Characters / JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Yoshikage Kira

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Main Character Index
Phantom Blood: DIO
Battle Tendency: Joseph Joestar
Stardust Crusaders: The Joestar Group (Jotaro Kujo | Jean-Pierre Polnareff) | Egypt 9 Glory Gods | DIO's Household
Diamond is Unbreakable: Heroes | Yoshikage Kira
Golden Wind: Team Bucciarati (Giorno Giovanna) | La Squadra di Esecuzioni | The Boss
Stone Ocean: Heroes | Enrico Pucci
Steel Ball Run
JoJolion: The Higashikata Family
The JOJOLands
One-Shot Characters | Spinoff Characters

Character subpage for Yoshikage Kira, the main antagonist of Diamond is Unbreakable.

Beware of spoilers.

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Yoshikage Kira (Stand: Killer Queen^note Sheer Heart Attack, Killer Queen Bites the Dust)

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (TV anime, JP, Last Survivor, and All-Star Battle R), D.C. Douglas (TV anime, EN), Rikiya Koyama (All-Star Battle and Eyes of Heaven), José Gilberto Vilchis (TV anime, Latin American Spanish)
Sheer Heart Attack voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (TV anime, JP and All-Star Battle R), D.C. Douglas (TV anime, EN), Tsutomu Kashiwakura (All-Star Battle)

"Let's head inside. A sublime weekend is beyond those doors. It'll be our getaway..."

^{Click here to see him as Kosaku.}
"I was born with a certain set of desires, so I simply try to make the most of it. Life's better that way."

^{Click here to see his matured self.}
"Once the wheels of fate are set in motion, there's no turning them back, Hayato."

^{Click here to see him in Dead Man's Questions.}
"My name is Yoshikage Kira. I can't remember when or how I died, but one thing I can say is I feel certain I will not go to Heaven..."

"For as long as I could remember, I've done everything in my power to live a productive life that allows me to pursue a lasting inner peace. This may be a foreign concept, but I choose not to concern myself with winning or losing, life's troubles, or enemies who bring sleepless nights. That is how I cope with this backwards life we find ourselves living. It's what brings me happiness in a world fraught with hardship and misery. Of course, if I were ever to engage in combat, I would win the battle without question."

This seemingly boring man works as a typical salaryman during the day, but he is secretly the mysterious serial killer who has terrorized Morioh for nearly 20 years. He has an erotic fascination with hands, and targets beautiful women so he can keep their severed hands and treat them as "girlfriends", dinner dates and all, until they finally rot. Kira first runs afoul of the heroes when he is forced to kill a student who accidentally discovers Kira's current girlfriend. A chase ensues, but Kira is clever enough to get Aya Tsuji to alter his face with Cinderella to resemble a local nobody, and gets away, murdering both Aya and the office worker. The rest of Diamond is Unbreakable deals with the JoJo team searching for him.

