Sign “☮” the Times Movie HD Rerelease to have Special Hirohiko Araki Interview

This is the album cover of Prince’s ninth studio album Sign o’ the Times, stylized Sign “☮” the Times. It was released in 1987 to incredible praise and is considered his greatest work. It had a movie adaptation later in the same year going by the same name.

Why the impromptu music history lesson? Well, the movie was released in Japan in 1989 and is now slated to get an HD remastering that will run in theaters on January 25th in celebration of its 25 year release anniversary. That showing will have a limited number of brochures containing a special interview with Hirohiko Araki speaking about the influences artists in the rock world like Prince have had on him.

This is a very interesting prospect because Prince has been a figure of interest in the western JoJo fandom. On one hand, JoJo’s is fab to the max. In some ways, it seems to fit with Prince’s aesthetic, so it feels like he should be cool with it. On the other, there’s an old rumor that he once heard about the use of The Gold Experience as the name of a particular stand and was not happy about it. I myself have used that rumor as an example of the difficulties of localizing JoJo’s for English audiences, though I’m not sure where it started or if there’s any weight to it. To have the two artists in conjunction like this, small a connection as it is, could speak to quelling that rumor forever. Or it could be a coincidence, and Araki’s just a cool dude to get an interview from when talking about musical influence.

You can see more information on the special HD release of the movie here. It may end up containing some more Araki goodies eventually. I’d love to see his version of the movie’s cover.

(Image from Wikipedia. Thanks to the post from Araki-JoJo)

Preorders for JOJOveller Now Open!

We’ve run out the clock. It’s time for JOJOveller. (Sound Warning)

A massive compilation cap to everything about the 25th Anniversary of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Artwork, documentaries, interviews, the works. It’s all here.

The Artbook

The JOJOveller Artbook focuses mainly on Parts 6 through 8. It contains some stunning artwork in the same vein as the artwork in JOJOmenon. Also, it blows up because Kira got into the production line.

The Stand Book

You know how there were little readouts on the Stands in between chapters that gave a brief overview of a Stand’s ability, powers, and whatnot? This is going to be that, but so much more comprehensive. Power ratings, ability comprehension, various artworks, and all for every single Stand that has appeared since Part 3.

The History Book

The History “Book” is actually a book and video interview with Araki. Go back in time and look at everything JoJo including Araki himself stepping back and looking at his whole 25 year magnum opus where he will apparently be revealing classified JoJo information that we’ve never heard before. Maybe he’ll explain how Gold Experience Requiem works.

The Documentaries

There are two documentaries in this collection. The first one is the JOJOmenon video that was part of an Ultra Jump release a little bit ago. They put up a new, more robust preview video.

The second one is a little sitdown with Araki at his desk walking us through his creative process in “The Making of JoJo.”

The amount of artistic media that he goes through to make his artwork. I never would have guessed he uses airbrushes.

Special

This isn’t as much part of the book itself as the PV I embedded up at the top. The big deal for this page, though, is the bonus images. All these pictures that I’ve been using are on the page, but what they are is the physical JOJOveller book being affected by different stand powers. You can probably guess what most of them are. The site will release all these pictures on a schedule as wallpapers for desktops. Currently, the only available ones are Echoes Act 3 and Cream. They’re all available in two sizes. The next one, the exploding one, will be available on the 26th.

So how do you get it? Reservations for copies are now available through a number of different sites and also a printout order form you presumably mail in to somewhere. I would go through the Amazon page. It’s going for the heavy price of ¥20,000 ($209) and here’s the big part: JOJOmenon will officially ship on September 19th, but preorders are only being accepted until Tuesday May 7th, Japanese Standard Time. If you’re looking to own, you need to move fast.

Edit: There will also be information released alongside Chapter 19 of JoJolion in the most recent Ultra Jump.

(All images Copyright Luckyland Communicaitons, Hirohiko Araki, and Shueisha)