JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is the best manga done by Hirohiko Araki.

I have never read any manga or anime made by the Japanese artist Hirohiko Araki but when I saw while I was having dinner in a department store here in Obihiro that there was an unofficial exhibit of Araki’s work just upstairs, I became interested and went there to see it.

There was an unofficial exhibit of Hirohiko Araki’s works in Obihiro.

Confined at the corner of the bookstore, there’s not much in the exhibit except for a number of posters and action figures of Araki’s magnum opus “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”. It was first published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1986 making this year its 30th anniversary. It transferred to the monthly seinen magazine Ultra Jump in 2005 where it is still running as the second largest manga series by the publishing company Shueisha.

Poster for the first story arc of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

The series is now on its 115 tankōbon (stand-alone books) volumes and still counting. It was adapted as an anime in 2012 for the first two story arcs of the manga and in 2014 and 2015 for the third arc.

Action figures of the characters in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure follows the story of the Joestar family whose various members have useful unique powers against supernatural beings. The main protagonist in each story is a member of the family having a first name that can be abbreviated as JoJo together with the last name Joestar like Jonathan, Joseph and Johnny.

Posters of Araki’s works.

One interesting work by Araki is with the cover for the September 2007 issue of the scientific journal Cell where upon the request of the two Japanese researchers Dr. Mitsutoshi Setou and Dr. Hiroshi Ageta asked him to draw their identified protein “Scrapper” as a manga character. This protein helps in regulating the synaptic activity in the nervous system. This is a very good way of infusing popular culture in scientific breakthroughs.

Araki drew the Cell’s cover in 2007.