Noriaki Kakyoin

Noriaki Kakyoin is a major character featured in Part III: Stardust Crusaders. He is easily recognizable with his fitted school uniform (usually colored green), green eyes, two cherry-shaped earrings and reddish hair which includes a long side fringe. He may also sometimes wear shades. He wields the Stand Hierophant Green.

Story
Initially a student who has traveled to Egypt, Dio Brando sensed his Stand powers and asked him for a demonstration, which turned out to be a fight. Afterwards, Kakyoin is brainwashed by Dio using buds from his own cells into following his will, which is to kill Jotaro Kujo.

The manner in which he carries out his assault upon Jotaro differs from the Manga and Anime. In the manga (and the videogame), the assault happens inside a clinic of a school. In the Anime, he attacks Jotaro by possessing the body of a female student with his Stand. He is defeated by Jotaro either way.

Jotaro soon discovers that Kakyoin was under the influence of Dio. Jotaro then used his own Stand, Star Platinum, to remove Dio's implant buds from Kakyoin's head in spite of the risk that it may openly attack both of them. Kakyoin is freed from Dio's slavery afterwards.

Personality
Kakyoin is said to be cold-looking from the outside, but his inner personality is completely different; a warm and loyal fighter. He will support his comrades actively. Aside from this, he fights for things that are ethically right.

After the battle with Jotaro, he realizes his mistake of being used as Dio's pawn and to make up for that, he joins Jotaro in their quest to destroy Dio, even at the expense of his own life.

Some of his personality undergoes changes in the middle of the story, and this is attributed to the events after his encounters with Mannish Boy and N'Dour. He eventually sheds his "repentant" attitude. In addition to the above traits, he now has more confidence and has regained a lot of his pride.

He also has profound respect for his parents, remembering them before his eventual death.

Stand
See Hierophant Green

In Videogames
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Arcade/PSX/Dreamcast) As a playable character in these games, Kakyoin's gameplay is primarily designed for defense. A lot of his techniques reflect this; he also has limited forms of offense but plentiful techniques for striking back, punishing or even ticking. With the Stand activated, he can dash and doublejump in the air.

His Mystic Traps can't be sensed until it is deployed. It can be hit with another Stand attack, but some realize the position of the traps too late. With this technique used in conjunction with specials or super moves, Kakyoin wears down an enemy very quickly, even though the damage is limited.

Tie Wrap Snake, used both for offense and defense, is one of Kakyoin's feared moves. Without his Stand activated, he can join in and punch the enemy, but with his Stand activated, buttons can be pressed repeatedly to fire emeralds. Expert players can inflict massive damage from just this move alone.

Emerald Splash is best used as part of a combo. It has shorter range without the Stand activated, but reaches full screen with the Stand activated. The only downside is that the move cannot be integrated into combos in the way 2 in 1 attacks are performed. 20m Radius Emerald Splash is the powered-up version of this move, and without an active Stand in the part of the enemy, inflicts massive chipping damage.

Oshioki no Jikan demonstrates Hierophant Green's ability to enter a body of an enemy. This move is similar to Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu, but with one striking difference; it inflicts damage from within the body. While the damage it inflicts fares lower, the fact that it cannot be blocked and can be incorporated into combos provide pressure tactics in battle.

In JoJo's Venture, he has considerable offense power, however being slightly slow. This was changed in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but at the price of losing damage strength. He also gained a new super move that helped him in his offensives.

He also has one of the longest reaches in terms of physical attacks, in particular, with his Stand attack.

Trivia

 * His appearance with shades is a direct result of his eye injury from N'Dool's attack. In the fighting game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, (a follow up to the game JoJo's Venture), this appearance is named New Kakyoin or 恐怖を乗り越えた花京院 (Kakyoin who overcame his fears) in the Japanese version of the game, having different attack methods and physics offseting him from the original.
 * Kakyoin is the only protagonist to wield a long-range stand in part 3, and hence, is the first ever protagonist in the JoJo universe to do so.
 * It is noteworthy that even in the videogames, especially in the fighting game made by Capcom, Kakyoin's fate never changed, which was to die, whereas other characters had more pleasant endings. However, because of how the dialog was done in the game, some may argue that it could be open-ended. According to the dialog, Kakyoin died on the trip home. (Possibly due to the wounds suffered in the battle with Dio, and him keeping quiet about it.)
 * His favorite fruits are cherries. It seems that the producers of the anime adaptation of the series overlooks this and replaces Kakyoin's cherry earrings with a string-like piercings.
 * In the anime, Kakyoin is voiced by Hirotaka Suzuoki, a voice actor known for voicing "cool" characters, like Bright Noa (Mobile Suit Gundam), Tatewaki Kuno (Ranma ½) and Dragon Shiryu (Saint Seiya).
 * In the OVA series Kakyoin sports brown hair instead of his usual pinkish red hair, as seen in the videogame, manga and various artwork.
 * Favorite Color: Shiny green, Favorite Musician: Sting, Favorite Baseball team: Giants (Japanese)

In Popular Culture

 * It is well known that the shojou manga group, Clamp, were fans of JoJo. It is curious to note that in their later publication, Wish, the main angel character, Kohaku, highly resembles Kakyoin's hairdo and appearance. Ironically, the love interest of said character roughly resembles a hatless Jotaro, named Shuichiro Kudo. Although the angel is sexless, some fans have speculated this story is a shounen-ai interpretation of the two.


 * Neo, the main character of the Matrix movie trilogy, bears a strong resemblance to Kakyoin after he returns with sunglasses.