Introduction
The purpose of this Let’s Read is to allow newcomers to Part Four of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to read it and share their experiences on it together as well as for those who have already read it to discuss the series up to the latest chapter of the Let’s Read. Like many of you, I have never read JJBA’s Part 4 before. While someone who has already read the series could provide a deeper reading, part of the fun of a Let’s Read is tracking the evolution of the reader’s (and community’s) understanding of whatever is being read.
That means that I or some of the discussion participants may end up forming incorrect theories, focusing on things that aren’t important, or overlooking things that are. That is a feature and not a bug. Because I want to provide the most authentic possible reading and because I want those following along to be able to react to the story at their own pace, I would appreciate it if those who comment on the Let’s Read in the thread would add spoiler tags to any remarks related to chapters that have not yet been covered. Thank you for helping us make this Let’s Read an unbreakable diamond!
Chapter One
I dedicate my Let’s Read of Chapter One to my anonymous benefactor, who bought me this awesome new avatar! Thank you!
Jotaro Meets Josuke, Part One
For this chapter, I’m using a scanslation by The Invincible Trio
High school freshman (equivalent to American 10th grader) Koichi Hirose begins narrating the story to us. It’s March, 1999, the start of a new school year. That technically puts this story in the near future, as this chapter was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in May of 1992. If you were a Japanese teenager reading this story as it came out, you were probably also following Slam Dunk, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Dragonball, all of which were also being published in Weekly Shonen Jump at that time. It also bears mentioning that at this time in 1992, Japan was seeing a huge meltdown in their stock market, leading into their “lost decade.”
Koichi lives in a relatively small town, and the first thing I thought when I saw the panel was “This looks just like Ueda.”
Here’s a photo I took while I was in Ueda.
I consider that worth mentioning because on my last trip to Japan, I spent a night in Ueda and had the opportunity to wander around. Ueda is not really that big of a town and I barely saw any buildings with more than three stories. The whole place also looked like it had seen better days – it wasn’t run down by any means, but a lot of the buildings just didn’t look that well maintained and I suspect it’s because any kid smart enough to go to college would then find a job somewhere with more to offer. It’s probably worth noting that after wandering around a bit, I immediately started thinking of Mabase from FLCL. So I’m going into this primed to think of Morioh as being this sort of town.
ascalapha odorata: “I like your perspective on Morioh, I had something a little different in mind – a sort of tidy small town that doesn’t really exist anywhere outside of the setting for a horror movie. A good template for lots of horrible stuff to go down, I guess? But yours is more realistic/interesting.”
Might be something that’s hard to picture unless you’ve seen it yourself. Unlike the USA, in Japan you don’t have a lot of sprawl, so you just have these smallish towns that are really dense and then nothing but farmland or forest between them. Contrast that with the states where most places you can keep driving through strip mall hell in perpetuity. And I’m saying this from firsthand experience – my last trip to Japan was an 11 day road trip in which I spent each night in a different town. It was fucking awesome. 
And just to help everyone see things the way I’m seeing them, here are some more photos I took in Ueda.
So we’ll see if Morioh continues to remind me of Ueda.
Koichi looks like he’s going to be the normal mild-mannered character who is constantly in awe of shit and has to have stuff explained to him all the time so that the audience can get what’s going on. I’m not crazy about this kind of character because they usually don’t have much else going on personality-wise. I’m reminded of Manta from Shaman King, a series I stopped reading probably less than fifty chapters in. Shaman King is this shonen manga about people who fight with ghosts or something. And I don’t mean Punch Ghosts(tm) I mean like actual ghosts. Manta was this ugly short kid who was always having to have shit about ghost fights explained to him and/or get rescued. But let’s leave Manta aside for now; we’ll return to him later.
On the title page we get a nice look at our protagonist, Josuke!
He’s also got some fun accessories just like Jotaro. And a pompadour-mullet. Given that Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho were running at the same time he’s in good company. Also, he appears to be a Super Saiyan.
Distracted by his own running inner commentary perhaps, Koichi bumps into a really tall guy. Obviously it’s Jotaro, not just because the title of the chapter is Jotaro meets Josuke but because belts.
No further comment.
Koichi falls and all of his school supplies scatter, but then Star Platinum’s arms whoosh in outta nowhere!
