W character analysis

No one seem to understand how ahead Lisa Lisa's character was of its time. She was a strong female character, introduced as a mentor and a capable fighter, at a time where Shonen Jump used to be a male dominated industry.

I admire araki as a female Jojo fan (both manga and anime) because he actively pushes himself beyond his comfort zone. He went against the norm and broke traditions and it only served to make his work iconic, he made his environment adapt to him, basically.
Thats what all great artists aspire to.
His female characters started clunky, but araki was definitely trying. And eventually he reaches part 6 with Jolyne who is a truly heroic character, unfortunately she is misunderstood because most of the fandom are a bunch brainrot people without media literacy who think aura farming is the core of good writing.

Then in part 7 with Lucy and hot pants he out did himself again, then he added yasuho, Kato and Holly. And those are really quite amazing.

Erina gets undersold by many, just because she's not a "ass-kicking girl".

The fact that she disrespected Dio, in front of his face, by washing her lips with muddy water after he kissed her, shows that she's got guts. Sure, she is unfortunately not present that much, but the time she's gotten, she has used pretty effectively.

And in Part 2, she's only gotten better, as a cool Grandma.

I love how he gets better and immediately puts jolyne through hell like that is a REAL feminist writer right there, get better at writing women so everyone can suffer equally 🙏

after part 4 especially, his writing on characters, that aren't the protagonist, improved a lot, in sc for most of the part we didn't know almost anything about kakyoin or avdol. In part 4 he experimented with giving different characters the spotlight in different arcs like koichi, rohan or yukako.

I cant wait to see more of dragona, the nuance of a transgender woman is a WHOOOOLE different level of the idea of femininity and womanhood

I think Erina deserves way more credit than people give her. She stood up and showed defiance to Dio after he assaulted her, she survived alone in the ocean for many days, she helped raise Joseph after Lisa Lisa and George II were both gone. Erina is incredibly important to the Joestar legacy

I still love Lucy and Stephen. Its one of the few relationships that on the outside looks messed up old timey traditions but is actually a purely platonic relationship made out of a genuine desire to protect and support each other from the cruelty of their situations. And Lucy could only go so far for Stephen because he’s a genuinely good person without any ulterior motives for her. Its not a relationship you see depicted very often because usually its…yknow…but thats why the revelation its not like that its actually pure and platonic makes its understandable WHY Lucy would go so far for Stephen even though she’s young. If it was for romantic love, Lucy’s actions would be seen as childish and naive to try and save a man like that because the audience would see her as being manipulated into taking action. But its because Stephen is actually that much of a saint that she genuinely believes he needs to be saved from his predicament like he saved her.

Another thing that bothered me that I want to point out in part 3. A huge writing mistake when it comes to writing women is making them motivated by a man they’re romantically interested in. With the exception of Enya, every single young female character in part 3 was motivated, or at least a huge part of her character was tied to a man. Anne having a crush on Jotaro, Mariah being interested in Joseph and DIO, Midler being interested in Jotaro and DIO, and Nena being interested in Hol Horse.

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Something I noticed about Trish is that her “spoiled princess” vibes are only present for one scene and then she never acts that way again.

My reading is that in that moment her head is kind of inflated by the RECENT revelation of being the daughter of a mob boss.
Rather than reflecting her upbringing, it’ a “role” she’s playing out in that moment. She’s trying to live out a certain fantasy of being rich and powerful and having a legion of flunkies to serve your every whim.

It doesn’t take long for reality to set in though, so she drops the act quickly and quietly.

