Diavolo (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)

Diavolo is a male anime and manga character who features in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Biography

Diavolo (Japanese: ディアボロ, Hepburn: Diaboro) was a male human born in the 20th century who was born at some point in 1967 as the child of a prisoner in a all-female prison. The birth was held as a mystery as his mother had been in the prison for many years and had received no visitors in that time nor were there any male guards. She herself claimed that her son had been conceived two years prior but that the man was dead. After being born, his birth was noted as being unusual as his eyes never closed or did he ever cry. It was decided that his mother could not raised him in the prison and had many years still on her sentence. Thus, it was decided to send the newborn Diavolo to his mothers home town of Sardinia to be raised by a priest. Over the years, the young man was noted to had been frank but rather timid and did not seem like a bright child. As he grew older, he resolved to become a sailor rather than a priest as his adoptive father. Around 1984, the young man met a woman named Donatella Una where the two embarked in a relationship with him using the name of Solido Naso as an alias when interacting with her. She was in love with him and during this time together the pair slept together with Diavolo telling numerous lies about himself which Donatella believed though he was unaware that she was pregnant with his child during this time. Before he departed, he made a promise to return to her one day but had no intention of meeting Donatella again. By 1986, he was 19 years old and his adoptive father the priest had seen him walking on the beach with the woman. The priest believed it was time for Diavolo to have his own car and began converting one of the rooms into a garage for him. Whilst digging up the floor, he discovered a woman hidden underneath the floor which turned out to be Diavolo's mother who was somehow buried alive with her mouth sown shirt. He was then found by Diavolo who killed his adoptive father and set fire to the home thus killing his mother as well. Officially, it was believed that he along with the priest and seven others were killed in the fire. However, in reality, he had escaped in order to join an expedition that was heading towards Egypt. Once there, he took part in an expedition that was digging for relics where Diavolo came upon five mysterious arrowheads. During this time, he met the witch Enyaba who revealed that they had the ability to impart a power on a person. In exchange for this knowledge, she requested some of the Stand Arrows with Diavolo reasoning that he only needed one. Thus, he traded five of them to Enyaba whilst he kept the remaining one himself where he gained a powerful Stand ability called King Crimson. He then returned to Italy where he quickly became the head of the Passione criminal organization where his leadership led to its quick rise to power. As the mysterious Boss, the syndicate developed a great deal of profit through the drug trade and Diavolo maintained his anonymity as its leader. During the 1990s, a Frenchman named Jean Pierre Polnareff sought out the owner of one of the Stand Arrows and tracked the wielder to Italy leading to him battling Diavolo's henchmen. The Boss decided then to deal with the person himself and he confronted Polnareff by the edge of a cliff. Despite Jean's skill, he was outclassed by King Crimson who critically injured him and sent his opponent tumbling off the cliff edge thus seemingly killing him. Afterwards, the La Squadra Esecuzioni that consisted of a team of Passione's hitmen became tired of their status in the organization and demanded more territory with the Boss refusing them. Two of the hitman squad's members named Sorbet and Gelato then attempted to learn of the Boss's identity and after discovering them he brutally killed them. Gelato's body was cut into 36 frames and sent back to the Squadra as a warning to never defy him and their fear led to them falling back in line after facing a superior foe.