(I like the idea that Jotaro was like aaaahhh shit, fuck, um, THE WORLD!)
Koichi is surprised to find that he hasn’t fallen down after all. Jotaro apologizes for looking at a map instead of paying attention to where he was going. Araki uses some forced perspective here to make Jotaro look absolutely massive.
Koichi notes that Jotaro must be over 6 feet tall. Jotaro asks Koichi where to find the Higashikata residence. Koichi says he’s not sure, as the town has about 53k people living in it. With that, Koichi confirms that this still a pretty small town. Via narration Koichi notes that he would later get to know Jotaro better and that Jotaro is 28 years old and a notable marine biologist. That’s a fun touch – Jotaro was so closed off in Stardust Crusaders that we never really learned too much about what he was like when he wasn’t on a quest to kill a fabulously sexy vampire so it’s nice to see that he has interests beyond being a shonen punch fight protagonist.
Hobgoblin2099: “This is why we were laughing about the Dark Blue Moon episode and the magazine during the Anubis episode, anime watchers.
ascalapha odorata: “Once you know this a whole wealth of dolphin jokes relating to Jotaro become available to you. It doesn’t really get old, though it probably should.”
Koichi says that even though Jotaro was so large, he wasn’t afraid of him because he seemed smart and gentle. Koichi then lays down the foreshadowing – who he will really be afraid of is “that Higashikata guy.”
TITLE DROPPPPP! Kinda? Close enough.
Aurain: “Xibanya, Part 4 Josuke Higashikata is actually a straight title drop. Diamond is not Crash/Unbreakable is a post publication thing.”
Enourmo: “Yeah kinda like how part 3 was called ‘Heritage for the Future’ and ‘Stardust Crusaders’ came later.”
Forktoss: “Where did the names come from, by the way? Diamond is Unbreakable I get, I guess, but I have no idea what ‘is not Crash’ even means.”
Senor Candle: “Diamond is Not Crash is just the literal(bad) translation of the japanese title.”
Bad Seafood: “Diamond is Unbreakable is the “Official,” after-the-fact title assigned by Araki, just one time I think the guys who made ASB put up a trailer that translated it as Diamond is Not Crash and a bunch of idiots switched to that and now there’s confusion among the Western fanbase.
Probably a lot of overlap with the people who insist it’s Telence T. D’Arby and Tohth.”
Daxing Dan: “Diamond is not Crash has been Part 4’s official English subtitle in Japan for a very long time, at least since the Shueisha printing published from 2004, if I’m reading Wikipedia right. Now, anyone who with working English knowledge and half a brain would realize that “Diamond is not Crash” doesn’t actually mean anything, so all the western translations just used Diamond is Unbreakable. However, it wasn’t until Jojoveller in 2013 that Japan officially switched as well.”
We see some asshole high schoolers bullying underclassmen, looks like they walked into the vicinity while Koichi was narrating about Jotaro. They and Jotaro notice each other but don’t otherwise react.
PROTAGONIST ALERT!
The assholes notice Josuke crouched at a fountain. He hasn’t been introduced yet, but come on. He’s on the cover and the title page, so yeah, we know this is the protagonist. The first look we get at this character will have been put together with great care in order to provide us the best picture of what we can expect from this character moving forward, so what happens next is likely to be significant in as much as it will demonstrate the kind of person Araki intends Josuke to be.
The asshole contingent asks him what he’s up to with the implication he is not doing what he should be doing (kissing their asses, presumably.) Josuke answers as if the question “what are you doing?” had come from someone genuinely curious about the answer. He tells the assholes that he is trying to overcome his fear of turtles by hanging out near a turtle on the rim of the fountain. This kind of answer can indicate one of two things about a character: one, they’re so stuck in their own head and goofy that they don’t consider the possibility that things people say mean anything other than the literal meaning of their words (common in absent-minded professor archetypes, cute girl archetypes, wacky mascot character archetypes, etc) or two: the character knows very well what the other character meant but is pretending to misunderstand (like with wise trickster archetypes, guile heroes, manipulators, and so on.) So what’s it gonna be? Josuke stands up.
Second one. For sure.
Looks like Josuke is pretending to not notice that these guys are trying to start shit in order to give them a way to move on while still saving face/in order to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Pretty smart for a shonen protagonist.
