ジョジョの奇妙な冒険ダイヤモンドは砕けない

JOJO NO KIMYOU NA BOUKEN: DIAMOND WA KUDAKENAI

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
18
RELEASE
November 21, 1995
CHAPTERS
174

DESCRIPTION

In April 1999, Jotaro Kujo travels to a town in Japan called Morioh to find a young man named Josuke Higashikata, the secret love child of his grandfather, Joseph Joestar. Upon finding him, Jotaro is surprised to learn that Josuke also possesses a Stand. After their strange meeting, the pair team up to investigate the town’s proliferation of unusual Stands!

(Source: VIZ Media)

CAST

Joutarou Kuujou
Jousuke Higashikata
Yoshikage Kira
Rohan Kishibe
Okuyasu Nijimura
Kouichi Hirose
Joseph Joestar
Reimi Sugimoto
Yukako Yamagishi
Mikitaka Hasekura
Tonio Trussardi
Shigekiyo Yanguu
Hayato Kawajiri
Tomoko Higashikata
Yuuya Fungami
Akira Otoishi
Shinobu Kawajiri
Keichou Nijimura
Terunosuke Miyamoto
Aya Tsuji
Toshikazu Hazamada
Shizuka Joestar
Tamami Kobayashi
Toyohiro Kanedaichi
Masazou Kinoto

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO JOJO NO KIMYOU NA BOUKEN: DIAMOND WA KUDAKENAI

REVIEWS

Yuseistar
89/100
A cohesive Mystery story paired with great art and amazing characters, a series I thoroughly enjoyed.

Story: 6/10

JoJo’s is synonymous with muscular dudes, beating the ever-loving crap out of each other. So, many don’t expect any type of cohesive story. But, the 4th installment in the JoJo series, turns that assumption on its head and delivers a cohesive story from beginning to end. There is a particular thing that happen in JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai, the story gives you this feeling of completeness before it is even over. I found myself thinking, many times, that if the story ended right here, it would still be a satisfactory ending. The story uses that concept and grips you and leaves you on the edge of your seat saying “Wait, this isn’t the end?!”

The flow of the story works great as well. Dipping in and out of combat and the everyday lives of the characters, it works together to make the story smooth and not feel disjointed. Though there are some points within the story, especially during the out of combat parts that feel a bit forced. There’ll be many times where you get to see side adventures of some of the characters and that plays into the flow of the story but, there are times where the side adventures never really amount to anything. Sometimes you’ll see the reappearance of a character met in a side adventure or because of a side adventure, the world in JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai is impacted in some way or another. However, like I said before, some of the side adventures don’t add anything to the story. It felt like a one-shot was added in between chapters.

The main plot is concise and rarely does the story stray away from the main objective that the characters have, and this pairs great with the Mystery theme that JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai has. Most everything that is done in the story has some type of importance down the line or reappear in the story someway. However, there is this feeling of lacking. The feeling you get where the main character is overpowered, and you know that there is nothing to fear. As the story progresses on, the climatic parts of the story have less and less impact due to this feeling.

Art: 7/10

Come on, it’s a JoJo series, how can you not expect great art! JoJo is known for its distinct art design for its characters and that is carried over into JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai. The art makes each character feel expressive, feel like they are alive. Emotion is shown, you can clearly tell the emotion that a character feeling just by seeing their face. The paneling is great too, and it especially shines during the fighting scenes. It was really to follow along, page after page, and when it came time to fight, I could understand how the fight itself was playing out. I knew what direction punches were coming from, where the people were standing, etc. You can also tell that the creator pays attention to the background as well. The buildings, the streets, the cars, almost everything in the background is drawn in detail. Almost. Almost everything in the background is drawn in detail, most of the time when people aren’t part of the foreground, say people in the background waiting to cross the street, there shape will be drawn but they’ll be filled with white. Outside of the shape of their body, nothing about them is drawn. Which sucks because it feels so out of place because everything else in the background is drawn with detail.

Characters: 8/10

How can you not like the characters from a JoJo series! There are so many characters and most of them are memorable! Most of the characters in JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai feel like actual characters. They aren’t this flat, and dull drawing, instead, they are expressive and feeling people. Josuke for example is your average kid who respects his upperclassmen and tries not to do anything too illegal but if you tick the right boxes, he can’t help but get mad and throw aside his personality. This is a person, if I search hard enough, I could find a person in real life that has the same personality as Josuke. That’s why the characters in JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Diamond wa Kudakenai feel like actually people, and it’s not just Josuke either, you’ll find this in pretty much all the characters.

Exactly like real people, the characters of this story grow. The characters achieve this through meaningful ways as well. Josuke doesn’t find growth out of nothingness just because he is the main character. He grows due to the adventures he goes on, the world that is constantly changing around him, and the people that he associates himself with. I wish that I could say the same about the relationships that the characters have and create. Many of them feel lackluster. Some relationships developed with Josuke feel that they are only present because Josuke is the main character of the story. Or when a small event happens and all of a sudden 2 characters are now inseparable brothers for life. It feels out of place and could be done smoother.

Enjoyment: 8/10

Gosh, I enjoyed the crap out of this manga. The JoJo art style, the story shrouded in mystery, the return of characters from previous iterations of JoJo, the characters, the stands, and much more. It all coalesces into an incredibly fun manga to read. I would stay up way late into the night because I kept telling myself “1 more chapter, just 1 more chapter.” My favorite character is definitely Koichi, I loved watching Koichi develop from what he was in chapter 1, all the way to what he was at chapter 174. And, I absolutely loved the stands in this series. They were all so cool and unique, something I never would’ve thought up in a million years! As it stands, my 2 favorite stands are Pearl Jam and Bad Company. There is just so much in the manga that I loved, and I enjoyed every second of reading it.

