Now this Famitsu article contains more disclosure on JoJolion Josuke.

So we’re going to have an after battle grading system ala Street Fighter 4. Fair enough. I wonder what the quality is determined by. Maybe it’s your combo rating, but I could see there being a posing quota you have to reach to get above a C.

These images were taken by a Famitsu rep at the CC2 special even a little bit ago. You can tell based on that title card that at least some of these pictures are part of a new PV. Lots of JoJolion Josuke, who will be voiced by Mitsuaki Madono (Pizza in GaoGaiGar Final, Noriaki Kakyoin in Heritage for the Future, Toru Adachi in Persona 4.) What I really love is that the white version of his outfit, the most normal colors, is the alternate colors against the orange version. JoJo colors are so fab that alternate crazy colors are the boring ones.

But what’s got my attention the most is that Kira and Sheer Heart Attack are in this PV. When I read the Famitsu article that I posted before this one, it did seem to say that Kira was going to be a DLC character that you could get through a promo included with the first run of the game. But here he is in the PV like he’s just going to be around, so maybe not. Kira will be voiced by Rikiya Koyama (Shinigami in Souleater, Mamoru Takamura in Hajime no Ippo, Duke in Tales of Vesperia.) I hope I am wrong about Kira being DLC only and that he’s in the game proper. The PV that comes out on the heels of this should clear it up.

There are a few more characters and events bumming around.

RERORERORERO at the start of every fight

And there are a couple of displays.

The full display version of the special figures

And some demo booths. Go Josuke! Punch your ancestor!

Look forward to PV 4 soon.

(All images from Famitsu. Copyright CC2, LuckyLand, Jump, and Hirohiko Araki. Thanks to Goon Kurtofan for finding this)

Yeah, that’s the way to do it. Can we agree that we’re coming into ASB with a little “who’d win in a fight” mentality? The moment Mista and Hol Horse were both set to be in the game, I was thinking about who has the better gun stand. But the stand out rivalry is obviously the all out cage match of Cherries vs. Cheese.

The gameplay that we got to see with the main showcase characters, Johnny, Johnathan, Will, and JoJolion Josuke are pretty interesting. I was wrong about what move I thought would be the On Fire Fist, but we knew it would be there. Zoom punch got my attention because it looks like it sticks for a second instead of retracting immediately. If it does, it could be really awesome for anti-air because an opponent could misjudge the time and still jump into it. Will also has it, so I await my match where we sit across the ring just doing that at each other.

Johnny looks like he’s either going to be the character that’s really hard to use because of his very limited movement when not on Slow Dancer but very rewarding if you can handle him or the character that caters to spamming because he’s going to be projectile heavy. That does follow; his power was shooting his fingernails, but I don’t want that to mean he’ll be the back-up-and-shoot-you character.

JoJolion Josuke I think is going to be the trap/counter character with that all based around the soap bubble. I’ve got to give CC2 some credit for what they used for his moves because you see him using a bunch of soap bubbles as a barrier around his body like the shaving scene. He also does that at a distance, but I’m mostly interested in when the screen goes black. That specific bubble will steal the players’ “eyes” by blacking the screen so whoever’s JoJolion Josuke can get a free hit. That’s going to be really hard to use for human player because it blanks the screen, but there may be more to it than what’s in the PV.

Oh, and Kira. He has Sheer Heart Attack, but that’s all they’re telling us. I figured he would also be a counter/trap character because of the way Another One Bites the Dust works and all the bombs, but it’s not in the PV. At this point, I think we can be clear that Kira is DLC only. The way he’s rolled in with the Hayato Memo Book and the specific mention of PSN in the text on the still intro page (edit: and that he’s listed as such on the official character page.) You gotta buy him extra. If you don’t want to mess with getting foreign DLC, you might want to import fast.

The first commercial is out. I love that we’re getting some Darby. Terence is voiced by Junichi Suwabe who’s probably known for other things but I know him as Hiroshi Shiba from Kotetsushin Jeeg and Omega from Mega Man Zero 3. I really hope that Daniel is also in this game and that they both fulfill the same role he did in the fighting parts of Heritage for the Future where he does the Continue Countdown and then yells GOOD when you decide to keep going.

Everytime I think the ASB news calms down, I get all fangirl giddy again because of things like this. More Darby Brothers!