The assholes note that Josuke is pretty tall, then start demanding that he show them proper respect. One of them waves the turtle at him, causing him to (humorously) back off from fear. Then one of the assholes slaps him hard enough to bust his lip. Josuke responds by bowing deeply and apologizing. In response, one of the assholes hurls the turtle into a concrete pillar.
Josuke reacts but his face doesn’t reveal much, although you might say that the fact that his face doesn’t reveal much is, itself, revealing. I mean, what kind of person doesn’t go “Dude, shit!” when some asshole brutalizes a turtle?
The assholes then demand that Josuke remove his school uniform (wtf) and give them his money. Josuke’s response:
Delicious. There’s a lot packed into that first panel of his face there. The tension is building, we just know these guys are gonna get fucked up, the only question is how — and since this is Jojo, we know it’s gonna involve punchghosts one way or another. So the real question is not “how will our nice protagonist get out of this fix?” It’s “what kind of crazy power will the protagonist use to fuck these jerkasses up?”
Jotaro says that Josuke deserves what he gets for his dumb hair and outfit. (Way to blame the victim, asshole.) He also mentions that he’s pissed off that Josuke didn’t even try to defend the defenseless turtle. One of the bullies asks for Josuke’s name and Josuke provides — causing Jotaro to realize that this is the guy that he was looking for all along.
Josuke proceeds to disrobe per the bullies’ request, but then one of them says his hair looks stupid.
Now Josuke has flipped into Jojo protagonist you-are-fucked mode. Since this is also the scene that establishes who he is as a character, I once again predict one of two things: one – for whatever reason he’s insecure about his hair (does he style it that way because he promised his dead childhood friend or something?) or two – he doesn’t actually give a shit about his hair, he just arbitrarily picked something to pretend to get pissed off over just to fuck with these assholes — in other words, he was never going to let them take their little game all the way to its natural conclusion, he just wanted to give them every opportunity to quit before he totally wrecks their shit.
And blammo, out comes the stand!
Shiiiiiit!
And now that same forced perspective trick we saw with Jotaro earlier comes back, now with Josuke.
==>
Hmmmm!
The asshole whose nose Josuke broke denies mocking Josuke’s hair. In response, Josuke further grinds his motherfucking face into the ground! Holy fuck!
Jotaro notes in an internal monologue that he spotted the arm of Josuke’s stand. Koichi reacts with surprise as he watches Josuke pick up the turtle, which is now totally fine, and drop it back into the fountain.
The assholes then react with shock – the guy whose nose Josuke broke (?) is now also totally fine, although now his nose looks really weird.
Now looking totally Jojo badass, Josuke tells the bullies he’s pissed off since they made him touch the turtle. “Now, how do you want to die?” Subsequently, the bullies fuck off.
Jotaro notes Josuke is related to Joseph and that he’s the one Jotaro was looking for. Josuke looks back at Jotaro and remarks “huh, that guy looks a bit like me…”
End chapter one!
As far as art goes, if I unpacked this chapter like I did Dragonball Chapter 30, it would take about as long, but there was some really good flow management going on here.
A note on flow I could write shitloads of paragraphs about flow in comics, what it is, why it’s important, how it’s done, and so on, but I’m not going to because I already did and a lot of people here already read it, so if you haven’t yet, check this out and then come back: The Anatomy of the Art of Dragonball: Composition
Anyway, that said, check out this page:
The fountain is circular, but every time it appears in the chapter, it’s never shown in full. The circle never completes on the right side. The fountain is also surrounded by square tiles. Look at how the rows of tiles form lines. Araki uses the fountain’s circular rim and the lines formed by the tiles to guide your eye to the next thing you’re supposed to read; it can’t be an accident, as there’s just no panel in the entire chapter that directs the eye to the right.
Notice how he uses the circular rim of the fountain – no matter where your eyes enter the panel, they go around the rim to rest on whatever is breaking the outline of it.
Chapter Two
Jotaro Meets Josuke, Part 2
Translation: Invincible Trio
“What are you looking at?” Josuke sneers at Jotaro as massive sound effects zip around their heads.
LIKE. I’m a huge sucker for characters that have more running beneath the surfance than they let on, something that’s disappointingly uncommon in shonen protags. What’s going on here is that Araki has shown that Josuke can get just as intense and scary as Jotaro, and then he deliberately undercut the sincere tone of the scene by having Josuke act goofy again, making it unclear whether or not Josuke’s sudden mood swing is actually sincere or if it’s a put on. It reminds me of early-Dragonball Roshi. Come to think of it, it reminds me of something else.
