Jousuke Higashikata

Jousuke Higashikata is the protagonist of Diamond is Unbreakable and the fourth JoJo of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series.

Jousuke is a high school first-year residing in the town of Morioh. He soon meets Joutaro Kujo, who informs him that he is Joseph Joestar's illegitimate son. After his grandfather dies, Josuuke takes it upon himself to protect his beloved town from malevolent Stand users. Jousuke wields Crazy Diamond, a powerful Stand with the power to repair almost anything.

Appearance
Josuke is a tall, handsome young man of average build. He wears a small stud in each ear. The feature most important to him is his well-maintained pompadour, styled after that of an unknown man who saved his life as a child. His pompadour has a tendency to become spiky with his mood, such as when he is irritated or angry.

Josuke wears a dark, modified Japanese school uniform. His jacket conforms to his body, extending to the middle of his thigh, accompanied by a pair of wide-legged pants. He keeps his jacket unbuttoned and pinned aside, revealing a light undershirt with a short zipper on each side of his chest.

Josuke wears a number of metallic/golden emblems. On the left of his collar he wears a modified anchor, and on his right a row of two small hearts. Pinning his open jacket to his chest on his right is a peace sign (☮), and on the left is a heart (occasionally enclosing a palm, like on Jotaro's hat). He wears a gold band at both wrists, above his sleeves (under more elaborate pieces in several illustrations).

Valuing footwear, Josuke wears a pair of Mr. Junko original socks and ¥25,000 black Bally shoes.

Josuke's most common color scheme consists of either a dark blue or purple uniform and a green or yellow undershirt.

Personality
Josuke is a savvy, confident and courageous teenager. Friendly and loyal, his amiable personality helps him make friends throughout the story.

Josuke's primary trait is his overall kindness, reflected in his Stand, Crazy Diamond, which repairs and heals. When he was a child, a random bystander helped save a feverish Josuke out of kindness, Josuke subconsciously reflected that kindness in him. Even upon the revelation that he was Joseph's bastard son, Josuke had thought first and foremost about the troubles he's caused to the Joestars and disregarded any claim for a heritage, only wanting to reassure his biological father that he was doing fine. Agreeable by nature, Josuke isn't as prone to violence as other JoJos and can even calmly tolerate bullying by upperclassmen or Shigechi's selfishness. Josuke is loyal to his friends and loved ones; risking his life after Koichi is hit by Keicho's Bow, and carrying Okuyasu's body while apparently dead throughout the first part of his battle with Yoshikage Kira. When his grandfather died, Josuke took it upon himself to become the protector of Morioh. Upon meeting someone in not particularly antagonistic circumstances, Josuke will generally be polite and friendly.

Overall, Josuke behaves like a teenager, and aside from his general goal of protecting Morioh from any Stand menace, is concerned by more down to earth matters, such as hanging out with his friends. As a consequence, Josuke is almost never seen alone in the streets of Morioh. Josuke passively protects his town, and only acts when directly asked by the much more proactive Jotaro or when he directly encounters a Stand user. Curious, Josuke is quick to investigate any unusual phenomenon, which often leads him into a Stand User. Josuke is very prone to openly communicate his feelings, either expressing amazement, amusement, fear and anger thus he appears as a goofy individual.

Sufficiently humble, Josuke confesses to being nervous around famous people, opting not to go with Koichi to first meet Rohan Kishibe due to his great fame as a mangaka. Josuke also has a fear of turtles, and has tried to touch a turtle to get rid of that fear. Josuke isn't shy to admit his limits, and has confessed that he doesn't know much about manga, or isn't good at videogames, even though he isn't happy to have someone know these factoids. In the same way, Josuke tries to live up to Jotaro, whom he admires, and has been nervous around him for fear of not living up to the task Jotaro entrusted to him. He has also shown a mild fear of ghosts (in the beginning), as shown when Koichi wonders if he saw a ghost in the house next to Josuke's, and Josuke nervously tells him to cut it out.