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A-H

• Abusive Parents: Played with in regards to Hayato, as he isn't actually Hayato's father, but just posing as him. This didn't prevent Kira from killing him, and later planting Bites the Dust on him.
• The Ace: He's shown to be pretty gifted in a variety of things he could have excelled in despite lacking the motivation to do so, lives in a luxurious home with a well-to-do job, and is shown to be quite popular with the ladies. Too bad he's also a psychopathic serial killer.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Despite all three of his looks being very attractive in the original manga due to Araki's signature style, the anime makes his original face less skeletal and prettier. Additionally, his Kosaku face is more chiseled and touched-up than in the manga.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Has several cameos in the anime before his proper debut. His full appearance is during the Red Hot Chilli Pepper arc as an ordinary bystander.
• Adaptational Villainy: He was already a nasty piece of work, but the live-action movie adds to his list of crimes by making him, not Akira, the one who kills Keicho.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In his matured state after gaining Bites the Dust, his hair color differs in the anime compared to the manga and games. In the manga and games his hair is green with black stripes. This coloration does appear in the anime during one of its Once an Episode color shifts, but the default color is white with black stripes.
• Advertised Extra: Downplayed. He's still the overall Big Bad, but Kira in his original look only appeared in two arcs before he forcefully switched his face with that of Kosaku, to the point where Kosaku is considered the Part 4 Big Bad in All-Star Battle, while regular Kira is relegated to DLC.
• Affably Evil: He is very clearly psychopathic and an unabashed Serial Killer, but take these two aspects out of the equation, and Kira is a relatively decent guy who is very poised, formal, and on good terms with the public (at least, with those who he doesn't kill or don't know what he's been doing behind the scenes).
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Once becoming a ghostly vagabond in Dead Man's Questions, Kira becomes a much mellower person than he was when he was alive, but this appears to be the result of him having amnesia and not remembering his previous life, to the point of not knowing his name was Yoshikage Kira for a while.
• Animal Motifs: Cats. His Stand Killer Queen has very feline features, he can be dangerous when his lifestyle is threatened, and he even gets a power boost from a Stand called Stray Cat. Kira's finicky mannerisms and constant need to trim his nails also fit the motif, and later on he ends up living with a pet cat and gains a pet "cat" of his own. The tendency for his nails to spontaneously grow a lot when he gets an urge to kill can also be likened to a cat extending its claws. Similarly to how cats often hunt for sport rather than for food, Kira's killings are driven not by material need but out of habit and compulsion.
  • The English dub turns this up when a furious Okuyasu calls him a "cat-eyed freak" during their final confrontation.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • He is this to his first victim Reimi Sugimoto. Not only was he responsible for her death, but also of her parents and beloved pet Arnold as well. For over fifteen years, Reimi became a wandering spirit, refusing to pass on to the afterlife until Kira is brought to justice. It was Reimi and Arnold who dealt the finishing blow to Kira, ensuring that his spirit would not pass on peacefully.
  • To Rohan. Initially, Rohan's pursuit of Kira was more out of a desire to alleviate his boredom and inspire his writing material. However, when he discovers that Reimi died to protect him from Kira when he was still a child, his search for Kira became much more personal. He is also the most proactive of the heroes in tracking down Kira after the latter took on a new identity, so much so that Kira's father chooses to target Rohan specifically on various occasions. Rohan also becomes the first victim to Bites the Dust, with Kira commenting that Rohan's death would bring him great joy.
  • After Kira murdered Shigechi, he becomes one to Josuke as well. This is reinforced by the fact that Kira and Josuke's Stand abilities are polar opposites, to the point that Kira considers Josuke, and not Jotaro as he initially thought, to be the most dangerous threat to his "quiet life".
  • In Kira's eyes, he views Jotaro and Koichi to be this, viewing them responsible for his predicament of being forced to hide under a new identity. It was Koichi who first uncovered Kira's identity by stealing his driver's license, dealing a heavy blow to the serial killer's ego. Conversely, his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at Jotaro's hands causes Kira to fear him, to the point that he mentions that the reason he awakened Bites the Dust was out of a desire to avoid another encounter with Jotaro.
  • But out of all of them, he is perhaps this the most to Hayato Kawajiri, the boy whose father Kira had murdered and replaced. Hayato's suspicions towards Kira made it more difficult for Kira to acclimate to his life as Kosaku, culminating in Hayato capturing Kira's murder of a couple on camera and being used as a Tyke Bomb for Kira's Bites the Dust. It was Hayato who thwarted Bites the Dust, and sets in motion the chain of events that would lead to Kira's downfall.
• Asshole Victim: As he struggles to get up after being pummeled by Star Platinum, he's run over by an ambulance car by mere accident. While everyone around is appalled, his death elicited no remorse given the bastard he was.
• Ax-Crazy: A very subdued example. From his debut alone, you should get the hint that there's something horribly wrong with his psyche. Killer Queen also developed out of his desire for murder, and before he gained it, he was especially brutal to his victims.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Kira does have a nice business suit even when committing murder.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Dead Man's Questions shows that after his defeat and subsequent death at the hands of the Ghost Alley's hands, he wanders as a revenant in Morioh, having lost Killer Queen, but can't go to either heaven or hell.
• Becoming the Mask: A downplayed example. He grows to care for his "wife" Shinobu while masquerading as her husband, instinctively protecting her during his fight with Stray Cat (although whether this is due to actual feelings or a sense of self-preservation from attracting attention is rather ambiguous).