OK, no lie, I adore Joseph from Battle Tendency, and it’s not just because he had a sexy voice in the anime (Tomokazu Sugita 
) I’ve bought all the Viz volumes of the manga that are out so far with actual money, that’s how much I like it. Particularly I loved how Joseph in Battle Tendency could get serious but you never got the impression that he felt like he had to project a carefully curated image of himself to the world – even if Joseph’s behavior was a put-on at times (“I’ve been working on the railroad!”), it was a put-on of some aspect of his real self. So far I’m getting that impression from Josuke as well. In comparison, I feel like Jotaro was always pretty restrained, like he was scared of not being cool!
Jotaro starts rattling off Josuke’s vital stats: his name, his mom’s name, her age when she had him. This gets Josuke’s attention. Jotaro goes on to say that Josuke has always lived in this town and that when he was four he suffered a severe fifty-day illness. (I guess his stand was killing him like what happened to Jotaro’s mom.) Aaaaaand Josuke’s father’s name was
What a twist! Except did anybody not know this? Either way though, if this means that Josuke will be Joseph-like, I’m pumped!
Josuke looks pretty shocked. Jotaro continues to spout exposition, possibly saying more in these panels than everything he ever said out loud in all of Stardust Crusaders.
Joseph is 79 years old. While trying to sort out inheritance, it was discovered that Joseph had begotten an illegitimate child – Josuke. (And planned to leave some money to him! How’s that for considerate!) Jotaro seems kinda mad that Joseph was unfaithful to Suzie Q, but I’m not that shocked, I mean, does Joseph seem like the kind of guy to sincerely fall in love with anybody? Anyway, Jotaro then introduces himself properly to Josuke and adds that he is technically Josuke’s nephew.
Josuke seems kind of shaken but takes the news graciously.
Koichi is also still around, just chilling out and listening to these strangers talk, when, if you think about it, it would be kind of weird to follow around two strangers like that. And yeah, they have moved, since they’re not near the fountain any more, they’re on a little bridge.
Jotaro says he came to Morioh to tell Josuke to expect his inheritance soon. He then adds that the whole family is in turmoil right now on account of the affair coming to life. Josuke gets a pained look and apologizes while bowing deeply for causing the trouble.
Jotaro asks what I’m thinking – “What’s up with you? Why are you apologizing?” Josuke looks like even he isn’t completely sure, but explains that his mother was seriously in love with Joseph and raised Josuke by herself; they’re fine and don’t need the money. Jotaro stares as he runs through his internal monologue: “What kind of guy is he? I came here in the old man’s place thinking that he was going to fight me, but he’s apologizing…I’m surprised. Well, he’s quite mature, I guess…”
Also Koichi is still hanging around these strangers while they discuss sensitive matters, mouth agape. That’s kind of weird. Boundaries, man, boundaries!
Then a bunch of schoolgirls show up calling Josuke’s name with hearts in their speech bubbles! They mob him and shower him with compliments, particularly on his hair. Jotaro has had enough of this shit and shouts at the girls, telling them to leave them alone and stop going on about Josuke’s dumb hair.
Josuke grinds his foot into the ground and the girls look up in shock. “You just said something you should never say!” one of the girls helpfully explains.
Heh, the style in which these girls are drawn really dates this chapter.
OK, so I guess Josuke really does have a complex about his hair?
Josuke moves in to attack Jotaro, so Jotaro pops him in the mouth with Star Platinum. Jotaro begins to explain to Josuke what a stand is, how only other stand users can see them, and that Josuke has had a stand since he was four. But it looks like Josuke gives no fucks.
Hm. That’s not very Joseph-like. I guess Josuke is kind of a crazy person?
Hobgoblin2099: “To be fair, is there any Jojo that isn’t kind of a crazy person?
I mean even Jonathan was the kind of guy who would grab a knife barehanded and risk getting his fingers cut off.”
He calls out his stand. It looks kinda like The World, maybe for the headgear? Its head is heart-shaped. 
