THE STORY THUS FAR!
While sorting out the elderly Joseph’s estate, it was discovered that he had a child with a Japanese university student four years before the events of Stardust Crusaders. Jotaro travelled to Morioh, where Joseph’s son Josuke, now 15 (and a half!) years old, lives in order to make contact with him as well as to investigate a mysterious artifact once posessed by DIO that can turn people into stand users. Josuke’s family was attacked by a stand user, Angelo, who managed to murder Josuke’s grandfather before Josuke fused him with a rock and gave him brain damage severe enough to render him catatonic. Jotaro was simultaneously intrigued and wary of Josuke’s abilities and gave Josuke’s punchghost the name Crazy Diamond!
In the last story we got to hang out with…
Josuke
Our protagonist! He is very attuned to the feelings of those around him and is highly aware of the effect his own demeanour and body language has on others. Is generally rather adept at regulating his level of emotional arousal, which is quite typical of an only child of a young single mother. Ability to concentrate is spotty. Also seems to sometimes have angry mood swings and presents an inconsistent persona at times (possible identity dissociation.) For this reason I hypothesize that Josuke has ADHD. I’m quite impressed actually at how strikingly realistic Josuke’s various traits are given his background, so hats off to Araki. I only hope that he can keep it up, since Shonen characters in long-running series have a tendency to get painted in broader and broader strokes as the series goes on. I’m concerned in particular about how he loses his shit when his hair is insulted. To me it seems way too engineered as a marketable character trait for ads/merch/whatever, believe it!
Tomoko
Josuke’s mom. Did sex with Joseph at least once. Appears to be willing to commit aggravated assault and battery on a whim; also seems to be caffeinating her teenager on the reg. Clearly a public menace. Her dad just died but we haven’t see how she’s taken the news.
Angelo
Serial killer/rapist. Murdered a bunch of people, including Josuke’s grandpa. Got fused with a rock, dismembered, mutilated, then brain damaged to the point of not having enough cognitive function to speak or operate his stand. According to a side note is currently a local landmark. Most interestingly, got his stand as an adult after being shot with a magic bow and arrow by a man wearing a high school student’s uniform.
Josuke’s Grandpa
He died as he lived: in a liquid haze.
Jotaro
I like dolphins.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Chapter 274
Chapter 9 of Diamond is Unbreakable
The Nijimura Brothers (Part 1)
Translation: Invincible Trio
Koichi is back to give us some exposition! He lets us know that Morioh has been around for centuries, but it’s only in the 80s that it had extensive development. (It should be noted for context that the 80s was the last time Japan had a really good economy. It’s been in a deflationary demand-side nightmare ever since the 90s.) Morioh’s population is 58k, meaning it’s too big for the community at large to give a shit about getting to know you but too small to have anything fun to do on a Saturday night. Ugh, just like my hometown in Texas. More accurately though, it sounds to me a lot like Ueda. If you wanna see what I mean, pop on over to google street view for Ueda and have a look around. Once you get past the “holy shit glorious nippon~!” aspect, you realize that it’s pretty dang boring. And that’s a city with a castle for cryin’ out loud! Now, true, Ueda has about twice the population of Morioh, but that just shows how boring Morioh probably is.
Anyway, Koichi mentions another detail: Morioh has 7 or 8 times the average number of missing people for a town its size. Average of what? The province? Japan? What’s the sample size here? Joking aside, the methodology of whatever study was used to arrive at that number is unimportant to the narrative; what Araki is doing here is building suspense, which, if you recall, means raising a question with some intriguing possible answers. It doesn’t really matter how Araki communicates this, so if it’s some study Koichi read somewhere that’s fine. What we’re supposed to get is that something weird and sinister is happening in Morioh, which builds tension because we know that eventually Josuke is going to tangle with whatever is behind these spooky disappearances.