• Berserk Button: As Koichi learned, mocking his ability to keep his identity a secret is a good way to get a fist through your chest. And even if he's not immediately plotting to kill anybody, do not insult his special bowling pin nail clippers, or else he'll stalk you home, force you to apologize, and then blow you up.
• Big Bad: He is the primary villain of Diamond is Unbreakable despite not showing up until the halfway point. Unlike most villains in the series, Kira wants to have a "peace and quiet life"; it's when the heroes threaten his desire for a quiet life that he becomes dangerous.
• Body Horror: What he does to his victims notwithstanding, he takes a horrific amount of damage in his fight with Josuke before he gets run down by an ambulance that crushes his skull and peels the flesh from his face. Then, when the hands of the dead in the ghost alley drag him away, they tear Killer Queen apart, which also breaks him up. In the anime adaptation, you can even see a split-second shot of his exposed skull as he disappears.
• Body Motifs: Hands. Kira is all about hands, and his whole MO as a killer is taking his one of his victims' hands since he explicitly has a fetish for them. His Red Right Hand concerns his hands (his fingernails to be exact), his bomb ability comes from Killer Queen touching things with its hands, and Sheer Heart Attack is deployed from his left hand. In his first notable battle against the heroes, his hands take special focus, as the weight damage to Sheer Heart Attack begins damaging his left hand, causing him to return to fight the heroes personally, and at the end of the battle he slices his hand off to deploy Sheer Heart Attack independently.
• Born Lucky:
  • Kira often finds himself on the end of much good fortune and lucky coincidences that help his plans. At one point, he even boasts of having fate on his side. Ironically, this plays heavily into his defeat, as Kira boasting about his fortune alerts Josuke to his true identity, and later he is run over by an ambulance that was called to help him, by chance. See also Meaningful Name.
  • Probably a great example of Kira's luck is the fact that prior to the heroes being on his trail, when we see his day-to-day life, one realizes that Kira takes basically no precautions to not be caught. He blatantly walks with the severed hand of his latest victim in his inner jacket pocket (with his strict adherence to his routine, this implies he does this regularly), takes the hand out of his jacket and waves it around in busy sandwich shops and even in a crowded park, all while talking to it. And no one ever notices. The man has done this for over 15 years and never raised suspicions.
• Break the Haughty: His encounter with Koichi and Jotaro results in a Humiliation Conga for him and dealt a heavy blow to his pride. Koichi caused Kira to humiliate himself in public as a result of Echoes Act 3, and managed to uncover his identity by stealing his driver's license. Jotaro, on his part, gave Kira a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, destroying his notion that his Stand Killer Queen is invincible, so much so that Kira dreaded having to encounter Jotaro in the future.
• Breakout Villain: Probably the second most iconic villain in the franchise after DIO. He even becomes the protagonist in the spin-off Dead Man's Questions.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • Kira is shown to be extremely gifted in many areas, but deliberately holds himself back so as not to stand out. All out of wanting to keep things simple, since attention from others regarding his intelligence would make things irritating.
  • He has a very dangerous Stand, yet he doesn't try honing Killer Queen's abilities or improve his own combat training, instead preferring to stick to his normal daily routine. He persists in this even when he's fully aware that a group of Stand users are attempting to hunt him down.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • The only thing that'll disrupt his daily routine is his "current girlfriend" becoming "ripe" (i.e. starting to decompose), provoking him into hunting out a new one next time he feels the need to. Even when Jotaro and Koichi are hunting him out, he's not particularly concerned; once Sheer Heart Attack is deployed, he considers the matter concluded and resumes his normal business, walking down the streets of Morioh and visiting a café to take a break.
  • This also applies to his victims as well, as he doesn't even bother trying to remember their names. Subverted though in regards to his first victim Reimi. While he initially doesn't recognize her when meeting her in the Ghost Girl's Alley, upon seeing the wounds he inflicted on her, he quickly realizes who she is. Also, when Shigechi finds out Kira is Reimi's killer, Kira drops his guard when Shigechi mentions her name.
• Cats Are Mean: Has cats as his motif, and is one of the most disturbing villains in the series.
• Chick Magnet: Kira has his share of female admirers who are constantly asking him out despite the fact that most guys consider him "boring" by comparison. He even manages to make Shinobu fall in love with him when disguised as Kosaku, albeit unintentionally so. However, any woman Kira has managed to attract is quickly brushed off by him, and given his tastes, they are better off without him.
• Child Hater: He thought about going to a new gym opening near Budogaoka High School, but was turned off by the idea of working out with teenagers "playing with their dicks". Not to mention he has no problems with killing children either...
• Chronic Villainy: By his own admission, killing is in his nature and therein conflicts with his plan to live a quiet life.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Looks pretty unremarkable with an ordinary salaryman-like appearance underneath his suit. But as seen in the shower as Kosaku, he's shown to be surprisingly ripped underneath. Then again, he did say that he ensures that he's always in good health.
• Classic Villain: Kira represents Sloth, Lust and Pride. While he's a brilliant man of many talents and is capable of being a loving husband should he ever get married, he chooses not to stand out because he prefers a quiet life. However, he has an erotic fascination for women's hands so strong that when he gained Killer Queen, he used it to kill his victims and cover up his tracks more efficiently. But his sociopathy and perfect, unbroken kill streak caused him to believe he was favored by fate, and thus became complacent enough to use the same tactics he used as a Serial Killer against the heroes when they started a manhunt for him. Even when his very life was threatened, he doesn't think to gain new skills or use Killer Queen more creatively. Naturally, his overconfidence and stagnant mindset leads to him dying in a gruesomely karmic way, and his Fate Worse than Death involves not only losing Killer Queen, but also having to spend his postmortem life as a ghost constantly under threat by other spiritual entities.
