JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Creator Reveals Series’ Sherlock Holmes Roots

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has become an institution amongst anime fanatics. The outlandish series may be best-known for its drama, but JoJo became famous for its compelling mysteries long before memes were a thing. And according to a recent interview, the man behind the series say he could not have made JoJo if it were not for the World’s Greatest Detective.

Yes, that is right. Sherlock Holmes is responsible for the Joestar clan, so you can sit on that absurd fact for a hot second.

Recently, Hirohiko Araki sat down for an interview with Kotoba, a literary magazine in Japan. It was there the artist said he could not have made JoJo if he hadn’t first read the Sherlock Holmes novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

According to the artist, Sherlock Holmes taught Araki how to craft a very compelling story with narrative structure and charismatic leads. Doyle’s series also showed Araki that heroes can be enjoyable even if they are sometimes bad people.

“What makes Holmes great is that he may be a genius, but he’s also clearly a jerk,” the artist said.

“I’ve often thought that one of the conditions for being a hero is loneliness. When push comes to shove, a hero has to be able to fight and solve a case by themselves, otherwise you can’t call them the hero. You wouldn’t even be able to say that they suit the role of protagonist of a series.”

Continuing, Araki revealed another aspect of Sherlock Holmes greatly influenced his creation of JoJo. The artist thought it was smart to have Watson often tell the story from his point of view as fans were given a fuller look at the world (and case) Sherlock worked within.

“Holmes is complete as a character, so the question becomes how will he and Watson face off with each other? I believe that the perfect story has charismatic characters and a style of storytelling that conveys their charisma.”

While JoJo has changed its tone time and again, the on-going series still falls back to some of these mentioned Sherlock Holmes tropes. Charisma is key when it comes to the Joestar clan, and it appears Britain’s best detective is to blame for their eccentricities. Now, the only question left to answer is how Doyle would react to seeing how his prized stories helped influence one of anime’s greatest series of all time.

So, would you like to see an actual Sherlock x JoJo crossover one day? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is the fifth and currently airing part of Hirohiko Araki’s series, and follows Giorno Giovanna, the son of former series villain Dio Brando, as he joins the mafia group Passione in order to change and reform them into reputable thieves and crooks from the inside. The anime adaptation premiered last October, and can be currently found streaming on Crunchyroll.

via ANN