Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Jotaro’s Name is Actually an Easter Egg
In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, every protagonist has a name specially crafted to contain the nickname Jojo, but Jotaro Kujo’s name takes it up a notch.
You Are Reading :Jojos Bizarre Adventure Jotaros Name is Actually an Easter Egg
There’s always some meaning in a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure character’s name, but sometimes a secondary meaning can crop up all on their own. At least, that certainly seems to have been the case for Stardust Crusaders’ Jotaro Kujo.
In Jojo, each protagonist has had a name which can be shortened to or read as “Jojo,” carrying the theme forward across protagonists throughout the series. The first few Jojos are obvious: Jonathan Joestar and Joseph Joestar are ordinary English names that can be clearly shortened, and Jonathan is even referred to as Jojo in-universe by Dio, among others. Diamond Is Unbreakable’s protagonist Josuke Higashikata’s name seems like it might break the pattern at first, but his name relies on the ability to read Japanese Kanji characters in two different ways, with one reading resulting in that “Jo” sound. Even Golden Wind’s Giorno Giovanna can be shortened down to “GioGio,” which sounds the same.
Where it starts to get complicated is with Jotaro. Japanese names are generally read family name before given name, so he’d be more properly addressed as Kujo Jotaro, which leaves a “Jojo” in the middle. The same can be said for his daughter from part 6, Jolyne Cujoh. Since Jotaro was the first member of the Joestar family shown to be from Japan, it made sense to give him a name that would be just as normal there as Jonathan or Joseph would be in the west. Jotaro is a fairly common given name in Japan, and -taro, in particular, is a common suffix seen in other names, like Kentaro. But in Jotaro’s case, his name hints at a connection with the greater plot of the series.
While the pattern didn’t last forever, every early Stand introduced in Stardust Crusaders has a name that plays off a particular Tarot card of the Major Arcana, the 22 cards used in fortune telling. Jotaro’s Star Platinum, Joseph’s Hermit Purple, and Avdol’s Magician’s Red, for example, are all references to cards, as is Dio’s The World, which is the highest-ranked at 21. Even the additional villains encountered in Egypt have connections to Tarot, such as the Thoth stand, which references a particular style of Tarot deck named for the Book of Thoth.
Though there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that it’s deliberate, Jotaro’s name coincidentally sounds a lot like Tarot, at least in English. The naming scheme comes up almost immediately when Jotaro Kujo meets his grandfather and learns about Stands, since they (or the Speedwagon Foundation) seem to have taken to naming these themselves. In Japanese, “Tarot” is usually written as “tarotto,” indicating it doesn’t have the silent “t” that it does in English. However, it’s also common to abbreviate Japanese words by trimming them down to the first two syllables, which in that case would still be “taro”– just like Jotaro.
It may be impossible to say for sure if this little Easter egg was done on purpose, but either way, this detail ties Jotaro in to the story of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders in a unique way that other Jojo protagonists aren’t.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/jojos-bizarre-adventure-jotaro-name-easter-egg/