• Collector of the Strange: He meticulously saves his nail clippings and measures the growth of his nails, since he only kills during years where his nails grow especially quickly. And he "dates" severed hands... hey, he's a serial killer.
• Cold Ham: Even more so than the other JoJo Big Bads, his villain speeches are spoken in a smooth, conversational tone.
• The Comically Serious: While Kira is often played seriously and doesn't really have many comedic quirks, the situations he ends up in such as trying to get back his "girlfriend" without being noticed and his reactions to Shinobu's attempts at seducing him are some of the more light-hearted moments in the series.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • Kira is the black sheep among the villains for many traits that wouldn't be utilized again until Part 6; quiet, subdued, dressed moderately, his voice is almost always flat, and even when provoked, he still keeps his head for a large part of his appearance. He also holds a job anyone could get, had a relatively normal childhood, and above all really is someone you could meet on the street. He's also the only main villain to not only try and avoid fighting (as his first plans for Shigechi were to completely ignore him and just grab the bag and run), but also lacks any kind of grandiose plan and simply continued the plot by surviving. He appears mid-way through the story and starts the plot himself and, interestingly, never once looked into what Stands were and just assumed he had some kind of special power. Furthermore, compared to DIO and Kars, who sought world domination, Kira never had any comrades he recruited himself (until forming an alliance with Stray Cat), and upon showing even the slightest bit of care for someone, he immediately brushed it off as being a result of wanting to seem "normal".
  • DIO was explicitly supernatural — as a human-turned-vampire, blatantly evil with any nuance being hinted as manipulation on his end, extremely powerful even without his Stands, having a boisterous personality, a troubled family life from an abusive father with the loss of a mother that served as a Morality Chain that led him to become worse when she died, a deep connection with his hated Joestar rivals, and eventual universal level-ambitions. Yoshikage on the other hand, is on the surface, a mild-mannered man who doesn't stand out or want anything else than to continue his Serial Killer hobby in peace with no greater aspirations, with some subconscious nuance to his character that he tries to deny whenever he acts altruistic to a degree, an implied spoiled favoritism from his father with a less than stellar relationship with his mother, his relationship with the Joestars being that of a great nuance to his quiet life- though on the same level as the others that oppose him, and doesn't have any aspirations outside of his hometown- while having a versatile Stand to make up for his weaker human body.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: Kira is a unique case. While he has a legitimately powerful Stand, Kira prefers to avoid direct confrontations which consequently affects his Stand's performance in straight-up fights. But when his "quiet life" becomes threatened, the gloves come off and he becomes legitimately a dangerous and competent fighter that even powerful Stands like Crazy Diamond have to tread lightly around.
• Country Matters: In the English dub, he calls Koichi a "mewling quim" while brutally beating him into a pulp, and later Reimi a "strumpet".
• Close-Range Combatant: Subverted. Killer Queen's strength lies in its ability to turn whatever it touches into a bomb, which would make close-quarters combat a breeze as Killer Queen could end the fight with a touch. The problem is, Kira isn't a natural-born fighter and is quickly outmatched by stronger and more close-combat efficient Stands. This is best seen in his battle with Josuke, whose Crazy Diamond's superior strength and speed prevents Killer Queen from even touching him.
• Creature of Habit: By his own word, Kira has a simple routine to which he commits to every day as part of his goal of having a tranquil life, which includes killing women for their hands. We sadly don't see much of it since this same routine is shaken the moment he's properly introduced in the story.
• Creepy Monotone: What makes him creepier than DIO is that he's not very hammy, having a normal even tone to not stand out. The creepy comes from the fact that he's a horrible serial killer, and he calmly chats with his victims before killing them.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Totally, totally deserved, but even the Main Characters are left in shock by just how awful his death is. After Jotaro sends him flying into the path of an ambulance, by this point, Kira is left too delirious and weakened to even notice. The ambulance suddenly goes into reverse, but the driver doesn't hear the warnings from the paramedics outside and Kira's head gets crushed like a grape against the pavement, with the rear tire grinding his face clean off. The anime makes it even worse, by showing his head rotating 360 degrees several times just before it gets crushed.
• Dark Is Evil: Kira is unique among the villains in that his ability itself is treated as evil, as shown with Killer Queen's skull motifs and the way it materializes as a dread-inducing black blur with dark aura.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • The Stray Cat chapter is focused on him.
  • The post-Part 4 one-shot Dead Man's Questions has him as the protagonist.
• Death by Ambulance: Jotaro stops time and pummels him, then resumes time, making him fly backwards into the path of an ambulance.
• Death by Irony: His demise has this in spades.
  • The man who claimed that luck was always by his side gets run over by an ambulance that was called to help him, by chance.
  • Not only that, a man who is obsessed with staying normal gets killed in such a mundane accident.
  • On top of that, said ambulance rips off the face which he stole from Kosaku, causing him to become another anonymous "missing" person of Morioh.
  • And then, on top of everything else, having spent his life obsessed with hands, he is dragged to hell by the disembodied hands of the Ghost Alley. Just before he's whisked away, he's left begging for mercy by Reimi, his first victim, who gleefully mocks his fright.
• Deliberate Under-Performance: He wants to live a quiet life and stay in the background. Jotaro speculates from the trophies found in Kira's room that he made it a point to rank no higher than 3rd in any given competition, to avoid standing out and to appear unremarkably average.