Josuke’s stand attacks Star Platinum and breaks its guard. Jotaro is surprised by its strength. Josuke gets a clear shot at Jotaro’s face and it looks like Jotaro’s gonna get his shit wrecked, but the blow whifs — all Josuke manages to hit is the front of Jotaro’s cap. The standard shonen bystander crowd remarks “I couldn’t see him move!” “What happened?” “How is this possible?”
“This is nuts!”
Jotaro narrates that he hadn’t stopped time in ten years (I guess since he fought DIO? But what about when he bumped into Koichi at the start of chapter one? Maybe he means he hadn’t stopped time in combat since then?) Then shit gets pretty weird. Jotaro’s cap starts mending itself…well, sort of.
Eh, good enough.
Bad Seafood: “Two things. Jotaro didn’t use time stop to grab all of Koichi’s things, he just grabbed them really, really quickly. Star Platinum is pretty fast even without needing to stop time. Lest we forget, Jotaro was fast enough in chapter one of his own introduction to grab a bullet in mid-flight.
The other thing is to not worry about Koichi. He might start out as the Watson of Part 4, but he grows into more pretty quickly.”
ascalapha odorata: “It’s a little confusing but yes, it’s a reminder of just how FAST platinum is. This is a deal where you think ‘ok does it really matter?’ and it sort of does matter to know which aspect of platinum he’s using.
Oh right, and Koichi definitely starts out one way – as you described him – but thankfully he changes a bit. He’s not one of my favorite characters but my first impression was basically ‘ok this is just the fringe guy who never gets super involved so he can narrate things safely.’ Not the case.”
Jotaro clocks Josuke in the face for his trouble. The schoolgirls scream his name, but Jotaro snarls at them so they leave.
Jotaro then tells Josuke he didn’t just show up on family business. Joseph took a photo with Hermit Purple that shows that something creepy is hanging out in Josuke’s hometown. Something…dangerous. OHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
End Chapter 2!
I think it’s interesting that we get comments on how Jotaro and Josuke are incredibly tall and yet nobody comments on the fact that they’re both biracial? One of my dearest friends in the world is ethnically Hakka but speaks Japanese as a first language and he says that people are constantly commenting on how “skilled” his Japanese is in the most fucking obnoxious and condescending way possible, and he doesn’t even have any non-East-Asian blood in him. My guess is that Jotaro and Josuke’s non-Japanese heritage is basically an inconvenient detail that Shueisha would like their readers to forget ASAP lest kids go “argh, how can I possibly identify with a character that might not look like me in every possible way!”
chaos rhames: “Jotaro is an extremely ripped man dressed like a rich street thug who stands about a head taller than everyone else. It’s probably just overlooked but with him you can say nobody wants to get on his bad side.”
Yeah but nobody even comments on it in their inner monologues either.
To continue the art notes, Araki continues to take care with the use of lines to direct flow:
Bad Seafood: “I feel like the turtle is really what brings all the elements of Josuke’s introduction together, and not just because Araki’s employing the standard practice of using an animal’s suffering to elicit sympathy. The very first thing we see of Josuke is him and the turtle. He’s afraid of turtles, so he’s trying to will himself to get over his fear. Turtles are an odd thing to be afraid of, so it comes off as a bit (charmingly) eccentric, but it also paints Josuke as the sort of person who’s willing to face his fears.
The most important bit though is his actual interactions with the turtle.
I hate bugs, which I don’t think is too uncommon. Whenever I see a bug in my immediate vicinity, my instinct, my desire, is always to kill it. Now obviously a turtle is a little different, but if you don’t like turtles (whether you’re scared of them or think they’re gross), you will probably treat them at best with a certain amount of distance, at worst with hostility. So Josuke is afraid of turtles. Most people wouldn’t kill a turtle just cause they were afraid of it, but they either wouldn’t bother with them, or would treat them like an object to be reviled. Josuke, meanwhile, is willing to reach out to the turtle, to make contact. Josuke fears turtles, but he recognizes them as living beings with as much a right to exist and be treated fairly as anyone else. He is visibly angry when the turtle is smashed, visibly disgusted when he has to actually touch it to put it back in the fountain, but he still uses his power to heal its injury and picks it up with his own two hands to put it back.