I assumed you guys would be interested in knowing what they were saying. It helps me out. I didn’t know what it was JoJolion Josuke was doing during his Grand Heat, but the friction stealing is cool. Okuyasu calling Giorno names makes way more sense than insulting his topknot that he totally has. His classic style “uurrryyy” is also a nice touch.

(Thanks to JoJo Tumblr for being that chain link. You can see the original post here.)

Ok, internet, you’ve got me. There’s enough of a market for JoJo’s Dating Sims that we have to have two in parallel development. (edit: since posting, they’ve made it so you have to have a password to enter the page. The password is tokijojo. Make sure to click the button and not just hit enter.)

Remember Tokimeki Memorial? It was a Konami dating sim based around a high school. I learned of it first through the hidden SD SNATCHER game in LA-MULANA. It’s going to be based on that structure specifically the Girl’s Side sub-series. The only character’s revealed so far are the JoJo of Parts 1 through 4, Caeser as a sub-character, and Dio as “???”

The story is in it’s most basic infancy. JoJo Characters attend Morioh High School: DATE THEM. The art looks nice and consistently designed. The only thing really lacking from it is that if the character isn’t Joseph, they look pretty normal, and Joseph only really has his scarf. I know that they need to make it more like a normal setting for the type of game, but I don’t want to date humdrum Joseph going to school. I need to date the crazy fab man who can make volcanoes erupt because of how totally sweet he is. Also, Dio. It’s DIO. He just doesn’t look right in a fancy Miles Edgeworth suit. He doesn’t even have the cravat.

I guess I can’t be too mad. It’s not real after all. Yep, this is all a big joke. If you look at the production staff and release dates, it’s the Speedwagon Foundation releasing it in 20XX, so we will never get to see it. Maybe in the far off future after the nuclear war that manages to spare all the PSPs, Kenshiro can play it and wonder why that Johnathan guy looks kinda like him.

Hey, at least we still have the real one.

(Credit to Crunchyroll for the original article)

Just a quick little showing. Famitsu has released an image set accompanying the major showing characters of PV 4.

JoJolion Josuke and Soft & Wet

The “Damn it, I’m trying to shave here” counter barrier

Johnathan Joestar

Speaks for himself

Will A. Zeppeli

With Hamon, have an air mattress wherever you go.

Johnny Joestar and Tusk

The caption for this one is “I won’t have to go there.”

Just wanted to give you a quick overview and let you know about the images. You can check out all the images here.

I’m glad I read Part 3 so I know what’s going on when YES explodes all over the screen.

Ooo, a little gameplay footage of Caeser, ACDC, Joseph, and Wham. I like that Joseph gets his tommy gun, and I’m really interested to see how ACDC’s crying is going to enter into gameplay if only because I don’t know how you could make that a move. It’s got to be one of his heat moves, but I want to know what it does because that didn’t lead into a special move in the show or manga. Maybe it’s a distraction from the veins that are sneaking up behind you. It’s probably a counter.

It’s looking good so far, and I’m always up for watching Okuyasu getting clocked in the face. I wonder if, when we get to the end of this commercial battle between Terrence and Jotaro, it’ll be younger Joseph instead older Joseph helping Jotaro cheat.

I was a little scant in my post about Stage 9: ARAKI, and I apologize profusely for that. I was under the impression that you could only play if you had managed to pass into Stage 9 either from playing all the previous Stages or getting ten points in Stage 8: QUIZ. Turns out that isn’t the case:

Attention! In this stage 2 people will win and get the award, namely “The Champion of the JOJO ROYALE” and “The Stage Winner”.

The case is that you are only eligible to win the Steel Ball Run Trophy and autographed JOJOveller Deluxe Edition if you have been playing up until this point. Anyone can still play in Stage 9 and win the 25 Years of JOJO Panel autographed by Araki. Since we can all play, let’s go over the rules.