• Didn't Think This Through: When Hayato exposes his murders and tries to blackmail him, Kira lets his anger get the better of him and uses Killer Queen to murder him in a fashion that makes it look like an accident. He quickly panics as he realizes just how badly he's screwed himself over, as the discovery of Hayato's body, especially by Rohan, would definitely disrupt the tranquil life he's using to hide from Jotaro and the others.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He stalks a couple on the subway all the way to their apartment and kills them just because they insulted his bowling ball nail clippers.
• Dissonant Serenity: The father-son speech with Hayato, especially since he's much calmer than he usually is.
• Dragged Off to Hell: His final fate at the end of Part 4, when Reimi sics her dog Arnold on him. The bite causes him to turn around in the Ghost Alley and the hands of the dead drag him off to his eternal punishment, but not before they tear Killer Queen (and Kira by proxy) apart.
• Dramatic Irony: All he wants is to live, in his words, a "Quiet Life", with his "girlfriends". Once he takes over Kosaku's identity, he gets exactly that with a family and son, but quickly reverts to his old ways. This ends up leading to his defeat.
  • Also, when Jotaro attacks him using Star Platinum - THE WORLD for the first time, he remarks that the attack is so fast "it's like it stopped time".
• Dub Personality Change: Downplayed, but while Toshiyuki Morikawa gives Kira a sophisticated touch to his voice, D.C. Douglas plays up the everyman aspect of Kira, making him sound like any other ordinary person one would meet on the street.
• Dying Dream: In the climax, he seems to activate Bites the Dust after getting utterly decimated by Josuke to get away from the protagonists and rewind himself back in time before the whole event, secure he has the knowledge to kill them for good this time with them unaware. And then Reimi shows up to reveal that it was all in his head as he laid dying and was shown what really happened: just as he was about to activate Bites the Dust, Koichi managed to freeze him in place with Echoes Act 3 long enough for Jotaro to get Star Platinum to wallop the bastard good, breaking his hand and preventing him from activating Killer Queen. If that wasn't enough, the ambulance he had called earlier accidentally backs up right over his head.
• Dying as Yourself: After getting his head crushed and appearing in the Ghost Alley, his face transitions back from Kosaku's to his original one as he threatens Reimi, only to get dragged away by the hands of the dead.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He makes a few cameos (most, only his hands) in the anime before his introduction. In fact, the very first scene of the anime is the aftereffects of Killer Queen's work, long before the viewer is given any context of just what it means.
• Early Personality Signs: His obsession with hands started at age 7, when he saw a picture of the Mona Lisa in a book and cut out the part of the picture with her hands to display on the wall of his room.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: As Kosaku, his skin becomes much paler than before.
• Enfant Terrible: He is a serial killer that started when he was just out of high school, but had urges to kill earlier than that.
• Entitled Bastard: He truly believes he deserves to live a quiet and peaceful life without conflict or strife, with the full expectation that luck and good fortune is his right. What he never seems to realize is his merciless killing of anyone and everyone who so much as irks him denies him any right to such a life, something that is lampshaded by the heroes a couple of times.
• Evil Can Not Comprehend Good: An unorthodox example; Yoshikage seems to be incapable to comprehend his own potential for good, after being relieved that Shinobu was not too severely harmed by Stray Cat. He becomes confused by the feeling of wanting to keep her safe but tells himself that he just needs her for his cover.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted with his father. Yoshikage doesn't seem to regard much of his father's advice and doesn't spare much thought after he accidentally kills his father. But it's played surprisingly straight with Shinobu, even going out of his way to protect her from Stray Cat and showing concern for her safety. However, he doesn't deny Hayato's claim that he'll eventually kill her.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • A very minor case, but when he encounters a man who was stalking the woman who lives in the house Josuke and Hayato took cover in during the final confrontation, he's visibly disgusted. Of course, he uses Killer Queen and a pair of panties to murder the guy, who in his final moments doesn't exactly make you feel bad for him.
  • In All Star Battle R's ASB Mode, he has a unique interaction with Anasui, where he derides the "hero" for dismembering his girlfriend out of anger, stating that when he does it, it's at least because he has a fetish for women's hands (as if that's any better).
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Jotaro. Both are antisocial Japanese men that are surprisingly resourceful in dire situations with unusually powerful close-range Stands. They are also more popular with the ladies than they would like to be; they even react identically to displays of affection from women. Also, they both awaken new time-related Stand powers by the end of their respective parts out of a dire need: Jotaro from being pressured to the verge of death from DIO, and Kira from the prospect of being unveiled by the Morioh Stand users. Both even got their powers and begun their journey around the same age. The difference between them is that Jotaro is a genuinely good person who voluntarily imprisoned himself when his Stand started harming the people around him and later gave up his normal life in order to save his mother and other prospective DIO victims while Kira has no problem destroying the lives of others in order to maintain his "normal life."
  • There's also a case to be made for him being a Shadow Archetype to Koichi. He yearns for a normal life, but was born with superpowers that he uses for terrible ends. Meanwhile, Koichi is genuinely normal and got dragged into the manga's events by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Koichi is also the only major character of Part 4 who has a love interest, while Kira's major crime is murdering women for their hands and treating the severed limbs as his girlfriends. Finally, both of their Stands evolve into more powerful forms over time.
    • It's worth noting that Koichi and Jotaro are the ones who find Kira at Centipede Shoes and force him to hide after he fails at silencing them with Sheer Heart Attack. Echoes evolves into its final form during the encounter with Sheer Heart Attack and the two of them are the ones to finish him off, albeit by accident.