All I’ll say to cap this for now is that Josuke is my personal favorite Jojo, and his bit with the turtle touches on a lot of the reasons why.”
ascalapha odorata: “I think I said earlier in this thread that I went into this part pretty sure there was absolutely no way that I’d like Josuke, because he looked utterly ridiculous to me. I ended up reading this part really quickly and the whole reason is because I was immediately sold on Josuke (though stuff that happens later really solidified it, I won’t spoil that). The first glimpse of Josuke is pretty well done since it gives you a sense of his stand in a couple ways, one that’s pretty subtle at first I think.
I’m pretty sure Josuke’s my favorite Jojo, at the very least he seems to have the most depth to him (no offense to the other Jojos – there are reasons why Josuke ends up with the luxury of a more carefully defined character in this part).”
Moltrey: Josuke is also my favorite JoJo and a lot of the reasons why are seeded here. The turtle and Josuke giving the upperclassmen every chance to end the situation without conflict has been discussed, but Josuke turning down the money is my favorite thing.
To me, it’s not that weird for Josuke to apologize and not accept the money. It’s an early sign that Josuke is mature enough to understand his parents situation and that maybe taking the money and giving it to his mother may not exactly be the best thing. Him apologizing is odd on it’s face, but it shows that he has quite a bit of emotional depth for a fifteen year old, enough that he feels guilt that his birth is what’s caused strife in the Joestar household, even if it’s not his fault.
These whole first chapters really start giving Josuke a lot more depth than you’d expect a shonen protagonist in 1992 to have and I’m excited to watch you explore that.
FirstAidKite: “I like how koichi is just recycled from araki’s earlier manga Cool Shock BT”
Chapter Three
Jotaro Meets Josuke Part 3
Translation: Invincible Trio
This chapter was originally published in Weekly Shonen Jump on May 25th, 1992.
Fun facts about Japan in 1992, ripped straight from Wikipedia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_in_Japan
January 8: US President George H. W. Bush vomits in Prime Minister Miyazawa’s lap during a state dinner.
March 7: Sailor Moon anime series starts on TV Asahi.
March 14: Nozomi services begin on the Tokaido Shinkansen.
March 25: Huis ten Bosch opens in Nagasaki Prefecture.
April 1: Chiba City is divided into wards; Taiyo Kobe Mitsui Bank renames itself to Sakura Bank.
May 2: Civil servants are granted a two-day weekend for the first time.
May 22: Japan New Party founded.
Other fun stuff about 1992: Japan’s bubble economy had collapsed; the velocity of money screeched to a halt, and deflation set in. Consumption and investment dropped off significantly. Street Fighter II won game of the year. The Super Scope was released for the NES. The Atari was discontinued. The Cold War was formally ended. The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture. What a year, what a year! I remember it vividly. I was two years old for most of it.
Well, anyway…
When we last left our heroes, Jotaro had warned Josuke that something SPOOKY and DANGEROUS was lurking in his town! And then forced the original readers in 1992 to wait a whole week for details.
Jotaro warns Josuke to watch his back, then tells Koichi to stay away from the creepy dude. I guess he doesn’t mind that Koichi just learned a really sensitive matter? Does Jotaro just give no fucks? I’m now imagining Jotaro at a bus stop telling a stranger the story of how he fought in the Vietnam War, became a famous marine biologist, and met the president. Jotaro then peaces out, saying he’ll be slumming it in some hotel until he catches the creeper from the photo. Josuke asks for more details, but Jotaro says he’ll explain more tomorrow.
Once on his own, Jotaro begins to exposit via internal monologue about the nasty dude from the photograph. He’s “the sickest, most dangerous criminal in all of Japan,” and a native son of Morioh. He’s basically a serial killer/rapist/pedarast. Jotaro helpfully adds that at least one of his victims was a fourteen year old boy that he raped, murdered, then de-penised. The guy was hanged but managed to survive even after 20 minutes at the noose. The execution was then delayed and the guy escaped from prison two weeks later and is lurking somewhere in town. This has caused Jotaro to suspect that the guy is a stand user.
Let’s step back a moment and digest this. The laundry list of this guy’s crimes (and I abbreviated it) serves a purpose other than to shock the audience or match contemporary 90s GRIMDARK trends. By showing us the horrible shit that can happen in this setting, Araki is telling us that this story takes place in a world of consequences. What that means is that we should expect events that happen in this story to affect characters in a realistic manner, and that requires us to read a little more closely than a shonen manga typically requires. In short – just because a character doesn’t remark on something or visibly react to something doesn’t mean they weren’t affected by it. This is another topic I already wrote about at length, so again instead of repeating myself, I’ll just link that discussion here.
