Josefumi Kujo

"If I can be even a little help to Holy...... That's my precious image of happiness."

- Josefumi Kujo

Josefumi Kujo (空条 仗世文) is a character featured in JoJolion.

Josefumi is the original identity of Josuke Higashikata, who he became after doing an Equivalent Exchange with the deceased Yoshikage Kira. He used to be a student. Josefumi was a Stand User and the original wielder of Soft & Wet.

Appearance
Josefumi is a man of slim to medium build and seemingly average height. He is alike to Part 4's Josuke Higashikata in appearance, wearing metallic peace sign and heart pins on his clothes and styling his hair into an Elvis-style pompadour with the sides bleached, giving him a more greaser-like appearance. Josefumi wears a checker-patterned sweater over a loose-collared shirt with dark slacks.

During his first appearance, he had multiple irises with a ripple-pattern similar to Crazy Diamond, along with a star-shaped birthmark, which implies that he may be a member or distant relative of the Joestar Family. Though he is not depicted with the birthmark in later appearances.

Personality
Not much is known about Josefumi Kujo, as he had exchanged parts of his body with Kira's corpse to become Josuke Higashikata prior to the start of JoJolion. He holds a sense of sentiment for Holy Joestar-Kira saving his life (with the assistance of her son's power) as a child and would gladly do anything to help her.

He mentions in chapter 52 that no one pays attention to him and is always the one being abandoned such as the time when he was drowning and his mother, while worried, didn't go to save him. He considered ratting out on Kira when both were being tortured by Damo but when Kira instead saved him, he was so moved he attempted to sacrifice his own life to save Kira, showing he values friendship. He also expressed mild interest in Karera Sakunami, partially because he found her to be cute and one of the first people to pay attention to him. This implies he craves attention and love. Josefumi is also shown to have much less control over his emotions than the cold and methodical Kira, a trait which seems to have been passed onto Josuke.

Abilities


Originally Josefumi's Stand, Soft & Wet had the power to absorb aspects of things, an ability that it retained as the power to steal aspects of things post-fusion. It also produced bubbles, but they are not like the bubbles of Killer Queen, as they lack the star marking. Soft & Wet's bubbles eventually gain star markings after the Wall Eyes fuse Josefumi with Kira. Josefumi is first shown demonstrating his Stand's ability when Kira unexpectedly meets him in a Morioh ramen shop when the pepper shaker lid comes off and spills too much pepper into his ramen, resulting in Josefumi using his Stand to pull the pepper out, completely dry. He also is shown using his Stand's power to perform a complex botanical grafting, an act he believes will be instrumental in helping Kira cure the mysterious disease affecting his mother Holy. He later uses this ability to forcibly feed Kira a Locacaca fruit after the latter is killed by Tamaki Damo.

Horticulture
Josefumi possesses extensive knowledge about plants and, with his Stand, is able to perform botanical grafting.

History
As a child, Josefumi nearly drowned during an outing to the beach with his mother, being drawn underwater and striking his head on a rock, leaving him for dead. He ended up in the care of emergency room doctor Holy Joestar-Kira, who recognized Josefumi was suffering from a fatal blood clot in his brain and asked her son Yoshikage Kira to use his Stand to remove it, saving the young Josefumi's life.

Years later, he is seen eating in the same ramen shop as Ojiro Sasame and Kira. As Ojiro leaves the shop, he accidentally bumped into Josefumi, causing the latter to spill an excessive amount of pepper into his ramen, which he soon removed using his Stand. Kira quickly recognized him afterward.

The two meet up in the park later on to devise a plan to steal the Locacaca tree from Aisho Dainenjiyama, as Kira wanted the fruit to save his mother. Josefumi insists that he help Kira as he feels some debt towards Kira's mother for saving him years ago, and devises a plan to steal a single branch from the tree and use his Stand's abilities to graft it to another tree and raise a Locacaca Tree of their own. Sometime after this incident, he took a photo with Kira and Karera.

He and Kira were eventually found by Tamaki Damo and Yotsuyu Yagiyama, the former horribly torturing them. Thanks to Kira, they managed to escape and arrive at the location of their Locacaca graft, but Kira having lost his liver, Josefumi fed him one of the Locacaca fruit. While waiting for Kira to awaken, Josefumi was ambushed by the A. Phex Brothers, whom Josefumi proceeded to viciously attack, before retreating with Kira's body.

Josefumi, anxious over Kira not awakening, begins to use their last Locacaca fruit to exchange his life for Kira's, claiming that he died a long time ago and that he owed Holy. He told Kira to live so that he could harvest more Locacaca fruit for Holy. During all of this, an earthquake was occurring with a reported tsunami on the way, destroying the ground and emerging a Wall Eye, burying Josefumi and Kira under the ground, the Locacaca having swapped pieces of the two to turn Josefumi into who would be known as Josuke, whom Yasuho Hirose would find under the ground. A few days after their meeting, Josuke and Yasuho return to the same spot and discover the corpse of Kira.

For the next several months, Josuke is unaware of his previous identity as Josefumi or his relation to Kira until Kei Nijimura reveals the process of equivalent exchange that resulted in him being partly her brother Kira and a chance meeting with Josefumi's friend Karera who recognizes that he is also Josefumi and the A. Phex Brothers who recognize that Josuke's Stand Soft & Wet is similar to Josefumi's Stand.

Gallery
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Trivia

 * Along with having the Joestar Birthmark, the structure of Jo sefumi Ku jo 's name allows him the JoJo moniker.
 * The pronunciation of Josefu in his name is the same as Joseph in Japanese.
 * Josefumi's bedazzled cellphone lists his name in English as Josephmi.
 * Josefumi's checker-mark shirt appears as an unlockable costume for Josuke Higashikata (from Diamond is Unbreakable) in Eyes of Heaven.