Hirohiko Araki

Born on June 7, 1960, in Sendai, Japan, as Toshiyuki Araki, Hirohiko Araki is a Japanese manga creator. He is best known for creating JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a long-running manga series that premiered in 1987. With over 120 million copies in circulation by 2022, it stands as one of the best-selling manga series in history.

Araki grew up alongside his parents and twin younger sisters. Seeking quiet away from his siblings, he spent time alone reading manga, identifying Ai to Makoto as a key influence. His father’s collection of art books inspired him to draw, and he drew artistic influence from French painter Paul Gauguin as well as Western musicians like David Bowie and Prince. After a classmate praised his drawings, Araki began creating manga in secret and submitted works to magazines during high school. Following multiple rejections, he traveled to Tokyo to meet directly with editors at Shueisha, bringing a Western-themed story titled Poker Under Arms. The editor recognized his potential and advised him to refine the manuscript for the Tezuka Awards.

Araki left the Miyagi University of Education before graduating and made his professional debut under his birth name in 1980 when Poker Under Arms was selected at the Tezuka Awards. In 1983, he launched his first serialized work, Cool Shock B.T., followed by the action series Baoh in 1984, which incorporated graphic violence and was later adapted into an original video animation. His 1985 work The Gorgeous Irene introduced heavy, muscular character designs, establishing a visual style that became central to his subsequent projects.

In 1987, Araki began serializing JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The overarching narrative initially focused on the conflict between Jonathan Joestar and his adopted brother Dio Brando, eventually spanning multiple generations of the Joestar family across different global settings. The series introduced signature elements such as martial arts techniques and spiritual power manifestations known as Stands. Araki produced the eighth story arc, JoJolion, between 2011 and 2021 in Ultra Jump magazine. While not directly directing the animated television adaptations produced for the franchise, he acted as an executive supervisor to ensure the adaptations remained faithful to his original work.

Throughout his career, Araki has participated in high-profile artistic collaborations. In 2009, he was chosen as one of five artists by the Louvre Museum to create original comic art, producing the spin-off Rohan at the Louvre. He collaborated with the Italian fashion brand Gucci on exhibitions and exclusive magazine comics in 2011 and 2012. Additionally, Araki designed artwork for academic journals, album covers, regional recovery initiatives following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, an official poster for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, and a 2024 public installation titled The Fountain Boy at Ōsaka Station.

Beyond fiction, Araki published an instructional book detailing his narrative and illustration methods, titled Manga in Theory and Practice, in 2015. His creative work has also been showcased in national gallery exhibitions and adapted into live theatrical performances.