In 2001, Donatella Una died and the existence of Diavolo's daughter Trish came to be known. Her existence became a danger to the Boss whose identity could be exposed through his child. In fact, the La Squadra Esecuzioni came to learn of her and sought to capture her as part of their attempted revolt against him. Thus, Diavolo dispatched the Capo Pericolo to get Trish to newly risen Capo Bruno Bucciarati who was charged with escorting Trish to him and to follow a carefully guided set of instructions he had placed at various sites that would lead to the rendezvous location. Team Bucciarati managed to defeat most of the hitman squad before they reached the site with Bruno instructed to bring Trish to him alone whilst his men stayed outside. Whilst in the elevator. Diavolo used his Stand to take Trish and cut off her arm as he intended to eliminate her as the only clue to his identity. Upon learning of this, Bruno decided to defy the Boss in order to save Trish leading to an encounter with his Stand King Crimson (キング・クリムゾン Kingu Kurimuzon). Bruno was fatally injured in the fight which allowed Trish to be saved with Bucciarati seemingly being revived by Giorno Giovanna though they were unable to discover the Boss's identity. Team Bucciarati thus went rogue from Passione as they intended to keep Trish safe whilst finding the identity of the Boss along with the nature of his Stand's power. In response, Diavolo sent out the order for Passione to find and eliminate the members of Team Bucciarati. Meanwhile, as his alter-ego Doppio, he was sent to the house of Donatella Una in Sardinia to prevent Leone Abbacchio from using his Stand Moody Blue from using its ability at the scene as this would reveal Diavolo's face. On the way, he encountered a fortune teller who he killed for revealing facts about himself but through them came to learn that Risotto Nero was in the region. Upon approaching Una's house, Doppio came to be ambushed by Nero who only knew the man as being a Stand User after seeing him react to a Stand. Doppio came to be involved in an intense battle against Risotto whose potent Stand power made him a dangerous opponent all the while Diavolo guided his alter ego's actions. Nearly killed, Doppio tricked the Stand Aerosmith into intervening and injuring Nero where by this point Diavolo had manifested fully in his body. In a desperate attempt, Nero attempted to also trick Narancia Ghirga's Stand Aerosmith into firing on Diavolo but he came to use King Crimson's power to allow the bullets to harmless pass through him where they killed Risotto. With the threat eliminated, Diavolo then took a a disguise where he used his anonymity to get close to Abbacchio to murder him before he could use Moody Blue's power to reveal the identity of the Boss. Team Bucciarati arrived too late on the scene where they only found their dying comrade Leone who perished from his injuries.

At some point after Bucciarati's group leaves Sardinia to follow their revolutionary's instructions, Diavolo gives Doppio back control and tells him to investigate the house. However, he knows they are moving towards Rome and he orders Doppio to get moving via plane, as well as ask Cioccolata and Secco for assistance, despite expressing disgust as the former for his past actions. However, when Doppio arrives in Rome, he's held hostage by Secco and is soon lending a hand in helping a once-again dying and unknowing Bucciarati. Diavolo uses his soul's resemblance to Trish's to fool Bucciarati into letting him help in order to find out whom has been assisting the traitors. He is then able to sneak past the rest of Team Bucciarati and bring him to the Coliseum. When they get there, Diavolo takes notice of a person watching them, and orders Doppio to stay cautious. The unknown individual calls out and asks Bucciarati for the identity of the person with him is. Diavolo takes a closer look at the individual and notices the Stand-granting Arrow, shocking him and bringing only one person to mind: Polnareff. Though Bucciarati tells Polnareff that it's Trish and Doppio convinces him that he is a girl, he demands to see her Stand. It is in that instant that Doppio disappears.

The power of Silver Chariot Requiem caused everyone to fall asleep around the Stand whereupon it switched their bodies to the nearest person. Due to Diavolo's dual personality nature, his mind was fractured across two different bodies with Doppio residing in Bucciaratti whilst Diavolo himself came to secretly co-habit the body of Guido Mista alongside his daughter Trish. When they regained consciousness, the members of Team Bucciaratti worked together to eliminate who they believed to be Diavolo by targeting Bruno's former body leading to his death where in his final moments he felt utter loneliness at being separated from the Boss. Unknown to the team, Diavolo observed events in secret and had his Stand King Crimson use its power so that he could eliminate his enemies one-by-one. This saw the Stand being responsible for the Narancia Ghirga thus alerting the rest of Team Bucciaratti was among them in secret.

