Yoshikage Kira

"I will erase you."

- Yoshikage Kira to Shigekiyo Yangu

Yoshikage Kira (吉良吉影, Kira Yoshikage) is the main antagonist of Part IV: Diamond Is Unbreakable.

Kira is a paraphilic serial killer; committed to defending this lifestyle.

Appearance
Yoshikage Kira adopts one face other than his original in Part IV, and a ghostly body resembling his original, with a unique outfit, after this. He remains a man of average height and slim to athletic build.

Original
Kira has light hair, loosely combed back with a few free strands. He wears a light suit, and a dark tie patterned by a column of emblems of a skull with upright, cat-like ears; similar to those on his Stand, Killer Queen. As a salesman by profession, he wears a similar suit throughout the series, though he usually takes off his jacket at home.

Kosaku-Kira
When Kosaku Kawajiri is killed, Kira assumes his facial features; including spiky black hair; thin, dark eyes, and higher cheekbones. He retains his suit, changing only his tie.

After recieving the Arrow, Kira's hairstyle spontaneously changes; perfectly combed back, light, striped by black strands.

Ghost
Immediately after death, as a ghost, he retains Kosaku's features just before reverting to his original appearance; which he retains in body in Under Execution Under Jailbreak.

Henceforth, he adopts an elaborate outfit consisting of a dark bowler hat with an upturned rim and a tie, both patterned by concentric squares; and, shirtless, a dark, lapelless suit.

Personality
"I really want to reveal Yoshikage Kira's true nature to that girl on the right. I'd like to reveal my deep desires to her. I really want to touch her thin neck with my hands...and choke her to death."

Kira is a serial killer, characterized as highly egocentric, narcissistic and psychopatic, with a few obsessive-compulsive tendencies. He is also a hand fetishist.

Kira longs for a simple life and does not wish for it to be interrupted. Although he reveals many talents, this yearning shows in his dislike of coming in first, and he even made it a point to never rank better than 3rd in any competition so as not to stand out. He even pulls this streak of third places quite easily, winning 3rd place in primary school essay contests, the school track and field championship, the 200-meter hurdles, and high school music competitions (violin). He becomes bothered when someone disrupts his "simplicity" and goes to extreme lengths to get it back.

However, beneath his facade of simplicity, Kira is very abnormal. The most abnormal characteristic of Kira his fetish for the female hand, stemming from an erotic fascination with the hands of the Mona Lisa. However, his desire has never extended to the rest of the female person; in fact, when on a normal date, all he could think about was how much he wanted to go home. This results in murdering women in order to acquire their (severed) hands as "girlfriends"; when one "girlfriend" begins to decay, he goes off in search of a replacement. He measures and collects his own fingernail clippings, using them to divine his murdering luck off of their length. Kira doesn't care if his victims are good or bad people, as such he doesn't have any sense of justice. As his father pointed out, as a child, if bullied or denied his favorite toy, he would bite his nails until they bled when he was frustrated or desperate, this stems from him not wanting to draw attention to himself, he would continue this habit into his adulthood. He also appears to have an obsessive compulsive disorder as shown when he gets agitated by Koichi wearing his sock inside out and even goes to fix it even when he nearly killed the boy.

When Kira was pierced with the Arrow, his demeanor was much more relaxed & prone to elation due to his new-found power, since his plans were to be uninterrupted, giving him the peace he so desired.

Abilities
. Kira's Stand is Killer Queen, a humanoid, short-range Stand whose unique ability is to cleanly and completely obliterate objects with targeted explosions.

Killer Queen's abilities take three forms that Kira names Bombs #1, #2 and #3. Bomb #1 describes its ability to charge any physical object with a practically all-consuming bomb. Bomb #2, or "Sheer Heart Attack", detaches from the Stand's left hand to track and destroy targets by infrared homing. Bomb #3, "Bites the Dust", developed with the help of the Arrow, is a booby trap that when triggered permits Kira to reset time for up to one day in order to out-manoeuvre attempts to investigate him.

