The manga artist of Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken), Tetsuo Hara, wrote a column about his friendship with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure‘s manga artist, Hirohiko Araki. The Nikkei newspaper, also known as The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, published it today in Japanese on August 17, 2024.
“If it’s with Araki” – Tetsuo Hara
The manga artist Hirohiko Araki is one year older than me, and we both debuted in “Weekly Shonen Jump” around the same time. We first met at a manga award party shortly after our debuts, and even back then, he was a charming and handsome guy. Our respective editors were close friends during our Jump days, and many of my assistants even went to work for him after my series ended.
In Araki’s masterpiece “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” there are unique standing poses called “JoJo Poses.” Coincidentally, I also drew distinctive standing poses in “Fist of the North Star,” but the “JoJo Poses” were a step ahead. This led me to create even more elaborate poses as well. There’s only one “royal road.” Looking back, we might have subconsciously influenced each other in our pursuit of that.
I don’t have a wide circle of friends, but my friendship with Araki has been a rare, long-lasting one. Our wives are also close. We recently had dinner together as couples twice. We both have a knack for satire, and it’s fun to sarcastically insult each other. In 2017, we did a public talk event together. I rarely make public appearances, but I agreed to it because it was with Araki.
Since I usually work as a manga artist on stories written by others, I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from Araki’s books. When I told him this recently, he said, “Please make that widely known,” so I’m using the space on this page to do just that.
Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1983 to 1988. Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure began serialization in December 1986. Hirohisa Onikubo was Tetsuo Hara’s chief assistant for Fist of the North Star before becoming Araki’s during the publication of JoJo‘s second and third parts, Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders, respectively.
One of Araki’s books is Hirohiko Araki’s Manga Techniques, which released on April 17, 2015. In that book, Araki discusses the “royal road” to creating manga. Araki continued the book in JOJO magazine‘s 2022 WINTER and 2023 WINTER issues.
Araki also recently brought up his friendship with Hara on May 17, 2024, in his comment for The JOJOLands chapter 15 in the Ultra Jump June 2024 issue. “I went out to eat with Tetsuo Hara, the illustrator of Fist of the North Star. I think we’re pretty close friends. (laughs)”
Thanks to ara for the photo of the newspaper.