We then switch locations – hey look at the use of lines to guide flow again!
We see a dude in a convertible ride up next to some hot lady walking down the street in order to hit on her. (Note to dudes: do not do this, it is scary.) She responds by smashing the guy’s face into the door.
A cop on a bike (lol) comes riding up and the assaulted dude calls for help, but the cop declines, explaining that the lady is his daughter. (Cripes, if he looks like that I guess the mother had to have been a real looker to compensate!)
And the cop calls her Tomoko. Wait, so that’s Josuke’s mom? Talk about a yummy mummy! Hm, seems she also has a violent streak.
Can I point out that this looks really odd?
Anyhow, Tomoko remarks that she’s thinking about Josuke on his first day of high school, saying that she’s a little worried because he has such a short temper, but she knows he’ll be OK because he’s such a nice guy deep down. Her thoughts are interrupted however by her dad hearing a commotion. We then jump to…
Yeah, that was me for a large portion of my university days. 
A large crowd has gathered because a robber has taken a clerk hostage in the convenience store. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K! The robber emerges with the hostage.
Side note: who is this guy and why is he so excited?
The robber starts making demands. Josuke’s response is interesting, given that we know Josuke’s a stand user and as far as we know the robber is armed only with a knife.
And then the robber insults Josuke’s hair.
Seems that getting his hair insulted is what flips the switch on Josuke’s personality. If they keep this hair gag up throughout the manga it’ll get old really quick since it’s weirdly irrational in a manga that has been set up for characters to have fairly realistic emotional responses this far, but I’m still intrigued by the idea of a shonen character who isn’t obsessed with coming off as a badass all the time and so comes off as all the more badass as a result. I’m getting the impression that Josuke doesn’t act like a badass, he just is one. THAT, friends, is cool.
Speaking of cool, I hope it’s not 
if I post this entire page, because this page is ~the shiiiiiit~~!
Damn, that is some DYNAMISM. You can feel this incredible momentum as Josuke (sporting an aura of badassitude) seems to hurtle towards the robber with a the weighty force of a steam train (the effect accomplished through a combination of panel shape, extreme perspective, speed lines, and the way the background elements like the clouds and building guide your eye.) Koichi’s pose also appears to be a deliberate allusion to Smokey from Battle Tendency. Josuke’s eyes in the last panel are hidden by shadow, forming a barrier between himself and the reader — you’re no longer supposed to identify with him because his badassitude has ascended to a level beyond mortal comprehension.
Josuke, standing at full height, confronts the robber. If you really pick apart the panel, the perspective here doesn’t totally make sense, but realistic placement is irrelevant. Araki is going for the gut — just as Josuke fills the panel, emotionally speaking his presence in this scene is now enormous.
The robber begins to plunge the knife into the woman, so Josuke…plunges the fist of his stand into the woman?!
Brutal.
And yet moments later…
Ahaaa so Josuke’s stand must have some sort of healing/matter manipulation ability. I can see this being a double edged sword. One, this is awesome since it will permit a level of brutality to fights that wouldn’t previously have been possible in a story in which events are meant to have realistic consequences, but on the other hand, it could blunt the sense of suspense and danger that JJBA has cultivated up to this point. So we shall see!
The creepy stand thing from the photo comes out of the guy’s mouth. Guess he was just being manipulated like how Kakyoin did at the beginning of Stardust Crusaders and then apparently forgot how to do.
Josuke recognizes the stand as being the one from the photo, but the stand escapes into a drain before anything can be done about it. Before it does, though, it lets Josuke know that it’ll be keeping an eye on him.
End Chapter 3
Yanno, you guys have basically said a lot of what I was gonna say, so I’ll keep this brief. Josuke is a pretty interesting character, but I have to confess that at this point his personality is sort of all over the place. At some points it seems like he’s got very high emotional intelligence and is good at reading others, and then at other points his reactions/behavior seem like they would be more appropriate in a less realistic manga like Dragonball than JJBA — unless the temper and the silliness are an act. So we will see! I’m definitely intrigued by Josuke’s stand ability. That the protagonists’ stands in Part 3 were so punch-oriented hurt the series somewhat, so I’m extremely happy to see a protagonist with a stand ability that’s more than “punch stuff a lot, maybe stop time to get some more punches in.”