Before developing Bomb #3, Kira is able to win Stray Cat's allegiance, which finds a home in Killer Queen's abdomen, and which in conjunction with Bomb #1 grants him a faithful projectile bomb.

Synopsis
Kira was born Janurary 30, 1966, in Morioh-cho within Japan's M Prefecture in the city of S. His parents having been already old when he was born died when he was 21. He graduated from D University in 1988 with a literature degree, then moved to S city for a job at Kameyu's corporate office. He eventually transferred to the Morioh-cho branch in 1993.

History
Kira is a serial killer who originally murdered his victims by stabbing them so viciously they were left with horrific back wounds (their hideous nature is implied by the fact that the reader is never actually shown Reimi's wound despite all the instances of blood and gore that Araki had drawn up to that point). His first victim was Reimi Sugimoto and her entire family, including the dog Arnold. However, his stand, Killer Queen, eventually awoke from his desire to leave no evidence behind of his killings and developed an ability to make its victims disintegrate completely. He now lets Killer Queen annihilate his victims (except for his "girlfriends'" hands), letting everyone else think that the victims have simply gone missing. Though the number of missing people would eventually attract attention, no one would have any reason to suspect that Kira was involved due to his simplicity.

Diamond is Unbreakable
Yoshikage Kira is first seen when Josuke stops Koichi from walking into the road as he's driving, and unaware of who he is Koichi apologies for not looking where he was going and Kira returns home with the severed hand of a recent victim he has just killed. The next time he appears Kira is seen holding the severed hand of yet another woman, later placing it inside a sandwich bag to replace later after noting the hand was starting to decay and that he needed to find another 'girlfriend'. However, Shigekiyo "Shigechi" Yangu orders a sandwich from the same shop, and unbeknownst to Kira, accidentally swaps it with his sandwich bag, forcing Kira to retrieve it out of fear that he might be discovered. After Kira retrieves it, however, Shigechi becomes enraged that Kira had stolen his sandwich bag and demands it back, only to become the first victim of Killer Queen and literally erased from existence with its explosive abilities. However, Killer Queen failed to erase one of Kira's buttons, which one of Shigechi's Harvest brings to Josuke and Okuyasu. Josuke and company eventually deduce that Shigechi was somehow killed and back each other in defense against Shigechi's killer.

Later, when Kira turns in his suit to be fixed and finds that Jotaro Kujo and Koichi Hirose are investigating him, he sets off Killer Queen's Bomb No. 2: Sheer Heart Attack against them and successfully wounds Jotaro. Koichi, however, awakens Echoes Act 3 and traps Sheer Heart Attack in place, transferring the effect onto Kira himself as he finds his identity in jeopardy. Kira then returns in person and, heavily wounded, surprises koichi by using Killer Queen to attack him in order to let Sheer Heart Attack loose, he then brutally attacks Koichi with his own hands as revenge for what Koichi unintentionally did to Kira in public due to Sheer Heart Attack weighing his hand and causing him problems. Eventually getting a beating from Star Platinum Josuke and Okuyasu find the three of them where Kira, getting too impatient trying to get away asks Josuke to 'fix' him like he fixed Jotaro and Koichi, doing this causes Josuke to figure out who Kira is as he cuts his own hand off to release Sheer Heart Attack from Echoes Act 3's ability again. Josuke and company pursue him when Josuke uses Crazy Diamond's ability to make his hand go back to him and Kira is forced to go into hiding by assuming, with the unwilling help of Aya Tsuji and her stand Cinderella, the identity of Kosaku Kawajiri, successfully stalling the protagonists' chase for a long time.

