Board Thread:Manga Discussion/@comment-27659575-20171102233127/@comment-27659575-20171110131021

I'm sorry to hear you reduce a metaphysical thing like the concept of art to the simple appliance of ink or paint. Your view is but one of the many definitions of the word "art". What, so every pretty graffiti under a bridge is art now? And even then, if characters and plots are separate from art in your mind, why do you even come in this thread to shit on Jojo because of the characters and plot? This is a thread about JJBA's artistic worth.

You place plot and characters on such a pedestal, then okay, take your favorite whatever and go read a summary of it. It should feel the same as the first time you saw your favorite stuff then. You are stripping a work of what makes it "it" until you only get the plot and character descriptions, and you think nothing critical is missing? Art is about technical skill, but it also work on an emotional level, it's the artist communicating his feelings and thoughts in a way that guarantees the audiences also feels and thinks. And Jojo excels at making me feel emotions: hype when Joseph pulls a trick, hatred for Dio or Shigechi, sadness because of Josuke(8)'s backstory or when Jolyne dies, fear for Lucy who's trapped with Valentine, excitement because of Mista's funny antics. You can be excited because of a tight-paced plot with clever foreshadowing and whatnot, but without a mangaka to draw it, a novelist to write it or a director to film it, it's only a bland sequence of events, a mere script.

You want examples of why and how Araki's drawing help develop the characters and plot? Just read his book Hirohiko Araki's Manga Technique, it's downloadable online. Here you'll have a clear idea of what Araki thinks when he's drawing JJBA. It's a rather short and interesting read.

Sorry, I'm not gonna make an essay on why he or she is a good character. You talk about quirks, but as I said, you neglect the drawing and only retain what's most visible to you. Araki explains how everything from design, their expressions and body language, and even the poses, what they say, how they say it (remember that the manga is in Japanese, a languague famed for its subtlety in how speech indicate the personality but also the relationship between the interlocutors) their reactions to anything (including the most insignificant events) that happens to them make the reader get a feeling of a character. That's how Araki's art is done, that's how he develops characters.

You'll make your own example: reread Part 5, focus on Giorno, and now ask yourself why he does this, why does he says that, to whom, in what context, how does he say anything he says; is he alone? is he talking to someone he trusts, someone unfamiliar, an enemy? Is it a life or death situation, or a more relaxed atmosphere? You'll see that instead of a Jotaro 2.0 (and even him is better written that Western fans give him credit for), Giorno is keeping a mask, a persona of confidence and utter perfection while below he's still a teenager a little over his head.

Also there's nothing to criticize when JJBA's minor characters remain minor. Araki works with a limited amount of pages, and keeps his pace fast. Fleshing out minor characters more than Araki already does only slows the pace, boring the readers.