Who did the art for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is written and drawn by Hirohiko Araki. That simple credit is worth its own page because long running manga so often split the work, a writer with an artist, as the Death Note hub in this Artists Wing describes, or pass to successor artists. Araki works in the older single author model, with studio assistants supporting production, and he has carried the series through nine parts and two magazine eras without handing the pen to anyone.
His assistants' role follows the standard Japanese studio pattern: backgrounds, finishes and production work under his direction, while story, character design, key art and final pages remain his. The visual consistency readers feel across a part, and the deliberate inconsistency between parts, are both his decisions, which is why the art evolution entry in this hub can treat the whole saga as one artist's development.
The anime requires the usual distinction this Wing keeps. David Production's JoJo anime, running since 2012, adapts Araki's designs through its own character designers for each part, and film and game versions add their own design hands. Araki supervises his property as original author, but an anime model sheet is an adaptation credit, not an Araki drawing, a distinction spelled out in this hub's anime designers entry.
For attribution in listings and collections, the rule is simple. Manga volumes, magazine chapters, covers and his illustration books are Araki art. Anime cels, model sheets and screenshots are the anime designers' translations of Araki art. Both are collectible, and the Library's JoJo section covers the series' publication history, but they are different shelves.