With his new identity and his hand reattached Kira tries to blend in with the Kawajiri household without making Kosaku's wife suspect anything is different about him, however he manages to make her fall in love with him as she notices her husband seems different somehow due to Kira doing things such as cooking and stealing money from the landowner using Killer Queen to pay the rent for the house and not acting how Kosaku normally acts. However Kosaku's son Hayato sees there's something not right about his father as he normally spies on his parents and wonders why his father has two pairs of shoes that are different sizes and wonders why his father would practice writing his own name over and over again. While staying with the Kawajiris Kira discovers a new Stand user that he names Stray Cat; a cat that was accidentally killed and awoke its Stand ability after it died by coming back to life as a plant, Kira keeps the plant/cat hybrid in the attic after it attacked his 'wife' due to her part in its death, though confused as to why he protected her he reasoned it was so no one would be able to discover him if she died.

For a long time Kira has been fending off the urge to kill anyone to keep himself hidden, unfortunately Kira is unable to keep his killer instinct hidden any longer as he finally manages to kill two people and take the hand of his female victim ready to take back with him, however he had to vaporise the hand as well when he realises Hayato had followed and filmed him committing the murder.

After failing to get the tape once he sees Hayato was filming him threatening to kill the boy Kira starts biting his nails to the point that they started to bleed, something his father says Kira has done since he was a little boy. Getting desperate to stay hidden the Arrow goes into Kira's arm without his father using it and pierces him granting him a new bomb ability for Killer Queen called Bites the Dust, this gives Kira the perfect way to stay hidden and have the peaceful life he's been looking for and as a side effect his hair had changed appearance and colour as well as Kira gaining a lot of confidence in his new bomb ability.

With a possible lead on the identity Kira stole, Josuke and the gang began the pursuit only to be trapped in a time loop made by Kira's stand staying with Hayato and causing the time loop (which repeatedly results in Rohan's and their deaths, among other things). However, Hayato manages to take advantage of the time loop and cause Kira to eventually cancel the loop and expose himself by gloating about his victory despite Hayato's efforts. Josuke and Okuyasu, who were walking down the street nearby after Hayato phoned him to wake up, hear Kira gloating and immediately engage Kira in a fight.

Kira proves to be a difficult adversary, as he combines Stray Cat's aerokinesis with Killer Queen's explosive charges to produce invisible air bombs. After defeating Okuyasu, Kira charges Okuyasu's body to explode on contact, forcing Josuke into a dilemma over whether to take a chance at healing Okuyasu or to pummel Kira. Hayato, however, jumps in the way and sets off Okuyasu's bomb himself, after which Josuke pieces the two back together with Crazy Diamond and resumes his fight with Kira.

Despite the impediment, Kira refuses to back down and his air bombs retain their accuracy even after Josuke attempts to escape them. Hayato eventually finds out that Yoshihiro had been hiding in his jacket pocket and had been giving instructions to his son and Josuke deprives Kira of his means to attack them accurately by faking the radio call and directing an air bomb to incinerate Yoshihiro's photograph. Without the accurate means to incinerate Josuke any further, and with Josuke's blood still on his shirt, Kira is defeated when glass shards stained with Josuke's blood strike him via Crazy Diamond's restoration abilities.

Kira, unwilling to accept defeat, is pummelled out into the neighbourhood side-walk, exposed to the crowd of people he did not want to get noticed by. Unwilling to accept this irony, Kira attempts to use Bites the Dust again and escape. Gloating over how he won and is now hidden again he gets confused when he sees he's in an alleyway that isn't anyway near where he works, and when he looks at his watch he sees its still broken after getting hit by Stray Cat when Hayato took him in his bag.

Confused and getting worried about why the watch wasn't fixed he is then encountered by Reimi. Reimi reveals that Kira had been delusional, and that his attempt to activate Bites the Dust had actually been foiled by Echoes Act 3's "freeze" technique. Jotaro, who had finally gotten close enough, beats Kira with Star Platinum's barrage. Kira, still alive, but unable to activate Bites the Dust with broken fingers, is finally and accidentally run over by a nearby ambulance. Upon recognizing Reimi and wondering why she would show him her back wound, Kira recalls that his father told him about a place he could not turn his back to when he died, lest he be dragged to another world, and attempts to force Reimi to look back instead. However, even this plan manages to fail when Arnold bites his hand off. Kira falls to the ground, ends up turning around in surprise, and is torn to pieces and dragged off to another world by a swarm of hands.

