JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Originally Wanted Giorno to Be a Vampire
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure almost had the Golden Wind's star taking after his father Dio Brando.
Giorno Giovanna was one of the most unique Joestars in the long line of protagonists in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The wielder of Gold Experience was able to be a protagonist thanks to being the son of Dio Brando, whose head sat atop the body of Jonathan Joestar thanks to the wild conclusion of Phantom Blood. Despite being the son of the series' biggest villain, Giorno had next to nothing in common with his father, but that almost wasn't the case thanks to an editor responsible for the manga.
As JoJo fans know, Dio Brando was transformed into a vampire during the events of Phantom Blood thanks to the mysterious Stone Mask. With the antagonist making a comeback in Stardust Crusaders, Golden Wind introduced his son Giorno, who had never met his villainous father. Rather than holding a grudge to the Joestars that came before like his dear old dad, Giovanna spent his time attempting to make Italy a better place to live. In order to do this, Giorno made a goal of overtaking the Passione mafia and was ultimately successful, but not without some major losses in the process. Since the conclusion of Giorno Giovanna's adventures, he hasn't returned to the main series, but based on The JOJOLands, any Joestar might make a comeback.
Giorno's Vampiric Adventure
In a recently unearthed interview, editor Hiroshi Sekiya discussed how close Giorno almost was to becoming a creature of the night like his dear old dad, "Dio's body belongs to Jonathan, so he is part of the Joestar Family. In our initial meetings, we also discussed aspects of him being the child of a vampire, such as making him afraid of sunlight. Or perhaps he would 'tingle' when exposed to it. Araki-sensei also likes jokes, so we had a lot of those kind of tidbits in the character sheets. The last thing I'd like to mention is that he wanted the protagonist to be a woman."
Sekiya also discussed the creation of Giorno in general and how Araki initially struggled with finding a way to place the manga in Italy, "From the get-go, we wanted the story to take place in Italy. However, the protagonist had to be part of the Joestar Family, so even Araki-sensei wasn't sure how to make it work at first. I (jokingly) asked him if he wanted to have Joseph have yet another affair, but we both ultimately decided that'd be a terrible idea (laughs)."