  • Another case for him being one to Josuke, due to the two preferring to live relatively normal lives, but while Josuke will inject himself into situations which would jeopardize that and has a pretty average routine, Kira doesn't really care about Morioh's going ons, and intentionally tries to pass himself off as a normal person. His power (being able to completely destroy whatever he last touched) is also the polar opposite to Josuke's (who can revert things to a previous state, which includes healing wounds).
• Evil Genius: Even without taking into account his deadly cunning, he's shown himself to be extremely good at performing advanced mathematical equations in his head, which comes in handy for him when he uses it to weaponize Stray Cat's air bubbles.
• Evil Is Petty: He savagely beats up Koichi to vent out the frustration and humiliation he experienced while his hand was incapacitated by Echoes Act 3.
• Evil Sounds Deep: In most of his appearances in adaptations, Kira has a pretty deep voice.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Frequently in the anime, often to highlight his sinister nature.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Kira is a conventionally handsome and well-mannered man with a smooth voice who is also a remorseless Serial Killer.
• Family Theme Naming: His first name is Yoshikage and his father's name is Yoshihiro.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • While Kira is extremely resourceful and a competent villain, he has one glaring flaw: Pride. Many if not all of Kira's losses are due to his tendency to gloat or overestimating his own capabilities. He believes Sheer Heart Attack is invincible, so much so he confidently believes it would defeat both Koichi and Jotaro. Then when he learns that the heroes are closing in on him after disguising himself, he forgoes just cutting his losses and abandoning Morioh altogether to continue his crimes elsewhere like his father suggests to him out of the belief that doing so will make him feel weak. And once he unlocks Bites the Dust, Kira is even more arrogant due to his newly-found ability to rewind time. Kira demeans Hayato and is all but sure that Bites the Dust will kill Josuke and his allies. Hayato, knowing about Kira's pride, goads Kira into revealing his real name to Hayato to mock him, unaware that Josuke was behind him the entire time, causing Kira to out himself and setting up the final battle which Kira ultimately loses. Even his defeat is a result of this; he has the chance to escape with Bites the Dust since all he needs to do is activate it and tell someone his name, but rather then do it, he decides to essentially brag to the paramedic who came to help him about his name and crime. This allows Koichi the chance to use Act 3 to immobilize him and Jotaro the chance to catch up and deal the blow that seals his fate.
  • Another one is Wrath. Whenever his lifestyle is being threatened, he's prone to giving in to his anger. Rather than finishing Koichi off quickly, he instead wastes time to vent his frustration out on the boy by brutally beating him to near-death due to the public humiliation he suffered earlier, which bought the heroes enough time to catch up to him. After being annoyed by a couple on the train, he loses control of his impulses and murders both of them which was caught by Hayato on camera, and later murders Hayato himself when the boy threatens him with evidence. It's only through a combination of luck and his quick-thinking that he's able to escape the consequences of this bad habit.
• Fate Worse than Death: Heavily implied at the end of Part 4 when he's grabbed by hellish-looking hands in the border to the afterlife. The spinoff Dead Man's Questions shows that he got away from that, but at the expense of losing Killer Queen and becoming a mercenary ghost with no memory of his old life. The story shows how dangerous the world of the living for ghosts could be, leaving ghost Kira unable to find the peaceful life he desires.
• Faux Affably Evil: Kira can be genuinely affable and presents himself as courteous, soft-spoken and polite, but at the slightest inkling of his true intentions being exposed, it's readily apparent that this is only a Mask of Sanity. This is best shown while he was giving a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Koichi, remaining polite and composed during the whole ordeal, giving Koichi a handkerchief in the and putting Koichi's sock and shoe back on right upon noticing the sock was inside out in the midst of his beatdown.
• Fetish: He has an erotic fascination with female hands despite being almost completely asexual otherwise, hence why he kills women and keeps their hands as "girlfriends". He reveals that he discovered his fixation on hands when he saw the painting of the Mona Lisa for the first time and her hands aroused him.
• Fights Like a Normal: Killer Queen utilizes something resembling Muay Thai in combat, but otherwise, Kira tries to use it to fight in a conventional manner if his bombs aren't an option, tripping up opponents and hitting them from higher elevations when the physics of Stands (or lack thereof) make such tactics easy to circumvent.
• Fingore:
  • A rather disgusting character tic of his is that, whenever he's at his most stressed and desperate, he tends to bite his fingernails until they bleed. The manga takes it even further - a close-up shows that he gnawed the kanji for "victory" into his nails.
  • He gets all his fingers broken by Jotaro's Star Platinum in order to stop him from doing the detonator gesture that would trigger Bites the Dust.
• Foil:
  • To Josuke. Both stand out amongst previous heroes and villains in that they both live regular mundane lives, aside from some odd traits. Josuke is Hot-Blooded, goofy, and spends his time hanging out with friends, while Kira is composed, aloof, lives alone, and spends his time going on dates with the hands of the women he killed. Josuke's Stand is a Combat Medic that restores objects and people to their original state, in addition to having high physical power and fighting ability at close range. Killer Queen completely destroys whatever it touches without any evidence from afar, but it's relatively subpar in a hand-to-hand fight. Josuke is motivated to protect his loved ones and his town, while Kira wishes to keep his true nature secret and continue his killing spree in Morioh uninhibited.
  • He's also this to Angelo. Both of them are Serial Killer Stand users with high body counts, but are otherwise completely different. Angelo is Japan's most infamous criminal who's spent years in prison because he kept getting caught and leaving evidence behind, while Kira covers his tracks very well thanks to Killer Queen's abilities, and by the time he meets his end, only a few people know what he's truly like. In contrast to Angelo's open brutality, Kira conceals his psychopathic tendencies under an affable and sophisticated veneer even when killing his victims. Angelo is also a Serial Rapist while Kira has no interest in sex beyond satisfying his hand fetish. Angelo only unlocked his Stand recently, whereas Kira had his Stand for years. Lastly, Angelo is the first enemy Stand user Josuke fights, and Kira is the last one he faces.