However, in a fight, Josuke is much more calm, and has unshakable confidence in Crazy Diamond, but his confidence doesn't extend to himself, as Josuke can still be nervous if things don't go his way. Additionally, Terunosuke Miyamoto is able to reveal that in terms of body language, Josuke's first unconscious reaction when unsure is to bite his lip. In general, his attitude will mix calmness and goofiness, and Josuke can switch between a taunting one-liner and a serene assertion of the situation. Josuke is occasionally distracted in a fight, often reflecting on the silliness of the situation he's currently in or trying to act cool. Even if Josuke is gentle by nature, he has no qualm about violently pummeling an enemy, and in the case someone has hurt or endangered a family member, Josuke will be even more vindictive, as he fused Angelo with a rock[12] and Terunosuke with a book.

Josuke has a tangential respect of the law at best, having inherited his father's mischevious side, shown primarily in regards to winning money. After nearly emptying his bank account on frivolous spendings, Josuke has been trying to get extra money in quick fashion. When he and Okuyasu meet Shigechi, he quickly devises a plan to exploit Shigechi's Stand Harvest to find first discarded change, and then discarded coupons from all over Morioh, going as far as commit felony to earn the money in a winning ticket. Similarly, after meeting Mikitaka Hazekura, he takes advantage of his shape-shifting Stand power, convincing him to turn into dice in order to cheat money from Rohan, with whom he has a bad relationship. Lastly, characterized as a knowing gesture, he steals Joseph's wallet with his Stand by restoring it to his possession with a piece of a picture planted there. The fact that his Stand can nearly repair or heal anything means that Josuke can get away with destruction of property or endangering someone, thus he isn't really concerned about the legal ramifications of his actions, since they will be without consequences, at least for him.

When it comes to women, he is moderate between Joseph and Jotaro. He does not flirt relentlessly and is not perverted like Joseph, but when the girls near him express interest in him, he is flattered and has shown to get along quite well with his female classmates and admirers. He does not shoo them away like Jotaro but doesn't relentlessly flirt or pursue any. When Jotaro asks Josuke to go hunting, Josuke initially believes he means hunting for girls and says with a blush and smile that he is more of a love kind of guy. However, he seems to be willing to hit them if they are the enemy as he threatened to kill Yukako if she tried to do anything to Koichi, whom she was obsessed with. While he does express interest in women, it is not his main priority.

As a catchphrase, Josuke often says "Great" in English. He also displays an odd quirk whenever he pronounces the Japanese phrase kakkoii, a masculine compliment essentially meaning "cool", where he will always pronounce it weirdly like "Kappyoii" or "Kacchoii." These mispronunciations are translated as "kewl" in the English Crunchyroll subtitles.

In a quintessential idiosyncrasy, Josuke takes a hyper-sensitive reaction to comments at all disparaging of his hairstyle; which Koichi interprets as Josuke reacting to insults towards his savior, although Josuke personally claims he doesn't know the reason for his wrath. After an insult, Josuke automatically enters a blind rage regardless of the circumstances and interlocutors, and becomes much more rude and violent. Firstly, a swaggering upperclassman to whom Josuke initially defers is punched and stepped on, before his nose is restored by Crazy Diamond improperly and indefinitely, due to Josuke's mood. Later, during his fight with Rohan, in an attempt to manipulate Josuke into gazing upon his Stand by openly taunting him about his hair, Josuke goes berserk; landing Rohan in the hospital for one month of hiatus.

Abilities

 * Main article: Crazy Diamond

Josuke's Stand, Crazy Diamond, can restore objects (and organisms) to a previous state in their history.

It is able to repair damage and heal injury. It can also revert an item to its components (e.g. a wooden table into lumber).

With this, Crazy Diamond may perform a range of interesting feats; including trapping (parts of) an enemy by restoring pieces of a broken object around it; and tracking, such as by restoring a torn piece of clothing, which seeks to reattach itself.

