Highlights
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable shares similarities with Dragon Ball Z in character design, Stand abilities, and story elements.
- Echoes, Koichi’s Stand, evolves through multiple forms and shares design aspects with Cell from Dragon Ball Z.
- Yoshikage Kira, a main antagonist in Part 4, resembles Gohan in appearance and shares a parallel story with Gohan’s victory against Cell.
Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a manga title that needs no introduction. JoJo’s impact on not only anime and manga but various other forms of entertainment makes it one of the most influential titles in history.
Having been published in the same era as the legendary Dragon Ball, with which it shares a special place in the medium, it is of no surprise that the franchises have similarities born from mutual admiration and respect. In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable, there are a number of elements that are reminiscent of Dragon Ball Z.
The Setting of Diamond Is Unbreakable
A Slightly Different Look and Feel
When one starts watching the anime adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4, one of the most glaring aspects is how different it looks compared to the other parts, more specifically when it comes to colors and backgrounds. The sky maintains an unnatural set of colors, seldom adopting the blue with which the sky is normally associated, while grass and plants that are supposed to be green are actually blue. Both the original manga and the anime adaptation constantly make use of alternate color palettes for certain scenes, which gives the series a pop art feel; however, the adaptation of Diamond Is Unbreakable takes this even further when it comes to the backgrounds. Part 4 is set in the small town of Morioh, which is located in M Prefecture, in S City in the year 1999, complete with the various cultural landmarks of the time. This part introduces a whole cast of new and powerful Stands, and interesting characters, with Koichi Hirose serving as the bystander/narrator in the beginning, before a certain incident led to him developing a Stand.
Seven-Star References
The Familiarity of Koichi Hirose
Short and weak-looking, Koichi makes an interesting contribution to the overall series with the birth and development of his Stand, Echoes, which is initially just a white egg with green specs before assuming the form of a bug-like creature with a long green tail. Echoes first hatched when Koichi’s family was threatened by the Stand User Tamami Kobayashi. Unlike most of the other Stands we have been introduced to throughout the series at this point, Echoes evolves as Koichi gains more experience and goes through his fair share of adventures alongside Josuke Higashikata. Echoes’ first form, dubbed “Echoes ACT1” is a Stand that turns Koichi’s love for manga into a useful ability to manipulate sound. When it attacks, it assigns specific onomatopoeia to the target, which then resonate with the full force of the sound effect in question.
Writing “BOING” onto a sharp rock at the bottom of a cliff made it bouncy rather than impale-y, saving Yukako from certain death. When placed in tough situations, the short and timid Koichi is prone to turning his fear and confusion into calculating confidence, which has helped him overcome precarity on various occasions. This ability of Echoes ACTs 1 and 2 also calls back to the times of early Dragon Ball, when the onomatopoeia was written in Roman letters and took on a heavily stylized appearance comparable to the “THUD” and “THWACK” that western comics are known for. He can also get fairly angry, which makes his hair stand on end. Koichi’s character design, personality and even his evolving Stand abilities are reminiscent of Gohan. Koichi’s small frame and oddly-shaped nose are also reminiscent of Krillin, and his position as not quite the main character, but an important side character; not to mention his romantic relationship with a femme fatale.
Not Even Its Final Form
The ACTs of Echoes
ACT1 looks a lot like Cell from Dragon Ball Z, especially when floating near its master, who often has the characteristic spiky hair of a Saiyan, more specifically, that of Gohan or Goku as a Super Saiyan. Echoes evolves multiple times throughout Part 4, which is similar to the various forms of Frieza, or more closely, Cell. This is especially the case when it evolves from ACT1 to ACT2, a process reminiscent of the molting of an insect going from nymph to adult. The insect that Echoes’ first form is based on is the same one as Cell, who is modeled after cicadas. When it evolves to ACT3, it completely loses the bug-like design for something that combines the awesome and fashionable look and feel of Stands with Frieza’s sleek Final Form.
Echoes even starts talking, which is uncommon for Stands, even though most of them have voices. Koichi’s and his Stand’s strange similarity to some of the main aspects of the Frieza and Cell Sagas is even stronger when they’re juxtaposed with the unnatural colour scheme of Morioh, with grass and soil reminiscent of that seen on Planet Namek. There’s also the known fact that Koichi is a big fan of manga, and with Part 4 set in 1999, it is consistent with the release window of the entire Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z manga and anime, which as a fan of the medium, he may have seen some variation of.
I Am Gohan Yoshikage
Other Things in Part 4 Reminiscent of Dragon Ball
One of the main antagonists of Part 4, the Butcher of Moriо̄-chо̄, Yoshikage Kira (33 years of age) is a sociopathic murderer who usually targets women, but will delete any witnesses. He’s been an active serial killer in Morioh for 15 years, meticulously erasing evidence and witnesses. He’s the kind of individual who keeps track of detail and can put on an act to achieve his own twisted desires. At some point, Josuke Higashikata and the gang had him cornered, but he forced Aya Tsuji, a Stand User and aesthetician capable of beautifying a person or completely changing their appearance. He used her ability to trade his body for someone else’s; a man named Kosaku Kawajiri, assuming his identity as he laid low. How all of this is relevant is that Yoshikage, as Mr. Kawajiri, looks a lot like Gohan as an adult, with spiky hair and a bang hanging to the side. Interestingly, both Gohan and Yoshikage are 5’9″ (175cm) in height, not to mention the town crest of Morioh being eerily similar to the “Majin” M from the Buu Saga.
Gohan’s victory against Cell 11 years old also has a parallel in JoJo’s Part 4 in the form of Kawajiri’s 11-year-old son, Hayato, who always suspected his father’s randomly changed behavior and took it upon himself to keep an eye on him. Hayato became instrumental in the defeat of Yoshikage Kira after enduring a nightmarish situation in which telling people about the indisputable evidence he painstakingly assembled on his “father” would lead to their deaths. Even the act of investigating Kira would activate the third ability of his Killer Queen, which not only detonates when the aforementioned conditions are met, but also turns back time an entire hour. For a moment, the only person shouldering the immense responsibility of putting a stop to Kira, and protecting the lives of the Stand Users, was a brave child determined to protect his mother.
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