Jojo’s Part ?: Dead Man’s Questions
Diamond is not Crush may be over and done with, but Hirohiko Araki wasn’t quite done with some of the characters. Rohan Kishibe is the prime example of this. After Part 4, Rohan got three total side stories all about him: Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe, Rohan at the Louvre, and Rohan Kishibe Goes to Gucci. The first of these three had an extra chapter in story collection that is today’s topic. Under Execution Under Jailbreak was a collection of three stories that Araki did across a few years that were collected once they’d all been released. The last of the stories was called Dead Man’s Questions, which stars today’s hero, Yoshikage Kira.
I wonder what happens if you open the doors on that outfit.
It’s a somewhat weird thing to make a previous main antagonist the hero of your short story. Then again, he has amnesia and is a ghost, so there’s a very small chance that he will go back to randomly blowing up sexy ladies. Instead of being a fantastic husband/murderous asshole, Kira is now a ghost who only remembers his name and has to complete tasks given to him by another ghost in order to not go on to the next life. So every now and again he has to kill other ghosts that don’t want to go on to the next life, which may or may not actually exist. Fortunately he has the ability to pass through anything, choke out ghosts, and travel through the phone lines.
Think more murder and less banana hair.
Kira has the issue of finding that his most recent job is even more treacherous than fighting Josuke, only this time it doesn’t kill him. His target is inside the only known building to be entirely “made of ghost”. Inside he finds a bunch of ghost objects which is interesting because Kira can’t come into contact with anything because Hirohiko Araki has a mildly unique take on the afterlife. If you remain a ghost, you have to endure more hardships than your living counterparts in exchange for immortality and immunity from pain.
Now what makes Dead Man’s Questions oddly fun is simply the main issue Kira has to deal with. You see, the house has what Kira calls “cleansers.” “Cleansers” are the Earth’s defense mechanism for making sure the ghost population never gets too high. The form they take is eggs, but not just eggs. Eggs that when hatched, become tiny dinosaurs that eat ghosts. Meaning that Kira’s biggest threat in the afterlife is a group of ghost eating dinosaurs. Fortunately for him, there is a “gun made of ghost” in the building, but because Kira can’t catch a break after what he did to Josuke and that whole serial killer thing, he becomes a one armed ghost.
You have to believe me, it was a one armed ghost.
This is one of those stories you just wished it had gone on a little bit longer. It sets up a decent beginning to a revenge story since Kira was sent into a certain death situation by his handler, but instead it does a lot of set up and not much else. The thing that makes these three short chapters fun to read in the first place were the tiny ghost eating dinosaurs. The art is nice, though, and Kira’s outfit is probably my favorite thing to have ever been put on paper. While it lacks a little substance, it’s still a fun read.
