Who designed the JoJo anime characters?

The JoJo anime, produced by David Production since 2012, faces a problem no other adaptation shares: its source changes art style completely every part. The studio's answer has been to appoint character designers per part, specialists who rebuild Araki's models for animation while keeping each era's distinct body language, and the credits are worth knowing individually.

The early seasons, covering Parts 1 to 3, were designed under chief designers including Takako Shimizu for the first seasons and Masahiko Komino for Stardust Crusaders, whose models had to translate both the hulking early manga bodies and the tightening Part 3 style. Part 4, Diamond is Unbreakable, used character designs by Terumi Nishii, matching the manga's softer small town turn, and Part 5, Golden Wind, used Takahiro Kishida, whose sharp, fashion forward models fit the Italian runway era of Araki's art.

Part 6, Stone Ocean, used character designs by Masanori Shino, completing the set of translations through the manga's shonen era. Across all of them, Araki's role is original author: the designs begin from his drawings, his color sense guides the palettes, and his new cover art often arrives alongside the anime as the reference point, but the model sheets animators draw from are the designers' work.

For collectors this produces two parallel JoJo art markets, Araki's manga art and the anime designers' production art, and listings should say which is which. The Library's JoJo section covers the anime's broadcast and release history part by part; this entry exists to keep the hub's credits as precise for JoJo as for Dragon Ball and Berserk.