featured by the main characters is the ability to project ‘astral visions of their psychic energy’, which usually take the form of warriors who stand and fight by their users’ side, earning them the name ‘Stands’. Jojo can be seen as the precursor to the ability to summon and battle using projections of oneself seen in various other franchises, most notably the Persona series of video games.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a long running series and is still going strong today and is now currently in its 8th story arc. Recently it’s become a little more popular in the west, with the release of an acclaimed new anime series and a new video game. It’s a highly entertaining series to follow, and I don’t regret the day I happened to stumble upon that colourful opening cinematic.

The Stranger

A secret ISIS agent plays innocent when he drops a paper bag full of seemingly adorable items onto our table.

The baby rat was developed in an underground lab in madagascar, ISIS’ super secret hideout with airborne Ebola.

Jordan picks up the rat. “Oh what a cute baby rat! Oh no, it’s coughing, the poor thing.” Jordan is suddenly overwhelmed with his own coughing fit. He dies instantly from fast-acting Ebola.

Blasé picks up the adorable vacuum. “Why is this called a Dracuum?”he presses the top of the miniature vacuum and the Dracuum wakes up, blinking innocently at Blasé. It then attaches its hose to his arm and whirrs away. Blasé screams in agony as his life force is sucked out of him through his arm. He falls onto the ground, and old emaciated man, dead.

Aviva, completely oblivious to the dead Jordan and Blasé, picks up the tiny man. “so sweet.” she says to herself. “Ow!” Her finger begins to bleed, the tiny doll was covered in minuscule thorns. A sickly green venom is now running it’s course through her veins. Bam. Dead.

The three police arrive to the scene too late. Everyone is dead from Ebola.

“Damn.” They say. Then they steal three frappachinos from the empty barista counter and carry on with their day.

Calvin Yang: Game Engine Built!

The basic engine for my game project, which I’m going to be calling ‘Calvin Yang’ for now, is pretty much complete! Here’s a few screenshots showing the hero in action:

Here you can see Calvin showing off some of his moves in a test area, fighting against some place-holder robot enemies. The first screen shows him using the ‘Cerulean Cyclone’, a move where he creates a whirlwind by spinning himself and his yoyo, before propelling himself into the air. The second one just shows him hanging around, grappling onto the ceiling using his yoyo (we can discuss the physics of that later, :P). The third shows him kicking a robot into oblivion. There’s more to this move than meets the eye, however I’ll talk about it more later. The next shows the most recently added move – The Ground Breaker. Calvin throws his yoyo straight downwards and propels himself towards the ground (and anything else unfortunate enough to be in the way) and delivers an earth-shaking punch. The last screen shows Calvin performing a classic platformer trope – the slide. He spins his yoyo behind him to propel himself, and kick away any enemies in his path.

By next week, hopefully all the placeholder stuff should be gone and I’ll try my best to have a fully playable test level. I’d planned to have that by the end of this week, however college homework did not agree with my plans. If all goes well, I should have a video up instead of screenshots next week, so you’ll be able to see how the game looks in motion – fluid and fun!

Blackout Expansion: Step 4

Bloody remnants, created equal.

Blackout Expansion: Step 3

Surviving children, sense of forgiveness.

Blackout Expansion: Step 2

Surviving children, sense of forgiveness.

Blackout Expansion: Step 1

Three kids innocently play a game in the foyer of their household, while their drunken father looms in the background.

Fantasy-Avatar: The Dreaded Cyclops Serpent

The Dreaded Cyclops Serpent is an elusive creature. It’s appearance highly resembles that of a snake, except in place of a head it has a single eyeball covered with prehensile hair-like tendrils and a 4-fanged upper jaw. Possessing no lower jaw or mouth of any sort, it absorbs nutrients through its teeth from living beings, much like a vampire. It’s single, massive eye-head sees all, perceiving more information in a single glance than any living thing could ever imagine. It’s body is heavily armored and resistant; even scratching the dreaded serpent proves difficult. It is primarily nocturnal, as the intense rays of the sun are enough to burn its highly sensitive eye. Despite its frightening appearance and fearsome traits, the DCS is actually a rather friendly creature towards humans, acting much like a dog would around them.

Creative Exercise: Fantasy Avatar – Computer Bug