JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a series that doesn’t often stray into other universes that don’t focus on the Joestars. This doesn’t mean that the franchise’s creator, Hirohiko Araki, hasn’t become a fan of other manga released over the years. Particularly, the mangaka has had an affinity for The Fist of The North Star, and Kenshiro’s creator, Tetsuo Hara, has also seen the strengths in the Joestar universe. In a recent interview with Hara, the manga artist discussed his friendship with the man responsible for the creation of Stands.
In the recent interview, Tetsuo Hara discussed how he and Hirohiko Araki had first met, paving the way for a strong friendship, “The manga artist Hirohiko Araki is one year older than me, and we both debuted in “Weekly Shonen Jump” around the same time. We first met at a manga award party shortly after our debuts, and even back then, he was a charming and handsome guy. Our respective editors were close friends during our Jump days, and many of my assistants even went to work for him after my series ended.”
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Hara then hilariously shared that Araki’s “JoJo Poses”, a long part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, fueled Kenshiro’s creator to forge poses of his own in Fist of The North Star, “In Araki’s masterpiece “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” there are unique standing poses called “JoJo Poses.” Coincidentally, I also drew distinctive standing poses in “Fist of the North Star,” but the “JoJo Poses” were a step ahead. This led me to create even more elaborate poses as well. There’s only one “royal road.” Looking back, we might have subconsciously influenced each other in our pursuit of that.”
Tetsuo then confirmed the solid bond that he shares with Araki and how much Hara has learned from the Joestars’ creator, “I don’t have a wide circle of friends, but my friendship with Araki has been a rare, long-lasting one. Our wives are also close. We recently had dinner together as couples twice. We both have a knack for satire, and it’s fun to sarcastically insult each other. In 2017, we did a public talk event together. I rarely make public appearances, but I agreed to it because it was with Araki. Since I usually work as a manga artist on stories written by others, I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from Araki’s books. When I told him this recently, he said, “Please make that widely known,” so I’m using the space on this page to do just that.”
