Match Made in Heaven - Jojo Demonic Heartbreak
Written by Rei Caldombra 12/8/24
If you didn’t know already, I am a massive Jojo’s fan. It’s one of my favorite series. I have talked about Jojo once before in my piece on minor characters being elevated by having secrets, using Mikitaka as the example of how to do it right. If you’d like to read that, I have it linked at the end of the post. But I’m very happy to finally get to focus entirely on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure for one of my writings! Let’s get into Demonic Heartbreak, a spinoff series of Jojo bridging the gap between Stardust Crusaders (Part 3) and Diamond is Unbreakable (Part 4), following Josuke and one of the best enemy stand users Hol Horse going on a quest together. There will be spoilers for Demon Heartbreak and Parts 3 and 4. Let’s BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN this manga and get into what I think about it.
The main story here is that Hol Horse (one of the enemy stand users of Part 3) is tasked to find a parrot that was trained under the same man as Pet Shop (the bird ice stand user from Part 3). Boingo’s (another enemy stand user of Part 3) Tohth (the comic book that tells the future) directs them to Morioh, where they come into contact with Josuke Higashikata (the Jojo of Part 4), Ryoko (Kakyoin’s cousin, Kakyoin being one of the Stardust Crusaders of Part 3) and an enemy stand user.
Despite coming out decades after Parts 3 and 4 I think it fits in very well to this time period. It follows Parts 4-6 centralizing around cleaning up the damage left by Dio and his influence. This being an in-between of 3 and 4 makes it very interesting for me as a Jojo fan. My favorite Part is 4 and my least favorite (though I still like it) is Part 3. So this is right in the middle of both extremes of Jojo for me. I can happily say that works to its advantage, as I enjoyed it elevating aspects of Part 3 and I loved seeing more of my favorite Joestar and his family.
My favorite aspect of this story is how it expands on the characters of Part 3. This series does a great job at logically continuing where things left of for some of the characters as well as giving us some backstory for some of the others who aren’t involved. The most compelling aspect of this story is how the trauma Dio left effects all the characters. Seeing how they’ve continued on past their partnership with Dio is very interesting. The users still staying in Egypt have changed, but the scars from their mental and physical battles have remained. On the funny end we have Hol Horse wearing 3 watches because getting the time wrong is what took him out in the 2nd fight. On the sad end we have Mariah and Hol Horse getting anxiety attacks every time they get reminded of Dio. They acknowledge that they were not controlled by the living buds, but they still gave up their free will out of fear and desire. I have to continue praising everything past Part 3 making Dio a much more compelling villain in Part 3. I think he is the worst executed villain as a character exclusively going part by part, it’s not terrible but his history and personality was very poorly used in my opinion. But especially Part 6 and now this have made his post 100 year slumber persona much better than it was initially displayed. Speaking of Dio, one of my favorite details is that Dio’s stand rush is used as an intimidation attack. That makes sense in universe due to Dio and his stand’s strength and his presence, but it also feels like a funny meta joke to have muda muda spammed at an enemy to incapacitate them. And it fits with this manga’s theme of Dio’s actions having lasting consequences. By using memories of Dio, the characters are both literally and figuratively still fighting against Dio. Hol Horse’s character growth here felt very in line with his character and was especially good. Boingo’s growth was also good, with it diving into his dependency on Tohth and his brother. I also really enjoyed the expansion of Tohth from just a book to seemingly being a conscious entity. One of my favorite scenes is when Hol Horse grabs Boingo and runs with him after he wakes up soon after his 2nd battle with the Joestars. This already shows how Hol Horse was changing, as he didn’t need to grab Boingo and help him escape too. And this plays into both of them being better people by the end. As well as gives him, while not particularly deep or natural, point of connection with Kakyoin. I really love this scene of both Hol Horse and Boingo being injured, scared, vulnerable people.
This is probably my favorite shot of the manga, beautiful and made me feel a bit emotional.
When it comes to the Kakyoin family, it fits in perfectly to have a member of Kakyoin’s family question his disappearance. The community has talked about this idea many times. Here, I think it is executed well. I liked seeing more of Kakyoin’s inner thoughts on getting controlled by Dio and joining the fight. This definitely elevates him a bit. Ryoko’s role made the story more engaging, by giving Josuke and Hol Horse more conflicts to deal with. And serves to further show the cause and effect of the battle in Egypt.
Onto the Part 4 characters, I was happy to see Josuke on the page being himself. I don’t think anything here changes how I view his character or anything, but it was fun seeing him do his thing. I’ll also talk more about Josuke in a bit. I’m glad we got a decent amount of scenes with Josuke’s grandpa, showing how he views Josuke and his job. One of my few criticisms of Part 4 is that it felt like he was largely forgotten about. I adore Great Days but am still sad he is not pointing down at them from Heaven like the others who were killed. He isn’t missing because those were only victims of Kira who still needed to be avenged. Keicho is there and he died to Red Hot Chili Pepper, who they already defeated by then. I wish he was there and Josuke had gotten some flashbacks to him as motivation, or he used his words to change some of the bad stand users, or something along those lines. Getting to see him and Josuke here is great enough fanservice for me to be very happy.
