Rohan at the Louvre (a review)

I can review a manga, right? I mean, manga are basically comic books that you read backwards. It’s still a visual medium that can be republished into English graphic novels. This is still on brand for me, right?

Ah, what the hell. It’s my platform, I can do whatever I want.

Rohan at the Louvre is a graphic novel, written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki, with a bizarre history. (See what I did there?) It was first featured at the Louvre in an exhibit called “The Louvre Invites The Comics” in 2009; yes, really. It was then published in Japanese by Shueisha in 2011 then in English by NBM Publishing in 2012. Probably the craziest publishing history I’ve encountered so far.

Before I describe the plot, I’m going to explain the origin of this story because it’s actually a spin-off comic.

Rohan, the protagonist of this comic, is a side character from Araki’s most popular work, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s a multi-generational tale about members of the Jojo family going on bizarre adventures to defeat evil with their “Stands”, invisible entities bound to their users that have unique powers. Rohan’s Stand, Heaven’s Door, has the ability to read people like a book (literally) and can even “edit” people’s memories (he has a few more abilities but that’s all you need to know for now). As a side note, some of the Stands are…