Like Araki explained in his video, you have you guess the order of the eight JoJo’s protagonists from top left to bottom right of the above image. The idea is to mentally link yourself with Araki’s creative process so you can understand how he would arrange them. You submit your answer to the Google+ page linked here by number. For example: Let’s say I think the order is “Josuke, Johnny, Joseph, Jotaro, Giorno, Jolyne, Johnathan, JoJolion Josuke.” I would submit my answer as 47235618. At the end of the Stage, the order will be revealed and scores will be tallied based on how close a guess was to the correct answer. Again, for example: Let’s say the actual order is “Josuke, Giorno, Joseph, Jotaro, JoJolion Josuke, Johnny, Johnathan, Jolyne” or 45238716. My guess correctly placed 5 of them, so I would get 5 points. You cannot submit invalid guesses, these being guessing less than eight numbers, like 4723561, or having repeated numbers, like 47233561. You can only answer once, but you can revise if you see your original post has an error.

You have a whole month to think about it. The deadline for guesses is April 23 8PM, Japanese Standard Time. Turn your psychic tuner to Araki’s frequency or maybe see if you can get Terrence’s phone number. Good luck with your guesses.

You probably remember the JoJolion commercials with Josuke, Okuyasu, and Koichi reading Jump comics on the sidewalk? Why not keep going with that. We’ve got the first official JOJOveller commercial from our favorite high school kids. Personally, I love when Echoes Act 3 craters the book. You gonna talk about JOJOveller in Morioh, you better be ready to fight. Throw that Jump on the table, lets go. Such good style.

Edit:

This is the intro that plays when you visit the official JOJOveller site’s front page. I think there it’ll infinitely loop. This is a clean video. When viewing it on the page, it would be cluttered with menu items. I don’t know if the person who uploaded this ripped this themselves or found it, but he did also post a link where you can download the music in the video’s description. Make sure and fJOJOollow the video back to YouTube if you’re interested.

I had forgotten about this. Obviously, JOJO Royale winning entries aren’t decided on immediately once a Stage is over even though we move on to the next Stage. I’d always meant to go back and show off the ultimate winners but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Since we’re nearing the end of the race and seem to be completely past the arts and crafts entries, let’s look at the winners of those Stages.

Stage 5 EMA Winner

I’m glad to know I was on about this one. It’s not a hard guess, though, I suppose. It’s a really high quality painting after all. By the way, each of the images will link to the appropriate JOJO Royale Official Stage Page. When I brought up the end of the Stages before, I’d link to the full gallery on the Google+ page and post a few personal stand outs, but the pages now contain both the Stage winner and all of what are probably the actual runner ups. My intuition was on a few of them like the Heaven’s Gate Ena, but there are plenty I never even saw.

Stage 6 BLOCK Winner

Case in point. I never even saw this one while plumbing the galleries for ones I liked. It’s amazing how far the concept of BLOCK was pushed. I didn’t even think you could go for rocks like the above or all the main protagonists made of strips of paper held together with paperclips. It was maybe the best creative showing out of the whole contest.

Stage 7 POP Winner

Not to detract from what people were able to pull off making Ad signs for POP. If you told me that entry was part of JOJOmenon and made by Araki, I might believe you. The way it literally follows the letter of the Stage by having Jolyne POP out of the frame is just incredible. I’m a little disappointed that the flickering DIO TV didn’t make it to the runners up, but there’s an Araki as Rohan sign, so what do I really have to complain about?

Don’t forget, you still have a whole month to put in your entries for Stage 9.

We weren’t the only ones at a convention this weekend. Warner Bros. and JoJo team had a booth at this year’s Anime Content’s Expo, or ACE. It’s a open anime trade fair, and because it’s about anime companies and studios showing what they’ve got, they also have some influence over the menu.

This spaghetti al nero, according to the twitter, was something you could buy at the ACE food court for the small price of ¥800. You just need to make sure and wipe your mouth after eating it. And no starting magic food fights.

Edit:

Oh, also cosplay. Yes, this group of magnificent people also managed to show up in front of a certain statue of Santana. One day, we’ll get a group like this in the States, and they’ll be so mad when I never stop taking pictures of them.

See, there’s the V-Jump page. Didn’t expect it only about four hours from the page telling us about Koichi and Akira, but whatever. The picture itself is a little lacking because you can tell it’s a picture taken with a camera rather than a scan. I’ll replace it as soon as a full scan becomes available.

