Age: 18 (Part 2), 68 (Part 3), 78 (Part 4)
Birthday: September 27, 1920
Zodiac: Libra
Height: 195 cm (6'5")
Weight: 97 kg (214 lb)
Blood type: B
Nationality: British-American
Occupation: real estate agent
Stand: Hermit Purple
Joseph Joestar is the main protagonist of the second part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series, Battle Tendency, and the second JoJo of the series. He also appears as a primary ally in Stardust Crusaders (Part 3) and a secondary ally in Diamond is Unbreakable (Part 4).
Joseph is a natural-born Ripple user and eventual Stand user, wielding the psychic photographic Stand, Hermit Purple. An exuberant troublemaker with an exceptional talent for trickery, Joseph meets the fantastic threats approaching him throughout his life with initiative and impressive ingenuity, battling Vampires, the Pillar Men, and malevolent Stand users.
Background:
Part 2: Battle Tendency
Joseph is a young, hotheaded, impetuous, and confrontational young man. Quick to violently respond to the slightest provocation, Joseph would often get into brawls growing up, being imprisoned seven times and expelled once from school for fighting.
Having no respect for authority save for his grandmother's, and later Lisa Lisa's, Joseph has antagonized policemen and mafiosi alike. Furthermore, Joseph is a foul-mouthed individual and regularly taunts his enemies, enjoying aggravating them.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
Joseph has considerably mellowed out, having lost much of his aggression and laziness. His self-confidence and penchant for befriending people are still present, as he tends to approach the locals first and communicate with them.
Joseph is much more responsible than in Battle Tendency, being more proactive in his quest to Egypt, and also sometimes reminding his younger companions of their goals when they are distracted.
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable
Joseph's advancing age has weakened his mind and he appears to have become somewhat senile. Joseph is now a pacified and even weak-willed man. Despite this, Joseph is still a well-meaning old man who is willing to risk his life for others.
Timeline:
Part 2: Battle Tendency
Joseph goes to Mexico in search of Speedwagon and ends up fighting against one of the Pillar Men, Santana. Joseph manages to defeat Santana thanks to the sunlight and its angle hitting right toward him.
During the battle, Joseph learns that three more "Pillar Men" have been discovered underneath the Colosseum in Rome, which requires Joseph to visit Rome to stop them.
After arriving in Rome, Joseph witnesses the awakening of the remaining Pillar Men, finding himself in a battle. To protect his new friend, Ceaser, Joseph tricks one of the Pillar Men, Wamuu, to fight against him after a month when he is stronger.
Accepting the deal, Wamuu and the other Pillar Men, Esidisi, implant a "wedding ring" that acts as a timely bomb if Joseph doesn't defeat them in a month. In order to get stronger, Joseph goes to Venice to meet his Ceaser's teacher.
Joseph and Ceaser meet their instructor, Lisa Lisa, and go to a very intensive Ripple training at their instructor's base, Air Supplena Island. After a three-week training, Joseph has to defeat Loggins, Lisa Lisa's servant, in order to be recognized as a Ripple user.
However, Joseph ends up fighting Esidisi, one of the Pillar Men who killed Loggins to retrieve an item on the island. Joseph manages to defeat Esidisi, but later on learns that Esidisi sent the valuable item he was looking for to the other Pillar Men, Kars.
To retrieve the item, Joseph leaves the island with Ceaser to go to Switzerland, where Kars was present.
When Joseph arrives at the hotel in Switzerland where the remaining Pillar Men were hiding, he retrieves the antidote for the poison inside his body. However, he rejects to drink it until he defeats the Pillar Men to pay respect to his companion, Ceasear.
Joseph proceeds to face off against Wamuu at a deadly Roman-style chariot race/battle. Despite losing his chariot in the early stages of the battle, and choosing the wrong weapon, he defeats Wamuu and pays his honor as a warrior.
Later on, Joseph challenges Kars, the last Pillar Men, due to his treachery against his allies. The two go into an intense battle where Joseph steals an airplane and makes Kars fall to an active volcano.
Even though Joseph achieves his goal, of dropping Kars to the volcano, he still manages to survive. When Kars launches toward Joseph to kill him, Joseph uses the red stone of Aja to absorb Kars's ripple and throw it into the volcano.
The stone explodes and causes an eruption. Joseph smartly uses the debris to push Kars against the Earth's orbit and defeats Kars indefinitely.
After the battle, a funeral is held for the presumably-dead Joseph, but Joseph himself crashes the event and reveals that after he fell back down from the sky, he ended up in Italy where he was helped by some local fisherman and nursed back to health by Suzi Q. Moreover, he reveals that he got married to Suzi Q.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
In 1987, Joseph is called by Holy who needs his expertise in an "evil spirit" that is possessing her son, Jotaro Kujo. After meeting with Jotaro in prison, and explaining to him the concept of "Stand," Joseph temporarily moves to his daughter's, Holy, house.
During his stay, an emergency family event occurs, forcing Joseph to find and kill Dio to break his link to the Joestar line in fifty days. Thanks to his stand, Hermit Purple, Joseph, and his companions find Dio's location, which happens to be in Egypt.
During the continuation of this journey, Joseph ends up with a small crew of five people, including himself, traveling around the world to reach Egypt and defeat Dio Brando. Joseph and the team travel through countless countries including Singapore, India, Pakistan, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Upon arrival in Egypt, Joseph and the team are informed that they have to face the "Egypt 9 Glory Gods" who were the henchmen of Dio Brando. After defeating all nine henchmen of Dio, Brando, Joseph, and the crew face the leader himself, Dio Brando, in his mansion.
During the final battle, Joseph manages to learn the secret power of Dio Brando's stand, "The World." Even though he attempts to inform Jotaro Kujo about it, Joseph is stabbed through his throat and taken out by Dio's stand.
After the team beats Dio Brando, Speedwagon Foundation performs an emergency blood transplant from Dio's body, and with the help of Jotaro Kujo's stand, Star Platinum, Joseph is revived.
Being fully healed, Joseph went back to Japan to check on his daughter, Holy. In Japan, Holy awoke fully healed and freed from the curse, marking an end to a 50-day-long excruciating journey.
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable
Joseph learns of the illegitimate son from his fling with Tomoko Higashikata, who kept the child's existence a secret until he was 16 years of age. When Joseph attempted to use his Stand to get a picture of Josuke, he discovers an ominous figure in the photos instead, prompting Jotaro to go to Morioh to investigate.
Joseph ultimately travels to Morioh to help localize Akira Otoishi. There, he meets Okuyasu Nijimura, charged with body-guarding him as Akira Otoishi wants to get rid of Joseph.
Due to aging terribly, no longer being able to walk without a cane, wearing spectacles, being hard of hearing, and not being as athletic as he used to be, Joseph spends his time in Morioh as a spectator/caretaker of a baby who happens to be invisible.
By the end, Joseph adopts the baby and names her Shizuka. When he and Jotaro leave Morioh, Joseph assures the latter that the people of the town have "hearts of gold."
Stand - Hermit Purple
Ability type: Close-Range, Reconnaissance
Form type: Natural Non-Humanoid
Power: Spirit Photography
Joseph's Stand, Hermit Purple, manifests itself as a tangle of thorny vines, which Joseph can wield as both a weapon and a hazardous defense. Furthermore, it has been shown to conduct the Ripple, which makes Hermit Purple one of the more effective Stands against those weak to it such as Vampires.
One of its special abilities is to use cameras, televisions, and other things to perform a form of fortune-telling referred to as "spirit photography."