  • To Rohan as well. They both dislike the company of others and have odd quirks as well as sociopathic tendencies. But in contrast to Rohan's eccentricities and openly expressed disdain for others, Kira comes off more calm, subdued, and Affably Evil most of the time. And while Rohan desires a life of excitement and adventure, all Kira wants is a life of normalcy and peace.
• For the Evulz: While most of Kira's murders were to satisfy his fetish or to preserve his identity, he appeared to have killed the Sugimoto family just for the hell of it.
• Four Is Death: The fight where he premieres his "fourth" bomb turns out to be his last.
• Freudian Excuse: Subverted. When he seemingly starts laying out something like this to a nurse in a delirious state of mind, it's ultimately revealed he was always a psychopath.
• The Generic Guy: Invoked. He deliberately cultivates as unremarkable a public image as possible to avoid any unwanted attention toward his desired quiet life. Outside his typical salaryman job, his home sports a collection of third place trophies and academic achievements that mark him as perfectly acceptable but not exceptional. The social camouflage allows him free reign to commit murder before once again becoming just another face in the crowd.
• Ghost Amnesia: In Dead Man's Questions. He can remember his name and his desire to have a normal life, but nothing else.
• Glass Cannon: While Kira has a plethora of lethal abilities and is very resourceful, in a straight-up fight, Kira cannot hope to match Jotaro nor Josuke. Kira is easily knocked out by a fatally-wounded Jotaro, and the final battle between him and Josuke is a battle to see if Josuke can reach Kira before getting blown to pieces.
• Good with Numbers: After upgrading Killer Queen with Stray Cat's air bullets, since they are small and transparent, Kira quickly uses the length of his finger and trigonometrical calculations to measure the distance to Josuke and accurately time the detonations.
• Graceful Loser: Upon realizing he's dead in the manga, Kira doesn't seem too bothered by it. He even says that he might be content living his life as a ghost. Unfortunately for him, Reimi makes sure he won't get off that easy.
• Head Crushing: His head is horrifically crushed like a grape by an ambulance's rear tires.
• The Hedonist: Kira's main motivation is to live a carefree life with no stress, all the while satiating his murderous tendencies and related fetish. He mainly fights the heroes of Part 4 because they threaten to destroy his playground of Morioh.
• Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed in Dead Man's Questions. Following his soul's annihilation at the hands of the Ghost Alley's hands, his soul is then assimilated into a limbo between life and death, where he takes on the life of a paid assassin, taking on the role of a '90s Anti-Hero who no longer has the urge to kill innocent people for their hands alone. That said, this also seems to be a case of Amnesiac Dissonance, as Kira doesn't remember his life prior to becoming a vagabond, and for a while, he couldn't even remember his own name.
• Hero Killer: Murders Shigechi and Aya, who were allies of the heroes. And with Bites the Dust, he actually succeeded in killing off the main cast during the time loops. But thanks to Hayato's quick thinking, the loop was broken and thus the process can't be repeated.
• Heroes Act, Villains Hinder: As he says himself, he "just wants a quiet life", and that really shows; never does he make an attempt at stopping the heroes during their search for him unless his life or the discovery of his true nature are at immediate risk.
• Heroic Neutral: An inversion. Yoshikage Kira wants to live a peaceful life, though this entails him wanting to be an undetected Serial Killer living in Morioh. In fact, this is what makes him stand out from most of the main antagonists as they have a desire to Take Over the World, whereas he wants to live a life without fear of being caught. The only thing that gets him involved in the plot is a fateful encounter with Shigechi who, in a fit of confusion and anger, accuses Kira of having stolen his sandwich and tries to take it back, revealing Kira's secret to him.
• Hidden Depths: During his bout with Stray Cat, he protects his "wife" Shinobu and experiences a sense of protectiveness, much to his confusion. While he tries to dismiss his feelings as simply being a desire to protect his identity, this is possibly the closest thing Kira has to a redeeming factor after being portrayed as a completely ruthless serial killer throughout the story.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Has had his Stand's abilities used against him more than any other major villain's. He had his left hand drastically increase in weight when Sheer Heart Attack was disabled by Echoes Act 3, was prevented from punching Hayato by Bites the Dust, and accidentally disintegrated his own father with his remote-controlled air bombs.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Kira obviously can tell that Bites the Dust brought Hayato back to life, but he doesn't realize that Hayato is aware of being trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop until he notices Hayato's strange behavior.
• Humiliation Conga: The entire Sheer Heart Attack arc was one for him. He embarrasses himself in public thanks to Echoes Act 3, gets harassed by a couple of petty thugs while his hand is weighed down by Echoes Act 3, Koichi gets the last laugh on him by discovering his identity, is on the receiving end of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by Jotaro, and is finally cornered by Josuke and Okuyasu. It's by that point that Kira is forced to change his identity in order to escape.
• Hypocrite: Kira claims that he wants no more than a quiet life untroubled by enemies and that he despises direct confrontation. This all falls apart completely when you remember that he's a serial killer, and that he only wants this quiet life so that he can indulge his murderous urges whenever he wants without the worry of being caught. Josuke and Okuyasu tear his ideology apart during their final confrontation, pointing out that they're chasing him because he murdered their friend Shigechi and that he has nobody to blame but himself for ruining his own tranquility.
• Hypocritical Humor: For someone who stresses that he doesn't want to stand out, Kira has a taste for flashy suits and some pretty extravagant ties. Even a random street thug complains about his fashion choices.