We get a large establishing shot of Josuke and Koichi walking down a middle-class suburban street. This panel has a lot of cool things going for it. First, the point of view is interesting – it’s like we’re sitting on the roof of the house in the foreground. We can see into the distance – no large buildings here. And this suburb is not very dense at all, which in Japan means upper middle-class, out in the sticks, or both. Check out the long shadows – it’s an interesting detail that lets us know that the sun is setting. Also we’re looking at Josuke and Koichi from behind, like we’re creepers spying on them like Angelo was in the previous story. While Araki may not necessarily be communicating that Josuke and Koichi are literally getting creeped on, this kind of shot is frequently used in cinema to evoke a somewhat disquieting mood. Also check out how the house in the foreground is on the right side while the road curves off to the left. This makes sure your eye gets guided off to the left and almost resists going off to the right. Notice also that if you follow the sloped top border of the panel, your eye naturally goes down the tree and right to Josuke and Koichi. If you follow the rightmost border, your eye follows the dark negative space and again arrives at Josuke and Koichi. Really neat work by Araki here in a panel that a lot of people probably won’t linger much on because exposition is pretty boring.
Josuke passes Angelo and greets him with casual disinterest. Angelo maybe sneers, it’s (probably deliberately) ambiguous. Koichi is somewhat nonplussed but follows suit. Angelo grunts in response, which if we want to 
doesn’t indicate much awareness, since it could be a reflex; reflex actions are governed by the stuff in the brain stem, which is how you have folks who basically lose their entire brain still blinking and moving their head, but probably the intention is that Angelo is still somewhat responsive to external stimuli.
Koichi asks Josuke about Jotaro and Josuke lets him know that Jotaro is still in town, staying at the Morioh Grand Hotel, busy investigating something. Side note: I found on my road trip through Japan that basically every town has a hotel called “[TOWN NAME] Grand Hotel,” so the name doesn’t necessarily indicate that the hotel is crazy fancy or anything.
DUTCH ANGLE!!
Per Koichi, this mansion they’re passing has been abandoned for three or four years now.
Check this out:
Note use of cinematic techniques to signal that Josuke thinks he noticed something. Very horror-movie-like. Since in fiction we know that whatever the author shows us was chosen for a reason, we instinctively believe from this signalling that something is amiss OR it’s a fake-out in order to show that the POV character is feeling anxious/paranoid (used a lot in the first act of a three act horror film so that you get your guard down and then suddenly BLAM JUMP SCARE YOU’RE IN THE SECOND ACT NOW, BITCHES!!)
Koichi points out that at this point it would be cheaper to demolish the mansion and start over than fix it. I guess that means that the land the mansion is on is not particularly valuable or someone would have done that by now. Then Koichi says he thinks me saw someone in the window, the same one Josuke gave the side eye in the picture above.
Josuke says that’s impossible, he lives nearby so surely he’d notice if someone had moved in. Furthermore, a real estate agent comes by regularly to make sure there aren’t any squatters. Uh, Josuke, if the real estate agent comes by to make sure the dirty poors have to stay out in the elements as befits their lowly station, then clearly THEY don’t think it’s impossible. But I digress. This panel I have to admit is kinda weird. It makes sense compositionally (you’re clearly supposed to track up to the house in the upper left) but dang it sure is a weird-looking panel. Koichi’s practically under Josuke’s armpit. BOUNDARIES, KOICHI! This kid needs therapy.
We get some cool establishing shots of the mansion grounds as Koichi and Josuke approach.
Koichi pokes his head through the gate and spots a loafer! I mean a shoe, not an individual who has chosen to sit out of the transactional game played between labor and capital.
Then Koichi yells! But why? Oh how suspenseful!
Whoa!
Shit!
Well who’s this asshole? I’m assuming he’s a Nijimura brother.
Wow he’s like Josuke except instead of hearts he’s got dolla dolla bills. I should have known a libertarian was behind all this!
“Hey asshole! What’s your problem!” shouts Josuke. Regulations? Feminism? Affirmative action? Fuck you dad? Instead of an answer, we get sound effects!
$ vs ❤
LET’S ROCK!
Milton Friedman lets Josuke know that his dad owns the house, so they shouldn’t violate his property rights. Josuke tells him that he gives no fucks and that if he doesn’t let Koichi go he’s going to rain a monopoly on force on his ass.
This next bit of dialog I’ll let you read for yourself:
FUCK YEAH!
Suddenly an arrow-THE arrow zips past Milton Friedman’s head! From his face it looks like even he wasn’t expecting it.
Oh crap! Who could have-
Hmmmm!
