Kakyoin Noriaki is one of the protagonist cast memebers featured in part 3 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Stardust Crusaders, and he is one of my favorite characters from the whole series. He's a character I found supremely relatable, as well as one with incredibly compelling writing. I'm not a huge fan of Part 3 overall, so his writing feels really stand-out to me. He's a chracter I've become so endeared to that he's become one of the token characters I steal personality traits from, and got me to finally cave and make an ita bag. My love for him comes from a variety of places, but he's such a well-rounded character that it's hard to know what to talk about first. I love you Kakyoin!!!

The best place to start would likely be his backstory, and oh man what a backstory it is. I don't think that "stands as a metaphor for neurodivergence" rings truer more than with Kakyoin's character. Being someone who also grew up incredibly lonely for being "odd", it's hard not to read into Kakyoin's past as a very lonely child in that regard. Of course, Kakyoin being a stand user is the main reason for this, but who's to say it's not for multiple reasons? Most autistic people can relate to being someone who ends up spending almost all of your childhood alone for percieved differences in the way you think or act, and that experience is so isolating and familiar.

This means that what Kakyoin seeks more than anything is friendship, and a desire to be seen and understood. When he meets Dio prior to the events of part 3, that's what Dio offers him. Dio is a master of manipulating people, using fear and charisma to bend to his will by preying upon people's desires, and this made Kakyoin a particularly susceptible to him. Dio could offer him things nobody else could up until that point: friendship and someone who understood his experience. It's not hard to imagine how good that must have sounded to a lonely teenager who nobody believed or listened to.

When he meets the rest of the Stardust Crusaders, and when he meets Jotaro and Jotaro saves him, he;s given his first real friend group, and he latches onto all of them hard. It's baby's first real group of friends who treat him seriously, and it's really endearing to watch the bonds he forms with the rest of the group. His personality really shines through with the Starudst Crusaders, where his politeness eventually gives way to a dry, sarcastic wit and an earnest care for those around him. He cracks jokes with Polnareff and Jotaro, and shares fun facts and tidbits of knowledge with the group, and Jotaro especially. Their relationship, even as a platonic friendship, is really dear to me, as they truly do feel like 2 autistic kids who finally found friends like them. Anyway, RIP Kakyoin, you would have loved going on Wikipedia deep dives.

Sometimes I get so sad though, thinking about how he died. He was only 17 years old, and off on a journey to save someone elses mother, while leaving his without a son. There's just like... a lot there. It makes me really emotional to think about how part of it had to be fueled by a desire for revenge, a part because of guilt, and part because he's just that kind. His death makes me feel actually sick to my stomach it's really upsetting to think about.

I think overall, Kakyoin is a character who just feels very relatable to me, and this has really endeared him to me overall. Even if Part 3 is not my overall favorite part, he is one of my favorite characters. I love you Kakyoin Noriaki.

Hierophant Green is a really interesting stand to me, in part because of how it's used. It's obviously the first long-ranged stand we see in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, but it's also a stand with some pretty unique abilities. It's not a wholly long-ranged stand, as it can form into one entity for close-quarters combat as well. What interests me the most though, is how Kakyoin uses his stand.

The fight between him and Jotaro at the start of the manga is a really interesting insight into the stand's abilities, as well as his own fighting style. Within this fight is the only time we see Kakyoin use his stand's ability to possess something, and this particularly strikes me. Since he's under the influence of Dio's fleshbud, it's safe to say that him using Hierophant Green to possess someone is not something he is entirely comfortable with when in control of his actions. Whether he chooses not to use it due to guilt, moral questioning, or preference is entirely up to the reader, but I imagine it to be some combination of all three.

I think some regard this as Araki having simply forgot, and while in some cases that is true, I don't think this is one of them. It seems like a pretty intentional choice to have Kakyoin refrain from doing this again. He seems to prefer having his stand simply be tendrils scattered about, or hiding somewhere, but never again do we see this possession trick. I think it's interesting!

