Overview
Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe, known in Japan as , is a series of manga one-shots created by Hirohiko Araki. It is a spin-off from Diamond Is Unbreakable, the fourth part of Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, and features the character Rohan Kishibe, a manga artist who travels around the world to get inspiration from people's lives. The English title of the series is a reference to the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.
The series is published by Shueisha, starting with the one-shot "Episode 16: At a Confessional" in 1997 in their Weekly Shōnen Jump; new episodes have since appeared in their Jump Square, Shōnen Jump+, Bessatsu Margaret, JoJo Magazine, and Ultra Jump magazines. The series was originally meant to be completely original, but it was changed as Araki found it too tempting to use Rohan. A collected volume was released in 2013, and a second volume was released in 2018. The first volume was the 68th best-selling manga volume of 2014 in Japan and was well received by critics. Spin-off short stories by several writers were published in the Appendix Booklet of Ultra Jump magazine from 2017 to 2021. In 2018, they were compiled into two volumes: Rohan Kishibe Does Not Shout and Rohan Kishibe Does Not Frolic. Another volume, Rohan Kishibe Does Not Fall, was released in 2022. Each volume included an additional original story. Original video animation (OVA) adaptations were released by David Production from 2017 to 2020. A live-action adaptation premiered on NHK General TV in December 2020.
Synopsis
The series follows the character Rohan Kishibe, a famous manga artist who wants to give his works more realism, and therefore travels around the world to draw inspiration from people's lives. He does this by using his Stand ability – a manifestation of his inner strength, named "Heaven's Door", which he uses to read and write in a person, allowing him to learn everything about them and alter their memories and behaviors.
Production and publication
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).