When it comes to the main plot, it was solidly interesting and functional for what it was aiming to do. It was really fun seeing Josuke and Hol Horse bounce of each other and work together. They both have really strong personalities that can bring them into conflict but also allow them to work together momentarily. And we see that play out well in multiple scenarios. As previously said, it allowed for the themes of Jojo to come through very strongly.
When it comes to the primary fights against the main enemy, I think it is fine and feels in line with a standard enemy stand user of the week encounter. The stand ability is solidly interesting, and the execution feels spot on as Jojo action sequences. We have the crazy displays of abilities, great use of the environment by the characters, smart tactics mixed with straightforward ones, brutality, and gags that we love Jojo for. It’s a fun, solid fight. But I would also say it is not especially memorable amongst the MANY stand user fights we have in this series. Its solid and would be right at home in the main series, but one I don’t expect to revisit. I will admit that this is likely biased by being only in manga form, as I think Jojo’s incredible sound design heavily elevates the series. And in motion it also makes the often-complicated fights a bit easier to follow. I don’t think this one was hard to follow though. The main villain is also very much an average minor Jojo villain. His motivation is not particularly interesting, but he does have some personality. He successfully serves the purpose of being an asshole who deserves his defeat.My favorite thing about him is that he is a police officer of Morioh. This plays into the Part 4 theme of danger hidden in normalcy and not being able to trust anyone. This also lets him be a foil to Josuke’s Grandpa. Both of them have a position of power that can be abused and puts you above others. Karaiya has some stuff I like and some stuff I don’t, making him very average. Not bad, but nothing spectacular.
The art style and quality are also great in my opinion and reach the standard of Jojo. The poses, great backgrounds, high level of detail, and wel portrayed anatomy that we love in Araki’s art style is not missing here. Hol Horse in particular looks great in this style.
Now to a big question that always comes up with spinoff stories from big series. Is it canon? To my knowledge that has not been confirmed. Some people go by Araki’s involvement in it, or by what he says, or just saying everything official is canon. I don’t care that much about whether this is canon or not honestly, its fun to think about but not take so seriously that it hurts your enjoyment of anything. I think it’s up to the individual reader to take what they want out of spinoffs. Especially in this case here where the part of the story it covers is long since finished and doesn’t really change anything major. I think you should just do what you want with this information, in my case I’m taking what I like from it as canon and what I don’t as not. That’s my broad answer.
To give a more detailed and concrete answer, I would prefer this not be canon when it comes to the main story but I’ll take some of the minor details I like as being true in my head. Starting off, I am not saying that this should not be canon because of Josuke learning about stands from Hol Horse. I’ve seen other people cite this as their reasoning for it being non-canon. I rewatched the first episode of the Part 4 anime and while Jotaro does explain stands to Josuke, nothing Josuke says or does definitely states that he didn’t know that information already. Josuke does not say anything to acknowledge what Jotaro said in that moment, and carries on normally afterwords understanding what stands are. Unless there’s something later that I’m forgetting (feel free to give your perspective in the comments), Josuke could’ve known about stands already and have that not conflict with Part 4. So while I don’t like the idea of him already knowing, that on its own wouldn’t bother me. But where I would take issue with this not being his first stand encounter is with how it would make Josuke’s early development feel worse. To me, one purpose of his Grandfather’s death was to give Josuke a reality check. While he was always a good person who believed in helping good people and stopping bad ones true to justice, I don’t think he was taking life all that seriously. He was a teenager with this incredible power that let him heal people and effortlessly defeat any normal person. But in his first encounter with a truly dangerous person, he doesn’t take Angelo seriously enough after capturing him and that cost his Grandfather his life. That gives him his inspiration to be more proactive and protect the town the way his Grandfather did. I love this aspect of his character. But in this story Josuke goes through a dangerous stand encounter that even included him experiencing events that killed people. I believe this story would’ve already inspired him to take life more seriously. If this story is canon, then it does not fit well for Josuke acting the way he does in his first encounter with Angelo in my opinion. What I am considering as canon here is the general situation of all the Part 3 enemy stand users. I don’t see any reason why everything in Egypt couldn’t be canon. It’s nice to think that getting defeated by the stand users left some of them as better people, but still left suffering in Dio’s wake.
I’m glad we are continuing to get content here and there from the first 6 parts. If we were to get another short spinoff, I would love to see stories within the realms of Parts 1 and 2. Gimme some classic hamon and vampires. Going further backwards into the lore of Hamon users would be awesome. I’ve always loved hamon and would like to see more of it. That’s another nitpick I have with part 3, I wish Joseph used Hamon more and they had at least acknoledged it as an option in some of the fights.
And that brings us to the end of za warudo. Expect to see more Jojo related content from me! I’ve already got one concept along the lines of writing analysis that will be about how Jojo and another series I love do something great in common. Thanks for reading!
My Patreon if you would like to support me and the website: patreon.com/ReiCaldombra
I talk about Mikitaka here Let Characters Keep Their Secrets - Writing Analysis — Blog Under a Log (Btw I want to express my appreciate for the big success of the video of this one, 25k views is crazy! I’m really happy that it resonated with so many people and I enjoyed seeing people’s opinions and how this applies to other characters!):
My friend included a Jojo character on her list: My Top Five Autistic-Coded Characters in Anime (As Ranked By An Autistic Girl) — Blog Under a Log