Dead Man's Questions
Kira is shown some time between the End of Part 4 and the End of Part 6 as a vagabond spirit who is unaware of his identity. Now a Ghost trapped in the living world after his death, Kira can`t remember anything but his name, but is sure he cannot get to heaven. However, he still shows traits of his personality, as he wants a normal life and doesn't wish to attract attention of living people. Kira, not sure about what to do if he continues to exist forever, now works for a monk, doing the "dirty work" of killing targets she gives him in exchange for money. He believes that, by making this job his purpose to live, he might find happiness.

He is sent to a soldier's mansion that turned into a spirit to find out the reason behind the deaths of people around the area. Kira is surprised to see even objects can become spirits and wishes to live in the mansion, as he can not only manipulate objects, but feel them, as they are spirits just like him. Enthusiastic and finally finding happiness, Kira investigates the entire mansion, including the various spiritual books, CDs and fire within it. He comes across many supsicious-looking eggs and touches some of them. The eggs crack open and release creatures revealed to be Cleansers. One of then enters inside Kira's arm and begins to eat him from the inside, forcing Kira to cut his arm off as the creature climbs through his entire body. He then comes to the conclusion they are cleansers of spirits and the mansion was a nest of its eggs. They try to cleanse Kira because he touched their eggs, but he luckily enters the painting of a soldier and uses the gun in it to kill the creatures. Kira escapes the mansion and goes to investigate the information the monk gave him about it, and if he finds any errors, he will make sure she finds out the credibility of netherrealm personally. He then wonders if her arm would stick in place of his lost one.

Part VIII: JoJolion
Kira's counterpart in the alternate universe is a marine doctor who appears to be just as twisted as the original, believing in definite qualities, having an obsession with the human hand, and convincing Sasame Ojirou to eat his fingers for being indecisive about "being a man of the sea or a man of the land". However, the second Kira is not heartless as he worked to save his mother from the same disease that plagued the Higashikata family for years.

Additionally, Josuke of the JoJolion universe also suffers from amnesia and was initially suspected to have been named "Yoshikage Kira", and is revealed to have held a 95.8% DNA match with Kira of the alternate universe, who is revealed to have been the son of Yoshiteru Kira and Holly J. Joestar, making him the SBR counter-part of both the original Kira and Part III protagonist Jotaro Kujo.

All Star Battle
Like many others, Kira makes his gaming debut in All Star Battle, playable as two distinct characters: His original form, with Killer Queen and Sheer Heart Attack; and awakened form, with Killer Queen, Stray Cat and Bites the Dust.

Trivia

 * According to a Top 10 List published in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2000, Kira is Araki's favorite antagonist and 2nd favorite character overall.
 * Kira has his hands severed many times: His left hand twice (when he removed Sheer Heart Attack from his body and when Cleansers attacked him) and his right hand once (when he was biten by Arnold in Reimis alley).
 * Kira wanting a quiet life and not to attract attention from anyone is both ironic and contradictory since before and during the events of Part IV he has been killing people for the last 15 years, something like murder would catch anyone's attention and would have gotten Kira caught long ago had it not been for Killer Queen's abilty to make things explode to get rid of the evidence.
 * Kira's favorite fashion brand is Gianfranco Ferré.
 * His Stand's name and abilities are based on a number of songs by British band, Queen.
 * His character was probably inspired by Tom Lehrer's song "I Hold Your Hand in Mine".
 * If Kira Yoshikage battles Kosaku Kawajiri (Kira) in All-Star Battle, they will have a special dialogue before the fight, where normal Kira will remark how Kosaku-Kira's aura is similar to his, and Kosaku-Kira will be shocked to see his past self. If Kosaku-Kira wins, he wonders if this is an after-effect of "Bites The Dust".