However, this Stand is not without limits: Crazy Diamond can only restore state, not life, hence a lifeless body would still remain dead even after being "fixed" by Crazy Diamond's power. Also, the healing power cannot be used on Josuke himself, or strictly speaking, anything that can be considered a part of his current self, body or even his own clothes.

MASTERY

Josuke shows great proficiency at using Crazy Diamond in combat. Thanks to its great physical prowess, Josuke can use Crazy Diamond's fists to perform outside the box tactics such as breaking through a wall to escape an attack. Moreover he has been shown to throw projectiles with great efficiency thanks to his Stand's sheer strength and precision.

Additionally, Josuke has been shown to use his seemingly restricted power for a wide array of tactical goals. Crazy Diamond's power of repairing anything makes Josuke a great healer as long as he can reach his allies before they die and he works exceptionally well with a partner as a result. Because he can break objects and repair them, Josuke is liberal in breaking anything to get something he wants such as a more favorable position or a key item like fuel for a motorcycle, use a precious item as leverage, or even destroy his motorcycle to avoid a baby carriage; he then repairs anything he's broken, cancelling any consequence his antics would have. Josuke can easily exploit the environment to his advantage thanks to Crazy Diamond. His ability to repair makes it so he can manipulate the environment to a certain point, creating a shield out of concrete, and lay down a trap with an object's broken pieces only to repair it around an enemy. The deadliness of his projectile is also increased as he can create a boomerang effect by forcing a piece to come back to him, hitting an enemy from behind.

PERSONAL

Josuke is shrewd, confident and courageous, possessing considerable fluid intelligence and a will to win; like his father.

Intelligence: Josuke is extremely quick to get on his feet under almost any circumstance, as he is very aware of the immediate surrounding as well as his own capabilities. He is proficient in utilizing anything he has within reach for dealing with problems at hand, and is also shown to be capable of planning several steps ahead by reading opponent's behavior and habit. Josuke is very confident of his abilities to the point of claiming that there is nothing Crazy Diamond (indirectly referring to himself) can't fix, and expresses mild disappointment after figuring out what he thought would have been one such problem. As a result of his intellect, Josuke can be quite cunning; manipulating, lying and cheating others occasionally to achieve certain selfish goals.

Physical fineness: Josuke possesses substantial athletic ability. He has been shown once to have successfully chased down a moving bus over long distances completely on foot, and can handle a heavy motorbike effortlessly for the first and only time riding it, while achieving many otherwise professional feats during a high-speed chase in attempts to avoid direct contacts with the enemy chasing after him. The most well known demonstration of Josuke's physical toughness is shown when he withstands exposure to several explosions generated by Yoshikage Kira's Killer Queen, sustaining heavy injuries and blood loss but remaining conscious enough to think of countermeasures and tactics.

Trivia

 * As of Steel Ball Run, Josuke is Araki's favorite JoJo. He explains that because of the general everyday neighborhood setting of Diamond is Unbreakable, he felt more attached to Josuke, and considered him somewhat like a friend or a senior. In contrast, Jotaro was "more of someone you would admire as a hero".
 * The identity of Josuke's savior is a commonly discussed subject in the fandom, dating back to when Part 4 was first publicized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. In a 1993 interview with OVA director, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, when asked about the flashback and whether it was Josuke who met himself, Hirohiko Araki replied, "It's irrelevant, that was merely Josuke's memory." David Production's TV Anime director, Naokatsu Tsuda, also inquired Araki on who the mysterious boy was during production of the anime adaptation, though Araki seemingly chose not to comment.
 * Japanese fans sometimes refer to Part 4 with "hamburger patty", referring to the appearance of Josuke's hairstyle.
 * Josuke's surname, Higashikata, is written using the same kanji as "tōhō", the Japanese word for "eastern" or "oriental". The video game series Touhou Project has been known to reference the series frequently, as the creator himself is a noted fan.
 * In Sheer Heart Attack part 5, Josuke is "reading" a Gianfranco Ferre fashion catalogue.