In the meantime, it looks like Koichi is saddled up with Echoes Act 3. I don’t know if that means that he’ll only have Act 3 or if he’ll be able to progress through the different acts like what we’ve seen Johnny do with Tusk. I hope it works that way because the sound effect power of Act 2 is too awesome a JoJo power to not put in the game. For Akira, I didn’t know that Red Chili Hot Pepper was supposed to be gold. I always pictured it being blue with maybe some yellow. Then again, I pictured Stone Free green and it was colored blue, so that means that because I envision Diver Down as pink, it’ll end up being green. I’m not that concerned with how he’ll work. He’ll shoot lightning. If his normal attacks involve him whacking people with a guitar, though, I’ll be pretty pleased.

Look forward to the improved scan of this spread and the Famitsu article with all the details. I think it should be out this month.

Since the entries were closed back on the 23rd, I though this would be open sooner. I guess they decided to do some tallying before revealing the answer because it came out yesterday.

Stage 9: ARAKI was a month long guessing game. We were given this vague image and had to place each protagonist from left to right. You were scored according to how accurate you were. A guess of “12345678″ gets you 5 points if the correct answer is “31245678.” Just by looking and synching your mind to Araki, you had to know how he would place these characters? Did you figure it out?

Because that devious artist managed to out think me and plan for that I would think the vague outline was the characters and not the stands. The correct answer is Jotaro, Josuke, Giorno, Jolyne, JoJolion Josuke, Johnathan, Johnny, Joseph. My original guess was “47235618,” meaning that I got absolutely nothing from my guess. How did you guys do?

With that, JOJO Royale is closed. The winner of Stage 9, whenever they’re determined, will receive the autographed by Araki 25th Anniversary Panel. The winner of the whole competition will receive a replica SBR Trophy and a free, autographed copy of the JoJoveller Deluxe Edition. To those who tried their luck and skill, I hope you had fun. To those who won, congratulations on the prizes you’ve won.  If there’s another JoJo competition, I hope us outside Japan get to play again.

(Images from the JOJO Royale Google+ Group)

New set of ASB info. First up is Josuke’s moveset and command list. It’s already been lovingly translated by Hurricane Crew Tumblr, so I’ll just quote him:

Josuke Moveset translations:

【Throw】
Now I’m fucking pissed off

【Command Normals】
My fist won’t fall short again! (Only during “I won’t forgive anyone who talks shit!” Mode)
*OTG attack
（While in body mode）
To get next to you, I’d go at 300 km/h!

（While in stand mode）
Dora!
【Special Moves】
（While in body mode）
I’ll cut you up!
Doraa!
Mend and retu~rn! (Performed during “Doraa!”)
I’ll aim reliably

（While in stand mode）
Dorararararararara!
*Stand Rush capable
I’ll put you to sleep!
The speed of ｢Healing｣!
*Stand Rush capable

【Heart Heat Attack】
You finally entered…my effective range…
This is my ｢Homing Bullet｣… (Performed during “You finally entered…my effective range…”)

【Great Heat Attack】
I’ve already healed you
【Style】
Mode Change
【Other】
I won’t forgive anyone who talks shit!
*Requires 1 stock of Heart Heat

Hurricane Crew with more ASB news. This is a picture of a preview display case. Stroheim bids you good day and says:

“ YOU WILL BUY THIS GAAAAAAAME! SO SAYS GERMAN SCIEEEEEEENCE!!!!”

Absolutely beautiful. Along with this comes a bit more information. There’s a little bit about alternate colors at the beginning as well as a few of the special interactions. That should include the special ones we’ve seen in PV 4, but there’s also Dio with Johnathan, Jotaro, and Giorno, like you’d expect, Giorno and Polernaff, and Jolyne with Jotaro and Josuke with Okuyasu, both of which I believe we’ve seen.

The most important news, however, is this:

“Every character will have their own line when they make fun of Josuke’s hair. DIO’s from the PV was one of those. I’m assuming they say that when he activates his super-armor super cause well that’s the context of him getting pissed off. A source has given some of those lines for a couple characters but I’ll detail those in the character mentions for those mentioned.”

This will be the best game. This will be the best game forever.

A mysterious and anonymous translator has put out a translation of the JoJo’s doujin “Little by Little.” Made by the Virgina Room doujin circle by Virginia Nitouhei for Golden Blood back in 2011, it’s a short manga of one-off gags for all the JoJo characters and parts. A lot of the good jokes are based on quick visual gags.

And a lot of the really good jokes are somewhere between quick visual gag and something you’re almost surprised Araki didn’t try himself.