Bad Seafood: “The deal with Josuke’s hair is explained in time. Suffice to say, as with Jotaro, Josuke is someone who has a lot going on under the surface and not everything always bubbles to the top. He’s more honest with his emotions than Jotaro, hence the mood swings, but he’s still got some stuff he keeps on the down low.“
Waffleman_: “Also they super ease off on using the hair thing later on in the manga. I don’t think it even comes up in the second half.“
ascalapha odorata: “I feel like every Joestar is uh a bit unhinged but Josuke is actually about as normal as you can get, considering everything. He’s actually a teenager to me, whereas prior jjba teenagers really didn’t act like it? I think that’s what makes him especially endearing . VERY vague spoiler about his personality in general, I swear no actual plot details are revealed here, just broad explanation: He is a smart guy who is thrust into the same sort of extremely serious situations that are typical in the series but in this part he actually gets to, you know, be a kid here and there and just behave accordingly. The fights in this part are fantastic to see but my favorite parts are basically ‘teenagers in morioh being teenagers in more exaggerated jojo ways.’
I know the hair thing is hard to get over since it’s goofy but I swear, he’s a cute lil guy if you give him a chance!”
Bad Seafood: “To draw some attention back to what’s already been discussed, another thing these early chapters do a good job of is establishing Josuke as someone who – rather than being a naive or only recently gifted newcomer – is at least casually familiar with the world of stands and intimately familiar with what his own stand can do. He doesn’t hesitate to attack the woman and the thug because he knows shell be fine. The possibility that she might be permanently injured in some way never seems to cross his mind, and of course leaving the knife inside the thug (without it cutting him open from within) is both skillful and exactly the sort of dick move a young Joseph Joestar would be proud of.”
Hobgoblin2099: “I want to say that the hair thing stops coming up after we get the explanation for why he gets pissed off when people make fun of it.“
Lumberjack Bonanza: “When I first started reading Part 4 I had the same issues with Josuke as Xibanya does, and Koichi really. Suffice to say, they come in to their own before very long. Araki’s definitely still feeling these characters out, and I have every confidence they’ll grow on you.
Josuke’s Stand is also real good for some body horror, in case you hadn’t already guessed. :P”
MonsieurChoc: “On the hair thing…”
Bad Seafood: “It’s also worth nothing that Araki (allegedly) planned on concluding Jojo with Part 3, but since it became super popular he decided to keep going. Much like Josuke himself, Part 4 was very much Araki’s unplanned baby, which makes it a bit sweeter that it’s also his (confirmed) favorite part he’s drawn.
Also also, who doesn’t love watching Araki get a feel for things? I always dig these “Nebulous” bits that come right at the start of a new part where you can tell Araki’s still trying to decide who’s who and what’s what.”
Agent Kool-Aid: “the entire series pretty much has elements of things that araki enjoys just kinda rolled into it, but arc 4 is when that starts to become -very- apparent, from the setting to just various details about most everything. i think that once everything got so popular he realized that people enjoyed his brand of weird shit and decided to let more of himself bleed into his work, which really improved on it.”
Naerasa: “I just read through Part 4 after the anime ended but I’m happy to go through it again with this thread. I wasn’t wild about it at first, but once the main antagonist showed up I got way more into it.”
Hobgoblin2099: “I don’t think anyone has asked or explained yet, but I think the first kanji in Higashikata can also be read as “Jo”, which is why Araki chose that as Josuke’s last name. So he’s still JoJo.”
CodfishCartographer: “I remember being told that the “suke” in his name can be read as “Jo”, so his name can literally be “JoJo”
Hobgoblin2099: “Right, that’s what it was.”
Aurain: “Josuke having three Jo’s would make sense, because he’s the best and most JoJo JoJoJo.”
Lumberjack Bonanza: “That’s the worst name I’ve ever heard.”
FirstAidKite:
Next Sunday: Chapters 4 through 6! Be there or be square!
Pomp: “josuke is really good please read about him”
ascalapha odorata: “That is not the title of part four, but it should be. That or Josuke and Okuyasu BFF Bro Time“
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