“Big brother?!” Milton asks, turning to the window. The shadowy guy (same guy who shot Angelo?) explains that he shot Koichi because he’s with Josuke. “Since he’s the one who defeated Angelo, that makes him a stand user…who should be dealt with before he interferes with out plan once again.” VILLAIN PLAN! Aw yeah!
Josuke quickly deduces, sweat running down his face, that these guys are also stand users. Oh boy! I wonder what their stands are gonna be! Suspense!
“Okuyasu! Eliminate him!” the shadowy older brother commands. I wonder how Koichi feels about this turn of-
Oh.
“He’s spilled blood…” Okuyasu’s older brother (probably also a “Nijimura brother”?) exposits. He explains that since that happened, that means Koichi isn’t gonna get a stand like Angelo did. Welp. Josuke rushes forward to heal Koichi.
Denied! Pretty sweet stand there! Looking forward to seeing if this punchghost can also do more than punch mans.
Stand fight! Stand fight! Stand fight!
Josuke draws first blood but Okuyasu seems unconcerned. Another suspense-generating detail: it indicates that he’s familiar with stands and he thinks that he can beat Josuke’s — so he’s probably pretty experienced with his stand and has maybe defeated other stand users, which makes him a different foe from Angelo who was not very familiar with stands and didn’t have much in the way of combat powers.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Woohoo! I’m now actually caught up to where I was when I stopped reading the first time!
All right, I’m really looking forward to what looks like the first proper punchghost fight in the series. I like how Okuyasu has already been presented as a sort of dark mirror of Josuke. His villainous ways are probably going to contrast with Josuke’s heroic qualities in order to further claify who Josuke is as a person, which, given these are still pretty early chapters, continues to be important.
I also want to point out from a storytelling point of view that having Koichi be critically injured and in need of immediate healing was absolutely necessary. A good author makes sure that there’s a good answer to any question that begins with “Why don’t they just…?” So if you ask “Why doesn’t Josuke just say ‘fuck ya’ll, Imma peace out’?” the answer is that he has to get past Okuyasu to heal Koichi! “Why doesn’t Josuke grab Jotaro and then double team Okuyasu and his brother (who are probably the titular Nijimura brothers)?” the answer is that Koichi would have bled out and died by the time Jotaro could have arrived. And of course, the answers to “Why don’t they just…?” questions should also reveal character traits. “Why doesn’t Josuke just back off and let Koichi die?” Because he cares about Koichi’s well-being. That seems like an obvious one, but we’ll return to this concept later on. (And of course you can also read me discussing this building block of storytelling in the context of Dragonball over here.
Agent Kool-Aid
Fun Fact: Okuyasu’s stand, ‘The Hand’, is a reference the band named ‘The Band’
this is because, when written out in japanese katakana, ‘the band’ is literally all of like one mark away from ‘the hand’, so it’s pretty much a pun
T.G. Xarbala
Okuyasu 
ascalapha odorata
Ha, I had wondered what the musical connection was there.
Agent Kool-Aid
It’s definitely one of the more confusing ones. typically the musical references are pretty outright, but the hand isn’t immediately obvious since it’s more of a language-based pun than anything. when in doubt, check the wiki! or in this case, most people in this thread probably shouldn’t. could very well be a hive of spoilers.
Wh-what? You mean it’s not for the Invisible Hand of the Free Market? 
Agent Kool-Aid
on further checking the internet, it is also totally that. okuyasu is #1 libertarian in morioh.
ascalapha odorata
And yes, I echo the Okyuasu
We have to get further into this storyline for me to really say lots about him even in the context of the introduction but two things:
I was saying that my initial impression of Morioh was basically ‘a good setting for your typical horror movie’ and this is exactly the kind of trope I was hoping that’d lead to, regardless of where it goes from here or how it’s handled. You obviously can’t expect a traditional horror story out of Araki necessarily but the old “weird house on the corner that has something suspicious” thing is great. I really like the initial shot of the house:
Also, Koichi getting wrecked like that was really startling to me. Okuyasu looks really fucking scary the first time you see him and the figure in the window is pretty creepy, too. Like the idea that these guys are hanging out in an abandoned house just shootin’ people with arrows… why?
Desperado Bones
Okuyasu!!!
He is among my favorite Jojo characters. Way after Dio, no one is better than Dio.
