Art of Manga Director Explains JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s First American Museum Exhibit

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has finally returned to the small screen recently, with the Steel Ball Run returning for new episodes on Netflix. With Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli racing across America to make their dreams come true, a new exhibit from creator Hirohiko Araki has arrived in the West. As a part of the “Art of Manga” exhibit in Brooklyn, New York, we here at Canon Break had the opportunity to talk with director Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere about “There Is Always a Traitor” and what Araki was hoping to accomplish with the Joestars’ arrival in America.

Nicole has been working feverishly in making this manga exhibit a reality, and is thrilled to include the creator of Stands and their users, “Araki-sensei is really deep. You can take him for fashion, for music, for interesting storytelling, but he’s really deep. There are many interesting stories going on there. Even if you re-read JoJo many times, you might not get them all. He’s a very fascinating person who really looks at things. In his visits to Italy, he really looks, sees, and studies. The bodies he draws, if you look at the structural make-up of them they’re all three-dimensional. The physical qualities of drafting his works, he captures renaissance metal-work that I think of as more fluid. He was very influenced by Donatello and you see the muscles and sinews, that aren’t taut, there’s a litheness that is possibly possible there.”

It’s Time to Stand-Up With JoJo

“There’s an intrigue that engages your mind.” Rousmaniere said in relation to Araki’s work in ‘The Art of Manga,’ “What he’s done here, he has twelve characters here in ‘There Is Always a Traitor’ that can represent the likes of Chris and Judas. They’re on a landscape with Mount Fuji, and there’s a Western perspective as the landscape ungulates. Of course, Iggy is displayed right in the middle. What’s incredible is that all his characters seem frozen in mid-action, Araki said that he really wanted visitors to feel as though they are interacting with each character and each character is interacting with them. He wanted to make a seamless transition between their world and ours so it feels as though there is no separation. Obviously, we had to put a bit of a separation for safety reasons but we didn’t put up a glass barrier or anything. This exhibit was in Japan but it’s never been outside Tokyo, this is the first time.”

The Art of Manga opened its doors on October 3rd earlier this year, and will be at the Brooklyn Museum until January 31st of next year. You can acquire tickets for yourself by clicking here. Alongside JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the exhibit will also display original art from series including, but not limited to, One Piece, Bleach, Inuyasha, and much more.