For real. That this didn’t happen in Part 2 shocks me.

I would say this is maybe what would happen if the guys who made Cromartie were tasked to make a JoJo manga. The absurdity is at least on that level, and its humor is so charming while it catches you off guard. The gags are almost perfect to that style of humor both visually and idea wise. It’s easier to picture if you imagine that Freddie riding Mechazawa is catching Joseph instead of Stroheim. He’s not helping. He’s just sort of there.

Also if you replace Jotaro with a gorilla.

Not all of the jokes are perfect. The ones using the Part 5 characters don’t make sense to me because it’s a Japanese culture joke I’m not privy to. Something about Nagoya and Sendai citizens making certain sounds? I’m sure the joke works, it’s just not something I understand. The jokes at Part 5′s expense, however…

Throw in a dick and bondage joke or two and you’re good to go. So go give it a look. It’s up on Batoto if you follow the link at the top and the one I’ll put at the bottom in the “Where this stuff came from” line. It’s a fun time. Also, keep in mind that this came from the Golden Blood event. Next time that comes around, you might consider getting something from it.

(All images from Batoto. Read the whole manga there.)

Hurricane Crew released another set of ASB info translated from 2ch posts. It’s all battle quotes. There are a lot of standard ones that people just say in general, but the meat of it is in special interactions.

Special intros

Polnareff vs DIO
Polnareff: “Now, I can feel it… this “white” in myself. This injured body that gives rise to courage. I am on the side of the light!”
DIO: “Your only choice is to die, Polnareff”

Polnareff vs Giorno
Giorno: “Hey, Polnareff is here. Polnareff?”
Polnareff: “Who is this? I don’t know ya…”

Jolyne and Jotaro
Jolyne: “You’re so… young!! What’s this about?”
Jotaro: “I don’t even know you…”

Giorno and DIO
Giorno: “I’ve been waiting for this moment”
DIO: “You feel close to me somehow”

Josuke to Jotaro: “You seem somewhat similar to me”

Special Victory Quotes

Jolyne beats Jotaro
“I wonder if I’m being paranoid…”

Giorno beats Polnareff
“It really was Polnareff”

Okuyasu beats Josuke
“Great, practice is over! Now let’s head over to the cafe and visit Tonio!”

Giorno beats DIO
“This power I received from you, I’ll use it to dream”

DIO beats Jonathan
Jonathan: “No way! DIO’s… alive…”
DIO: “Your body is my future”

Oh, did I say the meat was in the special interactions? I meant it’s in the special taunt everyone has for Josuke’s hair. The way it works is apparently like a counter. Josuke sets you up to insult him by saying, “What did you say about my hair,” and then the taunt takes place setting him into a super mode. They haven’t all been released, and you’ve already seen Dio call it “cowshit,” but there are some new ones including the ultimate line from Johnny.

Polnareff: 
“You should really cut that hair” (in JP Polnareff style Engrish)

Josuke: 
“Your hair style doesn’t even compare to mine”

Johnny: (in total deadpan)
“That hairstyle’s good… really good… it’s super cool…”

As you can see at the top, some Tumblrs have already taken to the inevitable fanart answer. Johnny’s line is the best. I have no idea what anyone else is going to say, but short of Johnathan being really enthused by how great the hair is and Josuke taking it to be sarcasm, I don’t think anyone’s topping that one.

(Imfo from Hurricane Crew. Drawing up top by this Tumblr.)

Back for more fun, there’s a new chapter/edition of Little by Little up on Batoto. Virgina Room brings you another chapter of JoJo’s fun with a few quick jokes to bring you a smile and a good laugh.

There’s a different spread of content this time. The first issue had around two or three jokes per part with a little extra like the Joseph Finisher Rhyme-Off. This issue actually has a full on Part 2 story about Caeser’s and Joseph’s training days where Joseph climbed out of the Hell Climb pit only to be pushed back in every day. There’s also a lot more Part 4 gags.

Something about this makes me feel like I should be creeped out.

And we got to expand into full on Parts 7 and 8 jokes.

The only downside is that the issue cuts down in other areas. There’s only the one Part 5 joke and no Part 6 material at all other than a splash page of Jolyne. There’s also no new cross story interactions like the quiz show in the first one, but the jokes are still good and the art is still pretty nice. If you liked the first, you’ll like the second. And you can trust me on that.

