Anime serious famous for its dramatic sound effects and fashionable heroes makes one out of the other with cool and clever artwork trick.
The unmistakable aesthetic of anime/manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is built on two pillars. One is the bombastically beautiful poses of cast of its fashionable fighting supernaturalists, and the other is the inventively dramatic sound effects, like “TAKOSU!” that not only fill the pages of creator Hirohiko Araki’s comic, but even visually appear in its recent anime adaptations.
At first glance, this jumbo-sized piece of promotional JoJo’s art seems to be saluting the series’ sound effect ドドドドド (dododododo), which was devised by Araki to represent the sound of tension in the air.
But relax your eyes and let them focus on the bigger picture, and you’ll see that all those sound effects are taking the place of line art, and each ド is carefully sized and oriented to form the faces of some of JoJo’s most important figures.
The monochrome mural can be found in the Metro Prominade underground section of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, the same stretch of hallway which previously hosted an array of every Yu-Gi-Oh! card ever printed and a collage of decades’ worth of distinctive anime eyes.
▼ Eight key characters, hailing from various arcs of the 31-year-old franchise, are hiding in plain sight.
▼ We’re not sure if this shot was taken at an angle for visual flair, or because the photographer happened to be striking a diagonally oriented JoJo’s pose at the time.
While loyal fans will tell you that any time is an appropriate one to stop and appreciate the awesomeness of the Joestar family and their non-normal narrative, the mural is up now to promote an exhibition of Araki’s artwork, dubbed JoJo-Ripples of Adventure, that recently opened at Tokyo’s National Art Center.
▼ Yes, a Japanese government institution realized that it needed to pay proper respect to JoJo’s.
However, while JoJo’s popularity seems to be eternal, there are tighter temporal constraints for the mural. Since it occupies one of the most coveted advertising spaces in all of Japan, odds are it’ll only be up for a few days more. You can still take heart, though, in knowing that the JoJo’s exhibit at the National Art Center runs until October 1.
Related: JoJo-Ripples of Adventure website
Source: Otakomu
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