JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Character Designer Talks Design
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean has continued the story of the Joestar lineage with its first female protagonist, Jolyne Cujoh, with the anime adaptation releasing its first dozen episodes on Netflix late last year. As fans wait for the next batch of episodes to arrive this fall on the streaming service, a major character designer for the latest season has broken down how some of the aesthetics were chosen for Jolyne and company, as well as the villains that they face throughout their stint at the Green Dolphin Street Prison.
To start, Shino had this to say when it came to the overall designs of the characters for the sixth part of the wild anime franchise that spawned from the mind of creator Hirohiko Araki:
"To be honest, Stone Ocean is the only part of the JoJo series that I've physically bought volumes of. I'm personally strongly attached to these characters, so I had fun while drawing them. I was conscious of how much of the original work's details I could retain when designing them. Since the anime is made by a large number of animators and staff, it's often necessary to omit details in consideration of the schedule. However, if certain points are omitted then it'll no longer be "JoJo". That's why in this work I wanted to incorporate the original design as much as possible. It's actually pretty annoying (laughs)."
Masanori then took the opportunity to further explore the look of Jolyne while also stating that the wielder of Stone Free will change throughout her starring adventure:
"I think the character that develops the most in Stone Ocean is Jolyne. The transformation of her appearance from the beginning to end makes her look like she's a different person, so I had a hard time deciding which appearance I should base her design on and the features to include. As the story progresses, Jolyne keeps growing tougher and more beautiful so I'd like to depict her properly."
Finally, Shino also went into detail regarding the design for Jotaro in Stone Ocean, which of course differs wildly from how he was portrayed in both Stardust Crusaders and Diamond Is Unbreakable:
"Jotaro's design was based solely on the style of Part 6. His character becomes slimmer and slimmer each time he appears after Parts 3 and 4. Your opinion may differ as to which Jotaro you like best, but I personally prefer his physique in Part 6 the most. When I first designed Jotaro, I ended up making him look a little young. That is, until general director Kenichi Suzuki reminded me that he's supposed to be more-or-less a father; that's when I changed him to look more mature."