Hobgoblin2099
I can’t remember if Okuyasu ever says “Talk to The Hand”, but I hope he does.
Supersonic Shine
Okuyasu the Libertarian makes me laugh a lot more than it should.
Aurain
Okuyasu is the best.
Lumberjack Bonanza
These next few chapters are where Diamond is Unbreakable seems to find its footing, imo. We learn a lot about these characters, especially Josuke. The end of this arc is where this part stopped being a curiosity and started being something I couldn’t stop reading.
JJBA Chapter 275
Chapter 10 of Diamond is Unbreakable
The Nijimura Brothers (Part 2)
Translation: Invincible Trio
Okuyasu and Josuke stare each other down as Koichi bleeds out. The moment is interrupted when Okuyasu’s brother starts shouting unsolicited advice at him. Man I fucking hate it when my brothers try to tell me what to do when I’m playing Dark Souls or something. Just shut up and let me play! Okuyasu has the same reaction.
“Your stand is my finest work, use it to its maximum potential,” Okuyasu’s mysterious shadow-shrouded older brother tells him. So can he control the type of stand someone gets with the arrow? Okuyasu turns away from his brother and back to the fight, but in the time it took Okuyasu’s older brother to backseat punch fight, Josuke managed to get behind Okuyasu.
“You’re…pretty stupid.” says Josuke. It’s interesting that he looks kind of sad as he says this, like he’s sincerely delivering Okuyasu some bad news without a hint of malice.
Crazy Diamond attacks Okuyasu directly, knocking him to the ground. Josuke runs straight for Koichi…
(Heh, Josuke’s eyes.)
…but Okuyasu is already hot on his heels.
These next few pages just have such amazing energy and momentum that I’ll let them speak for themselves.
Crazy Diamond grabs The Hand’s arm before it can land a punch but can barely hold it. Josuke sweats nervously. “Damn, that right arm of his is unbelievably strong! I don’t feel good about this!”
The Hand knees Crazy Diamond in the side, causing Josuke to caugh blood. The Hand frees itself and strikes the gate.
“Josuke, don’t try to escape! Do you want to abandon your friend? My right arm hasn’t even gotten excited yet!” Okuyasu tells Josuke while one of his dollar sign accessories floats around for some reason. Josuke glances at Koichi, who is still bleeding out from arrow impalement in case you forgot, 
and then turns his attention back to the fight at hand. “There’s something special about your right hand, isn’t there?”
The place where The Hand struck the gate seems to have smoke or vapor rising from it.
In the next panel, ominous sound effects fly around the scene. “That door is different. Hmm…strange,” Josuke says in an intese panel.
Offhand I don’t see the difference. I ended up flipping back and forth between this page and earlier ones going “Huh?” It’s probably easier to spot if you read kanji.
“You can…you can cut space!?” Josuke says with a “damn, shit just got real!” look. Okuyasu’s smug expression confirms this. Wait what? OK I think I get what The Hand does, I just don’t think I would have figured it out the way Josuke did.
Okuyasu confirms that this is correct. “Whatever my right hand touches will disappear! The edges of the erased space will then join together to restore the gap! As for the parts that are cut off…”
“Even I don’t know where they end up!”
Interesting! I could see a lot of really creative applications of this power. Nice. I had heard that the punchghosts in part 4 really make best use of the idea of stands so I’m looking forward to seeing some examples!
The Hand raises its, er, hand and prepares to strike! So I suppose if he hits someone’s head or something then they’ll be fuckin’ dead.
Okuyasu cuts the space between himself and Josuke and basically teleports himself right up to Josuke, totally violating his personal bubble. That’s pretty neat! Okuyasu prepares to strike Josuke, but before he can follow through some potted plants smack him in the face. Huh?
I suppose I understand in a sort of abstract way how that would work but I’m not really sure how exactly that happened. How would cutting the air in front of Josuke cause potted plants to fly at him? Atmospheric pressure? I reread this part several times and I still don’t quite follow, but I’m sure one of you guys will explain it and then it will seem really obvious.
“A stand that can teleport objects and erase space…that could have been really dangerous…if he wasn’t such an idiot,” Josuke says again, not with anger or contempt, but with pity.
