Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: At a Confessional

Following the release of Rohan at the Louvre, I continued to keep up with the live-action Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (TSKR) drama as it became available in English, and remain a big fan of it for how well it translates the world of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to live-action. When another film based on the series, Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: At a Confessional (At a Confessional) (JP: Kishibe Rohan wa Ugokanai Zange-shitsu), was announced, this time based on the original At a Confessional manga one-shot that started the spin-off manga, I was instantly hyped for it, both as someone who read the one-shot and watched the OVA adaptation, and based on how well Rohan at the Louvre turned out. This hype was instantly all but completely shattered as soon as I heard about how the music was handled (more on that later), but I still wanted to see it anyway once it became available in the US. Now that I’ve finally seen it through Amazon Prime Video, while I did think it was worth the wait to see it in English, it overall falls just shy of Rohan at the Louvre.

Rohan at the Louvre

Even if you’ve never heard of mangaka Hirohiko Araki, chances are you’ve at least heard of his best-known and longest-running work, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, a multigenerational epic about the Joestar family and their battle against evil (currently at Part 9 in Japan as of this writing). Following the publication of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable, Araki made the one-shot “At a Confessional,” the first in what would become a series of one-shots in the spin-off series Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (TSKR), centered around the character Rohan Kishibe from Diamond is Unbreakable. During the run of the Diamond is Unbreakable anime, a handful of these one-shots were adapted into a series of OVAs, later followed by an unrelated live-action drama adaptation with the same name that currently runs at 3 Seasons. When I first heard about the drama series, I assumed it would remain exclusive to Japan, which I also assumed of the related live-action film, Rohan at the Louvre (JP: Rohan au Louvre, Kishibe Rohan Rūvuru e Iku), itself based on the similarly-named one-shot, when it was first announced. Once I heard that Amazon would bring the film overseas via Prime Video, I also learned that the drama was also available on the same platform, sub-only and free for Prime members, so I finally got to watch the drama in preparation for watching the film.

As someone who has read the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan one-shots currently available in English, after watching the drama and seeing some of the liberties taken with it to form a more cohesive narrative across each Season, as well as to wholly disconnect it from the original context of Diamond is Unbreakable to make it more accessible to those unfamiliar with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, I would say that they did a fantastic job in this regard and that it’s the perfect way for someone to dip their toe in the world of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure without having to commit to starting from Phantom Blood. As someone who has also read the English translation of the Rohan at the Louvre one-shot, I felt it worked as both a faithful adaptation of the source material and an enjoyable movie in its own right.