Josuke Higashikata

"Excuse me... What did you say about my hair?!"

- Josuke Higashikata

Josuke Higashikata (東方 仗助, Higashikata Jōsuke, 助 "suke" can also be read "jo") is the main protagonist of Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable. He starts the series as a new freshman in the town of Morioh. His Part in the story begins while Jotaro is looking for him, as Josuke is the illegitimate son of Jotaro's grandfather, Joseph Joestar.

Story
Josuke makes his entrance into the JoJo universe as a caring, popular, and slightly naive teenager. Inspired by his police officer grandfather's (on his mother's side) sense of justice, he isn't afraid to fight for those in need. He is confronted by Jotaro with the need to eradicate evil Stand users from his hometown, Morioh. He refuses at first, believing that it is not any of his business to worry about the threat posed by other Stand users. However, he quickly changes his mind when his grandfather is killed by Angelo, a career criminal and murderer gifted with the power of the water-Stand Aqua Necklace. With a vow paralleling that of Peter Parker, Josuke decides to deliver justice to Stand users in his grandfather's place.

Personality
Josuke has a normal but crafty personality. He is nice to people and says Mr. and Ms. like a polite person... until someone pisses him off, which isn't very hard to do. The easiest way to do that is to mock his hair, which depending on how much someone makes fun of it will cause that person to get beat up more and more as the insults go on. Some random punk kid insulted his hair and he got punched once and stepped on. He was healed but his nose never looked the same. Rohan kept making fun of his hair and Josuke went off like napalm and landed him in the hospital for a month. (Ironicaly enough, this is what let Josuke save Koichi and Okuyasu from Rohan's Heaven's Door Stand.) He at the start of Part 4 lives with his mom and did not know his father, Joseph Joestar. When he finally met him he did not want to have anything to do with him and yelled at him. But when he saw that Joseph was willing to give up his own life to save a baby he had just found Josuke's attitude changed and he started to call him dad instead of Mr. Joestar. Josuke has a sneaky streak for money which is shown three times in the series. First was when he met Fatty and came up with a plan to get money and other things from all over Morioh Cho. Second was when he met the "alien" Mikitaka and used his shape-shifting power to cheat money from Rohan. Finally, at the end of Part 4, he took Joseph's wallet using a piece of a picture he gave him and Crazy Diamond. But even with that he is a dependable and friendly person who is always willing to protect people who need it. This causes him to become friends with some of his former enemies who in turn have helped him out.

Stand
Crazy Diamond, A melee stand with short range (3m), Crazy Diamond has the ability of "restoration". It can repair damage (in the fashion of reversing the object's timestate) and heal injuries (apart from Josuke's own injuries), although it cannot resurrect the dead. It can, however, restore an item to its raw materials (e.g., a table can be restored to timbers). This ability allows Crazy Diamond to perform a range of interesting feats, including trapping the enemy (by restoring pieces of a broken crate around the target) and tracking (e.g., restoring a torn piece of clothing so that it will seek out what it came from and reattach). Its restoration ability often "malfunctions" when Josuke is angry, causing the object to be improperly put back together. Its physical appearance is similar to that of The World. His stand's name is a reference to Pink Floyd's song, Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Trivia

 * Josuke's hairdo was chosen to honor a man with the same hairstyle who saved both his mother and him in his youth. Whenever someone insults his pompadour, Josuke becomes rather violent, brutally punishing whoever insulted his hair (and, by extension, the man who saved him).


 * Due to his youth, it is easier to see what Josuke is feeling. Unlike Jotaro or Giorno this also makes him easier to talk to. Although someone would have to try harder if he was upset about something or his attention was focused elsewhere.


 * Josuke and Koichi have the odd trait of "beating the evil out of people". At the end of part four the total number of people they've fought that became allies was six (Okuyasu Nijimura, Toshikazu Hazamada, Yukako Yamagishi, Rohan Kishibe, Tamami Kobayashi, Yuuya Fungami).


 * He is the only JoJo to never kill someone.
 * His favorite phrase is the English word "Great!". He often extends the word depending on the situation.
 * Japanese fans sometimes refer to Part IV with "hamburger patty", referring to the appearance of Josuke's hairstyle. This goes along the same lines as Part V being represented by chocolate cornets, which refer to Giorno's look.