(Alternatively, Araki wrote the intro scene before realizing that Trish wouldn’t have the upbringing that would result in being a spoiled princess and so he just just dropped that as a character trait when writing her later)

Hot take, Erina is a good written female character. Just because she doesn't fight, doesn't mean she's poorly written. When Dio assaults her, rather then falling to despair, she takes charge and cleans her mouth off with road water, showing her resilience and strong will. She's a cool parallel to her lover Jonathan, both are forces of absolute good who are fitted against Dio, the force of ultimate envy and evil and in both cases Dio failed to corrupt them. Dio failed to make Jonathan fall into despair, similarly he failed to keep Erina from getting together with Jonathan, Erina still loved Jonathan even after Dio's assault, despite all the hardships both Jonathan and Erina found peace and moved on from Dio and through their love nad union built something Dio couldn't, the entire Joestar bloodline exists because of Jonathan and Erina's union, meanwhile Dio's "bloodline" didn't even know he existed.

Something I think should be noted with Lisa Lisa is the way that she ends up being a bit undermined as a mentor figure.
Like of course you covered the biggest part where she got completely shafted from the fight with Kars, but I also think about the way Joseph is like, "I don't know if you're able to handle this, you're still a woman after all!" despite the fact she was literally the person in charge of things over the past month. I believe this is likely to show Joseph becoming more chivalrous as he matures since becoming aware of the legacy of the Joestar family and becoming a more noble person because of it is a major theme in the part, but it comes off as strangely condescending. Like sure she still styles on Wired Beck and heads on wholeheartedly to take on Kars, but it really rubs the salt in the wound in the situation already described.

There's also the manner in which she's objectified by Joseph earlier in the story. Peeping on her through the keyhole is an obvious example, but there's also the manga version of when the backstory to the Red Stone of Aja was explained. It's just for a moment, but as Lisa Lisa puts the stone away before Joseph asks her to tell him about it, we see a shot of Joseph seeing her cleavage and going "WHOA!" before promptly looking away when she notices him saying that.
Of course like I stated before, this is a story about Joseph becoming a more noble person, so it makes sense that earlier in the story he does less respectable things, but the issue here is less specifically that and more what you touched on in the video, Lisa Lisa's lack of agency within the situation. She's simply getting oggled at without her knowledge.

It's really kind of a shame since Araki was literally setting himself up in a way to make it easier for himself. He literally talks about the way of supernatural abilities like hamon helps tip the scales toward a woman in terms of a fight in an interview for the second Jojonium volume for Battle Tendency, and while I feel like that there should be more of a thought of woman being capable of something without having a particular edge like that, but I'm sure it was that thought that got him comfortable enough with putting Lisa Lisa into the narrative in the first place. I just wish that he could've fully committed to the bit at the time.

It's certainly respectable to make an attempt, I don't want to undermine that myself. Especially in contrast to say, Stardust Crusaders which really kept women out of the spotlight for most of the part. Though I still can't help but be irritated in the ways that her inclusion falls short. In big part because I think Lisa Lisa is super cool and I like her a lot. God dang am I glad that Araki has gotten so much better in how he includes women into his stories, I could only imagine what it'd be like for Lisa Lisa would be like if she was written today, though I guess that's why I gotta get around to reading El Aleph sometime. :)c

Overall really good video! I just felt the need to expand on Lisa Lisa further since I'm incredibly passionate about this whole topic.

i think Yukako is a great improvement over the previous female characters, and I love her because she does have like her own personality and her own quirks and episodes, but i think where I would give criticism is that the strongest woman we get in part 4 is still very centered around a man. We don’t get to see goals and ambitions beyond having Koichi as a boyfriend, and we don’t get to see her stand and skills used a lot outside of Koichi related arcs.

I believe how Lisa Lisa got jobbed in the Kars fight was due to editor interference.

Great video, loved seeing the both Arakis Female character writing improvement but also highlighting all the Female characters (so far). This was a nice analysis 👍

great video
i wish you had included kaato and holly kira as well

A series that makes me like strong women that can kick ass and doesnt feel like its forced to push down the male characters but instead feel like an even playing field
That both can kick ass


Lookin at you kratos and faye

Georgeous Jolyne ,,,,, shes such a Veautiful Jo'

The problem with Part 2 is that Joseph beats all the Pillar Men himself. The very least, Caesar had an impactful fight and went out on a high note.