I pledge to you that my taste is and will remain both honest and sanitary.

(Thanks to Little by Little‘s translator, Monocle, for sending me the link to the new issue.)

So I was doing a little digging on Naver, and I stumbled across a graphic like this. I had no idea what it was, so I looked into it. You remember the announcement picture that there was going to be a new character announced officially on the 19th? I didn’t look into then, but I found out that that graphic came from the BandaiNamco site for the Official “All Star Battle League.”

It turns out that the event the character announcement is going to piggyback off of is wide scale CPU 1-on-1 tournament held on UStream the channel for which I can’t find so it may not exist just yet. That graphic comes from that you can go to this page and pick a character you intend to cheer for when they’re in match. What you do is pick the character you want from the grid, then you’ll get a hash tag for that character, for example: Kira’s is #jojoasbl_kira, you can use to post a tweet for to show your support. You’re only allowed one vote per day per account.

So it is a massive popularity contest that is not going in the direction I expected at all. That graphic up there is a screengrab from today’s voting set. Johnny Joestar is leading the pack by almost 100 supporters over Johnathan at 2nd place. The totals are added to the previous day, so Johnny came up to 1337 to to take the lead as he and Johnathan were tied yesterday at 534.

Here’s the whole list of characters and their totals for today the 11th:

1. Johnny Joestar 1337
2. Johnathan Joestar 1280
3. DIO 1237
—————————
4. Bruno Buccelatti 1222
5. Josuke Higashikata 1159
6. Caeser A. Zeppeli 983
7. Noriaki Kakyoin 948
8. Jotaro Kujo 917
9. Rohan Kishibe 910
10. Joseph Joestar 862
11. Yoshikage Kira 767
12. Jolyne Kujo 741
13. Diavolo 709
14. Giorno Giovana 645
15. Gyro Zeppeli 612
16. Narancia Ghirga 546
17. Koichi Hirose 518
18. Okuyasu Nijimura 507
19. Guido Mista 501
20. Jean P. Polnareff391
21. Cars 311
22. Wham 222
23. Hol Horse 221
24. JoJolion Josuke 209
25. Mohammad Abdul 198
26. Hermes Costello 193
27. Akira Otoshi 183
28. ACDC 163
29. Will A. Zeppeli 152

The participants that I’ve seen have all been Japanese, so this may be a good indicator of character popularity in that group. I had no idea Johnny was so popular, and Bruno is in a position to overtake DIO of all people. I’m surprised, and it’s important to know because at the end of the vote when the event starts, the top three characters will be seeded so as to be exempt from preliminary matches.

Important in that you’ll know which characters people wanted to see with the best chance to be #1. Now that you know, will you throw your hat in someone’s corner and cheer? Supporting your favorite is only a # away.

(Image from BandaiNamco’s All Star Battle League Official page, © BandaiNamco and CyberConnect2. Thanks to yuduki_magia for posting this on Naver!)

A whole new set of Josuke taunts has come down the pipe from the JoJo F2C blog. This set contains four of the most important people for taunting Josuke’s hair:

Giorno: That’s a unique hairstyle. Is it Frenchbread?
Johnathan: It’s like one of Danny’s turds! Zeppeli!
Josuke: What’s that nonsense on your head? It’s like a turban shell.
Jolyne: It’s like a turban shell.
Joseph: Look at the hotdog head!! I want to see your parent’s face!!
Rohan: Wasn’t that old fashioned 20 or 30 years ago?
JoJolion Josuke: Josuke Higashikata… Is your hair that stupid looking because  you’re a stand user, or is it natural?
Wham: What’s with your head!? You’re taunting me into a duel!

The only off thing is that I don’t know where that guy got these from. He also listed Dio “cow shit” taunt and Johnny’s “No, it’s great. Super cool,” one, so it’s consistent, but I wanted to remember Josuke already having one for himself that went something like “Your hair can never compare to mine,” and he also lists one for Trish that’s something along the lines of “It’s like two different foods!” It’s just a little strange on those, the rest follow fine, especially Joseph’s.

Now I just need to see Koichi’s. I thought he would end up getting a really milquetoast one because he’s Koichi, but Johnny’s got that covered. What will his be like?