Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Spinoff Gets New Novel in December

Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe, originally a manga series of one-shots by Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure creator Hirohiko Araki, is getting new stories next month. The series was born as a Diamond is Unbreakable (Part 4) side-story, with Rohan Kishibe as the main character. Kishibe is a manga artist traveling around the world, and Araki already stated that the character is modeled after himself to some extent, but he also confirmed they have different personalities, so he’s somewhat Araki’s alter-ego, but not exactly.

The original manga is a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure spin-off and consists of two volumes. It was originally released in Japan in 1997, but various stories have been running occasionally on Ultra Jump magazine. It spawned a series of light novel volumes with short volumes, a TV drama and a 4-episode anime. The English title is a reference to the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, while the Japanese title means Kishibe Rohan Can’t Move (Kishibe Rohan wa Ugokanai), and no clear reference to Nietzche’s book is made during the story so far.

Related

JoJo: Hirohiko Araki Reveals His Favorite JOJOLands Character To Draw

Hirohiko Araki finally revealed the JOJOLands character that he loves to draw.

JoJo Fans Get to See More of Rohan

Now, publisher Shueisha is listing a new volume containing four short stories, slated for December 18, 2024, in Japan. The stories are penned by Katsuie Shibata, who also participated in the anthology Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Isekai. The stories are titled “The Doll with no Past” (Iwaku no Nai Ningyou), “Pair Repair”, “The Unseen Shinto Ritual” (Fumi Shinji) and “The Case of the Fan, Kaburagi Yahei” (Fan Kaburagi Yahei no Baai, romanization uncertain), and seem to be unrelated to each other.

In the story, Rohan travels around the world aiming to draw inspiration to create more realistic stories, and this leads him to go through strange situations and meet strange people. As a regular Jojo character, he has a Stand ability, “Heaven’s Door”, with which he can learn everything about a person and even change their memories. The character debutted during the “Diamond is Unbreakable” arc, and then Araki started publishing the spinoff story. This JoJo arc takes place during the end of the 1990s, with Josuke Higashikata as main protagonist.

The anime is a compilation of four OVA episodes released in Japan between 2017 and 2019, but they are available as a single series on Netflix, both subbed and dubbed, since 2021. The series was also released in Blu-ray by VIZ Media in 2023. These episodes were produced by David Production, the same studio responsible for the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure remake, which already adapted six parts of the manga (which is in its ninth part right now). Sadly, one of the producers, Hiroyuki Omori, died last June — Omori worked both on all Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (he was a producer up to Golden Wind and planning producer of Stone Ocean) and on Rohan Kishibe’s OVA, but he departed from the series before Part 4.

Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure are published in the US by VIZ Media. Netflix (streaming) and VIZ Media (home video) hold Rohan Kishibe anime rights. The light novel volumes remain unpublished in the US.