After striking the blow, the body Trish was inhabiting was sent flying backwards towards the Arrow allowing for King Crimson to claim it. However, unknown to him, Bucciarati had used his Stand to restore Silver Chariot Requiem thus preventing Diavolo from claiming the Arrow. Bruno then finally destroyed Silver Chariot Requiem thus sending everyone back into their respective bodies though this came at the cost of his own life. As a result, Diavolo was returned to his body where he felt that he had failed in his objective and prepared to retreat in order to strike again in the future. However, Giorno Giovanna had acquired the Arrow and Diavolo felt that it was an insult on his pride at his enemies seeing him flee. Thus, he resolved to stay and fight where he relied on Epitaph to see into the future where he perceived himself to be victorious. Despite this being the case, Giorno had used his Arrow on his Stand thus turning it into Gold Experience Requiem with powers that even Giovanna did not fully understand. Diavolo in desperation decided to use his precognition and ability to erase moments of time to his advantage where he perceived a victory. However, Gold Experience Requiem nullified his advantage released a flurry of blows against Diavolo that did not kill him but instead trapped him in an endless series of loops where he experienced his own death again and again.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Diavolo was a all man with a lean and semi-muscular build who had long hair that had a leopard-pattern with various spots which was parted in a zig-zagging manner. The bangs of which were propped and parted slightly to the side whilst the rest of his hair was cut straight across at his shoulders. It was said that Diavolo's multiple personality disorder was the result of a traumatic event from his past. In time, these personalities developed until they became two completely different personas. One was Diavolo himself and the other was the seemingly meek Vinegar Doppio (ヴィネガー・ドッピオ) which was used to hide his true nature. As the leader of Passione, he came to be known only as the Boss to his subordinates as he kept his identity a secret.

The Doppio personality was shown to be a young, innocent, and bizarre second personality. When in this alternate personality, their body was that of a small thin person who had a completely different persona. Doppio was seemingly unaware of the fact that Diavolo was another personality that resided in the same body. Instead, he believed himself to be the trusted subordinate and right-hand of Diavolo who was the Boss of Passione. In this form, Diavolo had a form of disguise that allowed him to interact socially with the rest of the outside world without exposing his true identity. He tended to transform into his true form only when there was the risk of someone uncovering his true identity or if someone angered him. When Doppio wanted to communicate with Diavolo, he tended to see any object as a phone such as a frog or an ice cream phone where he made a "rurururu~" (るるるる~) sound in emulation of a telephone ringing. He would then pick it up and speak as if he was genuinely on the phone with Diavolo and received instructions from him. Doppio was shown to be fairly innocent with him being a clumsy and goofy person in comparison to the more ruthless and monstrous Diavolo. As such, he was seen as being almost harmless to others where his kind and polite nature meaning that people tended to let their guard down around him. The only time this changed was when he received orders from Diavolo to eliminate someone or when he transformed into his other persona.

Diavolo himself was shown to be far more ruthless and brutal of a person who showed no mercy to others. He was fixated on being the 'king' and brooked no one challenging his throne as he believed only he was deserving of the position. In fact, he believed he was chosen by fate to rule and that fate similarly sent him challenges for him to maintain his position. Furthermore, he sought to prevent his identity from being known that he went to any means to eliminate those that could expose either him or his Stand. This extreme desire to erase his tracks meant that Diavolo would go to any length to see himself remain an enigma. This included even killing his own biological daughter to ensure that no one could use her to trace his identity. According to him, the only way for a person to grow was by erasing the past. He was shown as being intelligent as he was able to discern the nature of Silver Chariot Requiem's power and came upon a means of defeating it. Upon learning of the Stand Arrow's Requiem power, he sought to acquire it and use it on King Crimson as he believed only he deserved this power. Diavolo was not above retreating from a battle where it was said that he would disappear from society allowing him to escape. However, he would not do this if his enemies saw him flee as he felt it was a stain on his pride and that he could never be shown fleeing an enemy. Thus, he resolved to battle his foes instead and believed that King Crimson offered him an advantage over his foes.