Stands as a reflection of their user is also very interesting to me, and I think Hierophant green as reflection of Kakyoin is very interesting. It being noted that Kakyoin prefers to hide is really telling to me, essentially stating that Kakyoin prefers to be (or learned to be) as unobtrusive as possible. I find this to once again be a very interesting addition to a read of his character.

The way that Jojo's fans treat Kakyoin really pisses me off. I don't use social media much anymore (10 minutes of alotted scroll-time to look at blorbos), so I don't usually see the worst of it, but what I do see makes me so irationally angry because it's just... not him. At all. It's particularly bad in fanfiction, where I'm forced to read hundreds of words of bad faith takes, so I'm ranting about it here. Since this is my shrine to Kakyoin, I can put my essay on Kakyoin here. So, here is a list of things Kakyoin is not.

1. A MILF Hunter. When he makes ONE SINGULAR COMMENT about Jotaro's mom, it's pretty clear that he says someone like her. He's making a comment about her kindness and generosity, not about how bad he wants to fuck Jotaro's mom. Literally it baffles me because Kakyoin says something pretty tame and gets the MILF-hunter treatment, but Okuyasu literally is like "Josuke your mom's hot" and nobody treats him like that. Which like, thank God, I'm not asking them to start, because he's also not, but it just baffles me sorta, the difference in treatment.

2. A Polnareff hater. I honestly don't get why I see so many people who write Kakyoin to hate Polnareff or be unecessarily mean to him? The two of them have a pretty strong bond with each other in my opinion, and while Kakyoin's style of humor is pretty dry and sarcastic, I can't think of a single time where Kakyoin was outright hostile to him. They honestly just act like siblings. Whatever. I think people are just sorta dumb.

3. A MLG Pro Gamer. Outdated term, but I don't know what a modern name equivalent would be. Oh well. Anyway, I think this one is mostly done as a bit, but it feels absurdly common in modern au fics (which... I don't even know why I read these. I hate modern au fics and similar au fics to begin with). I think he is good at video games, but in the same way that every lonely bullied autistic kid is good at video games. Also, it was 1989. He was playing Tetris in an arcade or F-Zero on a Famicom, not like... calling people slurs in CoD lobbies or whatever. Which isn't something I've read, but was something that I felt like was going to happen in a couple fics.

4. Someone who exclusively likes cherries. This, I think, is more of a thing I see from reeaaaally old fan content, but it's my website so I can talk about what I want. It's just a baffling form of woobification. His hobby can't be 'liking cherries', that makes no sense. Old fandom was just like this though (war flashbacks to the Creepypasta fandom Ticci Toby waffle obsession thing). This is not to say that a cherry motif is a bad thing, I actually think it's really endearing. I love how many Jojo's characters have recognizable motifs, it makes them feel more real. I just think that making it his only personalityh trait is... odd? Whatever.

5. A uke. Sorry for throwing an oldhead yaoi term out there, but I really couldn't think of a more concise way of putting it. Making him this waifish feminine twink bottom character really really bothers me. I think this is partially the fault of CLAMP doujinshi, but it's crazy to me that it's still egregious in 2025. Like... His shoulders are fucking huge in part 3. He's not the Most jacked character, but he's not fucking scrawny either. I also hate it because this is all done almost entirely in service of a relationship with Jotaro, and while I love the pairing of them, it really irks me to see a character dumbed down in favor of a ship.

My friend and I have speculated that part of the mischaracterization comes from how David Production animates Kakyoin, because they removed a lot of the subtle humor of his character (ie like... the way he has really silly facial expressions) gets lost. Anyway, I just really like Kakyoin, so the way he gets woobified and treated by fandom makes me sad. I'm glad the Jojo's friends I have decided I am the CEO of Kakyoin (it's because he's literally me), but people rarely send me fanart of him because half of it would make me incredibly angry. It makes me feel like I'm in the FF7 fandom again liking Sephiroth. Now I'm no longer 15 and am less of a pushover and incredibly mean about stuff I don't like. History doomed to repeat itself.