Verdict

This is a manga that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys Action/Adventure series. You’ll get an absolute kick from reading it. It’s a manga filled with awesome art and great characters. The points in the manga that hinder it are not egregiously big too so, the positives will definitely shine brighter than the negatives. Through and through, I don’t feel that this manga was a waste of my time, it didn’t feel like a filler manga, it was a great series fit to have the name JoJo associated with it.

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DragonDelta
100/100
The day JoJo stopped being about heroes and started being about people.
Diamond is Unbreakable is an extremely interesting, striking, and precise part in its approach to what humanity is. It is also a part that marks a fundamental break with everything that came before, and in particular with Part 3, a break that sends JoJo's Bizarre Adventure into a new dimension, one that is more intimate, more human, more free.

That freedom is felt first in the way Araki reinvents stands. In Stardust Crusaders, stands were still tied to the arcana of the tarot, a coherent but constraining symbolic structure. In Diamond is Unbreakable, that constraint disappears. Stands become anything you want, anything you can imagine, and it is precisely there that the great revolution of this part lies. A stand can be a house, a plant, a chain, a rat. It can be absurd, poetic, mundane, monstrous. And it is because Araki frees stands from any pre-established symbolic framework that they become truly what they always should have been : the representation of the soul of each individual. A stand in Diamond is Unbreakable is not a weapon assigned to a warrior, it is the exact reflection of the psyche of the one who carries it, of their desires, their fears, their obsessions. This evolution gives Araki a creative freedom and a margin of appreciation that he exploits with an inventiveness that never falters, and that shows just how capable he is of reinventing himself and surprising even himself.

The setting of Morioh is the other great strength of this part. It is an ordinary Japanese town, a town that could exist anywhere, in any country, in any region of the world. And it is precisely that universality that makes it so powerful. Morioh is not an exotic or spectacular location, it is not the Egypt of Part 3 or the Italy of Golden Wind. It is a neighborhood town, with its familiar alleyways, its local shops, its high schools, its parks, its corners that only the residents know. And that familiarity allows every reader to draw a parallel with their own town, their own places, their own landmarks. Morioh becomes universal in that way, and the threat lurking within it is all the more unsettling because it is rooted in something known, something seemingly reassuring, that horror gradually comes to contaminate.

The cast of Diamond is Unbreakable is more diverse than one might first expect. Josuke Higashikata is an extremely entertaining protagonist, radiant, always ready to move forward with a smile, to charge ahead without thinking too hard about the consequences. He is endearing precisely because he is imperfect, prideful, sometimes clumsy, but always driven by an energy and a warmth that make him impossible not to love. Okuyasu, Koichi, Rohan Kishibe, each brings their own color, their own way of inhabiting Morioh, and together they form a group whose dynamic is one of the most natural and most enjoyable in the entire saga.

But the true soul of Diamond is Unbreakable, its absolute center of gravity, is Yoshikage Kira. My favorite character of the first universe, and one of the most remarkable creations in the entire saga. His introduction is one of the greatest in manga history, across all categories, and it deserves to be talked about. Araki does not introduce Kira as a monster. He introduces him as a man. An ordinary man, impeccably dressed, eating quietly in an upscale restaurant, tidying his belongings with care, observing the world around him with absolute calm. And then, gradually, through touches, through infinitely small details, something reveals itself. The way he looks at women's hands. The way he speaks of his desires as a simple necessity of life, without shame, without affect, with the same neutrality one might use to describe a physiological need. And when the truth explodes, when you understand exactly what Kira is and what he does, the revulsion is total — and yet you cannot look away. Because Kira is as incredible as he is disturbing, and it is precisely that tension that makes him unforgettable. He is one of the best written characters in the saga because Araki never reduces him to his monstrousness. He gives him an internal logic, a coherence, a way of inhabiting the world that is almost understandable, almost familiar, and that is what truly terrifies.

The opposition between Josuke and Kira is at the heart of what Diamond is Unbreakable says about humanity. They are two representations of the human being under two radically different aspects. Josuke is humanity turned toward others, extroverted, warm, moving forward with noise, existing in the gaze of others and feeding on it. Kira is humanity turned inward, introverted, sober, who asks for only one thing : to be left alone. He does not want to dominate the world, he does not want power, he does not want recognition. He simply wants to live his life on his own terms, satisfy his desires in silence, without ever bothering anyone outside of his victims. And that is where the full perversity of his character lies : in that aspiration to a normal, peaceful, invisible life, which coexists with a profoundly monstrous nature. Kira wants to be left in peace, and Araki makes you feel that hunt with a rare intensity. You follow him, you watch him flee, reinvent himself, adapt, and despite everything you know about him, you are plunged into the tension of a hunted man who simply wants to find his tranquility again, and you want to know more with every chapter.

Diamond is Unbreakable is a part that takes its time to live, that breathes, that lingers on the details of everyday life just as much as on its moments of extreme tension. It is a part that says humanity is both Josuke and Kira, both light and shadow, both an impulse toward others and a retreat into oneself. And it is that duality, treated with remarkable precision and nuance, that makes it one of the most striking and most enduring parts in the entire saga.

10/10.
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