It was shown that Diavolo cared little for others whether they were related to him or worked for him. When his other personality, Doppio was killed, Diavolo bore no visible emotion to it. He had a low opinion of his subordinates within Passione as he called their abilities trash. Diavolo stated he never would have guessed that Bucciaratti would have turned against him and the organization.

As Solido Naso, Diavolo came to be involved with a woman named Donatella Una. Unknown to him, she became pregnant with his child where Diavolo came to have a daughter named Trish Una (トリッシュ・ウナ Torisshu Una). However, he shared little parental affection for his child and instead saw her as a threat that would expose his identity. Thus, he had no qualms with personally trying to kill her and believed she was an example of how weakness stemmed from the past.

Powers and abilities

Diavolo was born an ordinary human being where he was noted to suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder. It was in Egypt when he uncovered the Arrow (矢 Ya) which upon piercing him gave him the supernatural power to manifest his life force as a Stand (スタンド Sutando). As a Stand User (スタンド使い Sutando Tsukai), Diavolo was able to summon a humanoid Stand that was a manifestation of his life energy that possessed its own unique powers. This was King Crimson (キング・クリムゾン Kingu Kurimuzon) that was a red-skinned humanoid with a smaller copy of its face located on its forehead called Epitaph (エピタフ Epitafu). The Stand had an ability linked to time where one of its powers was able to predict events of up to 10 seconds in the future with this being the ability of the smaller head. This gave him an element of precognition allowing him to perceive upcoming attacks and react accordingly. Diavolo was able to manifest this sub-Stand separately from his main one where it appeared on his or Doppio's forehead thus keeping it hidden by his hair. King Crimson's primary power was the capacity to erase time effectively causing a time skip where everything except Diavolo suddenly changed. It functioned the moment it was activated whereby the affected person was unable to perceive the events occurring and only experienced the outcome whilst Diavolo was free to operate within that space. Within that space, he could erase moments of time and leave the outcome of the act. An example would be where an attack commences with Diavolo erasing the moment where the attack connects to him leaving him unharmed. He can also freely move within this moment of time though could not attack a person. This allowed Diavolo and King Crimson to manoeuvre themselves around an opponent so that when time resumed he could position himself for his attack. To the attacker, Diavolo would have appeared one moment in the path of an attack only to suddenly disappear and be elsewhere to make his countermove. Similar to other Stands, King Crimson had a range of physical attacks with its effective range being 2-3 meters where it favoured single powerful strikes that either cleaved an opponent effortlessly or punched through their bodies rather than utilise a flurry of blows. It was shown to be quick enough to allow the Stand to block incoming weapon fire.

Due to familial ties, the energy of his soul was similar to that of his daughter Trish. Thus, those that could only see this soul energy could not distinguish Diavolo from Trish.

As the Boss, he was the leader of Passione (パッショーネ Passhōne, lit. Passion in Italian) that were a mafia gang that operated in Italy.

Notes

• Diavolo was created by Hirohiko Araki where he featured in the setting of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind.
• In Italian, his name translated to mean "Devil" whilst Doppio meant "Double".
• As detailed in JOJOVELLER, the concept of Epitaph being a smaller head on King Crimson's forehead was inspired by the character George/Kuato from the 1990 science fiction film Total Recall who was a mutated human with a smaller twin brother conjoined in his belly.
• According to a Top 10 List published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 2000, Diavolo was Araki's second favorite antagonist and 4th favorite character overall.

In other media

Television

• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Diavolo appeared as the primary antagonist in the anime television series where he was voiced by actor Katsuyuki Konishi.

Video games

• In GioGio's Bizarre Adventure, Diavolo appeared as the primary antagonist in the 2002 Capcom adventure game where he was voiced by actor Mitsuru Miyamoto.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle, Diavolo appeared as a playable character in the 2014 fighting video game where he was voiced by actor Toshiyuki Morikawa
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, Diavolo appeared as a playable character in the 2016 fighting video game where he was voiced once again by actor Toshiyuki Morikawa.

Appearances

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: "Golden Wind"

External Links

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Wiki Entry
• Comicvine Entry

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