Yukako, maaaaannnn: A thoughtsplat (feat. My favourite shitty spider-licker)
[CW: Jojo Part 4 spoilers]
Something I've thought about from time to time is why I trust Rohan around Koichi more than I do Yukako.
And honestly, I think what it comes down to is that... Rohan just got a whole lot more time devoted to showing the development of his relationship with Koichi.
Rohan starts off as this unhinged whackjob who's willing to literally rip a 15-year-old fan's lifespan away bit by bit just so he can get more inspiration for his manga. After rightly getting the crap beaten out of him by Josuke, he comes back claiming that he's changed and seemingly wanting to befriend Koichi now. Understandably, Koichi doesn't trust him, although Rohan manages to manipulate the poor lad into accompanying him into a haunted alleyway anyway. Over time, we see Rohan attempt to force build up a friendship with Koichi. A turning point comes when Rohan is attacked by Cheap Trick and Koichi comes back for him. Rohan is moved to the brink of tears and comments on how good a friend Koichi is, clearly establishing that Rohan really is now unlikely to purposely harm Koichi like he'd claimed before. What then finally cements this, in my opinion, is when Rohan 'dies' screaming Koichi's name, his last thoughts having been to tell his friend what he'd just discovered about Kira Yoshikage's identity.
Yukako? She stalks, kidnaps, torments, humiliates, and finally tries to kill Koichi. After he purposely saves her life, she disappears for a bit. ... Then she's shown stalking him again, and uses stand fuckery to artificially make him love her. Although she seems to have softened a bit towards Koichi for now, her fiery temper leads her to attack the woman she made a deal with when she herself fails to uphold her end of the bargain and literally cause car crashes and not give a fuck. All this happens over a very short period of time. With the apparent happy end to this story, we're supposed to believe that Yukako has changed for the better now and won't hurt Koichi any more... despite everything we've just seen.
There's no gradual development. It's just BOOM she's changed towards him now, happy ending, here ya go. And I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it hardly seems fair, given alllll the time that Rohan got to show his character development.
And come to think of it... I know loads of random little things about Rohan. He likes Led Zeppelin and Sailor Moon. He had expensive furniture that matched some seen in Pretty Woman... before it was destroyed in the fire he accidentally started anyway, whoops. (Josuke is innocent!) He likes travelling. Despite him acting like he thinks the ~greatest mangaka evaaarrrr~, every single week he gets so worried that his story will fail to hold people's interest that he gets discouraged until it's time to get another issue drawn. And so on and so forth.
What do I know about Yukako, other than her fiery temper, her stand, the fact that she's a Sagittarian, and the fact that she can apparently put together a decent bento?
... ... ... ... Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Fuckin' nothin', basically.
What's her favourite food? What music does she listen to? What does she like to do in her free time? Where are her parents??
I don't know the answer to any of these questions.
Now, as of posting (Aug 2021) it has been six years since I read the DIU manga and five years since I watched the anime, (Blimey o_o) so perhaps I have forgotten some things. But even so, I can't help but feel that as much as I like that Araki-sensei wanted to challenge the moe cliche with a female character who was capable of being frightening... Yukako never really got to be more than a statement. Where Rohan got to be a really fleshed-out, complex character, Yukako was just... never afforded that. And that's a real shame, because I feel like she had the potential to be so much more than what she got to be.