Hmmm. Excited about this interesting stand power, but I hope it isn’t always this confusing when its used! Also now I suspect that the stuff The Hand cuts probably ends up somewhere and that this will be a future plot point. Not too much else to say on this one since not too much happened story-wise, but I have plenty to say about the next chapter. Also another Let’s Cold Read Duwang is coming up soon and I have a feeling you guys are gonna dig it even more than “That many already? Chinese!”
Agent Kool-Aid
the best way to think about the hand’s power is that stands more or less operate on their own set of rules, so their abilities kinda operate the same way. when the hand slices through something, the surrounding area will try to fill in the void like a vacuum as best it can. some things move more easily than others based on size and a void that is big enough to pull josuke in will more than likely pull in anything smaller near josuke as well, and since a potted plant can pick up way more momentum than a person, well, we all saw what happened!
like a lot of things in jojo’s it just kinda works if you go with it. with great power comes great responsibility. and a faceful of terracotta.
Pomp
okuyasu is real and he is my friend
It’s true, my uncle who works at Nintendo told me.
ascalapha odorata
Okuyasu is everybody’s friend.
I hate it every time Okuyasu is called stupid in DiU. In his defense it’s kind of incredible to me that other teenagers would have stand mastery, like Josuke being that capable with his own should be the anomaly here. 
Bad Seafood
The Hand is probably a little easier to understand if you compare it with its spiritual predecessor, Vanilla Ice’s Cream. Both stands operate by cutting space, but Cream leaves a “Hole” while The Hand “Knits” the hole together, bringing everything closer together. While Okuyasu’s maximum range is never explicitly established, the implication is that by cutting out the space between himself and Josuke, he also displaced some potted plants behind Josuke. Josuke and the pots come flying, Josuke ducks, and the pots smash into Okuyasu.
Agent Kool-Aid
there’s also more than one comparison that can be made between vanilla ice and okuyasu, which i’m sure will be elaborated on in the near future by either me or someone else 
Hobgoblin2099
Anyway, The Hand. Basically Vanilla Ice’s ability on a smaller scale. It’s kind of interesting that the two characters with space erasing abilities both end up being really dumb, though you could argue that Vanilla Ice is more single-mindedly devoted I suppose.
That being said, that hand swipe of Okuyasu’s is a really great trick. For all the crap he gets about being dumb, it’s a really clever move to pull off, especially considering his Stand excels at close ranged combat even without its ability.
OH! I think I get it now!
Agent Kool-Aid
the way that all star battle depicts it also gives a good idea. the vacuum effect only happens like, a second after the swipe with his hand. it’s an actual, distinct suction that takes place after the initial attack.
Aurain
Xibanya sort of interpreted The Hand as teleporting Okyasu to Josuke, but it’s the other way around.
“Okuyasu cuts the space between himself and Josuke and basically teleports himself right up to Josuke, totally violating his personal bubble.”
The end result’s the same pretty much but the nuance changes a lot. Pulling Josuke and the area around him close to Okuyasu is why the plant pots fly towards him and clock himself in the face. It doesn’t work if it’s Okuyasu pulling himself to Josuke, of course.
Also Okuyasu is actual perfection.
Lumberjack Bonanza
Okuyasu is amazing, and would be my favorite stand user in this part if not for a bunch of later stand users.
Supersonic Shine
On the subject of Okuyasu and Vanilla Ice: I wonder if their Stands send their targets to the same place. Logically, it’s unlikely, but still fun to think about.
Hobgoblin2099
I think of their Stands are erasing things from existence, personally.
I mean, Okuyasu just erased empty space. Where would that even go? How would you transfer it?
I assume he’s not actually destroying matter, violating the laws of physics. Maybe everything he cuts gets teleported into a nebula and over the course of a few million years is incorporated into a new star!
Suaimhneas
Matter can’t be destroyed, but it can be converted into energy. Obviously the reason Okuyasu’s so stupid is because every time The Hand erases something he gets a blast of radiation, and it’s damaged his brain
hoobajoo
I like to think The Hand works by folding space, which just appears to be destructive, and each swipe creates a little pocket dimension. That’s just personal headcanon, but it’s the way his power makes the most sense in terms of actual physics I think.
ascalapha odorata
Pocket dimension. Both The Hand and Cream are terrifying to me.
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