I-P

• Icy Blue Eyes: Shown to great effect during his Great Heat Attack in All-Star Battle.
• Identity Amnesia: The one-shot comic Dead Man's Questions shows that, after his death at the end of Part 4, Kira becomes a ghost trapped in the living world with no memory of anything but his name, but is sure he cannot get to heaven. Not sure what to do with his eternal existence, he now works for a monk doing the "dirty work" of killing targets she gives him in exchange for money.
• Ignore the Fanservice: Does this whenever Shinobu tries to seduce him. It's not that Kira is indifferent to it, but it's because his means of expressing arousal is through violence, as he was literally seconds away from throttling Shinobu and only stops once he regains his senses. As a result, he tries to keep his distance away from Shinobu as he does not want to attract attention to himself.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Though his definition of "normal" is "live without anything obstructing his rituals". He wants his life to be predictable... by his and Yoshihiro's standards, at least. Deconstructed by Josuke and Okuyasu, however, who both rightfully point out that his destructive hobbies are what ruined the tranquility in his life in the first place thanks to the consequences that came with killing Shigechi and Reimi, and how utterly delusional Kira has to be to think an unrepentant murderer like himself somehow deserves any semblance of normalcy.
• Important Haircut: Trades in Kosaku's spiky hairstyle for a slicked back look after awakening Bites the Dust. While there isn't an explicit reason given for this change in character design, it seems to be due to Kira slipping more comfortably into his new life thanks to his newfound confidence.
• Impoverished Patrician: Kira mentions that he's descended from one of the Samurai noble families that used to live in Morioh, until his grandfather squandered the family wealth and honor. Unusually for the trope, Kira doesn't seem to mind this much at all, and is just pleased he inherited a nice house in which to live out his quiet, pleasant serial killer lifestyle.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Official art books and the like commonly list his name as "Yoshikage Kill·A". All-Star Battle plays with this by naming Kosaku Kawajiri's theme "KILL-A".
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Besides murder, his only other hobby is cutting his fingernails, saving the clippings and recording how long they're able to grow.
• Irony:
  • For a serial killer who has a fetish for severed hands, Kira himself gets his hand severed on multiple occasions. The first was when he was forced to slice his own hand off with Killer Queen in order to escape the heroes. The second was when Arnold bites his hand off as a ghost, and the third was when he loses his arm to Cleansers in Dead Man's Questions.
  • Despite keeping his nails neat and trimmed, and even keeping his clippings in organised jars, Kira has a bad habit of biting his fingernails until they bleed whenever he gets desperately stressed. It's in this moment that his neat and tidy façade cracks and exposes his stunted, child-like mindset.
  • In life, Kira wanted to remain a relative unknown. As a ghost in Dead Man's Questions, his living identity is unknown even to himself.
• It's All About Me: Barring the event described above in Hidden Depths, he doesn't really seem to have any empathy for anyone whatsoever, only caring for his desire to live his murderous life peacefully and considering luck on his side. His Villainous Breakdown really starts setting in when he realizes that things finally aren't going to go his way, like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
  Kira: This... Can't be... Fate is supposed to have sided with Yoshikage Kira... Opportunity should have come to me!
• Just Between You and Me: When Shigechi finds one of his "girlfriends," Kira launches into a lengthy diatribe about his life and habits, including his address, age, and routine — the implication being that he's confident that, with Killer Queen at his disposal, Shigechi will never live long enough to tell anyone else.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: For years on end, Kira used his Stand to satiate his deviant fetish and get away with his crimes undetected and invisible to the law. Even though he's never prosecuted for his crimes, him being discovered kickstarts a series of events that lead to the aforementioned warranty expiring for good, which leads to the below:
• Karmic Death: Twice.
  • His first death: A serial killer, who wanted to go unnoticed by everyone around him and believed fortune to be on his side, dies as the center of attention thanks to the medical personnel trying to resuscitate him bungling the rescue in the worst way possible and the gruesome circumstances of his death, and said death was due to the medical personnel not noticing him until it was too late. Also, his confession that he's Kira in an attempt to activate Bites the Dust incites some gossip after his demise, since Kira "disappeared" several weeks ago. There's also the fact that he was stripped of Stray Cat by a Stand named after his fetish — Okuyasu's The Hand.
  • His second death: After Kira is left a spirit due to the accident above, Reimi and Arnold's spirits force him to turn around in a haunted alley, causing Kira to be grabbed by a storm of hands, the very object of his affection. His prized Stand Killer Queen is torn apart in front of him. And as he is Dragged Off to Hell, his entire body disintegrates the same way he killed his victims with Killer Queen.
• Kick the Dog:
  • He killed Reimi Sugimoto's family, including her dog Arnold, and hung his corpse on her coat rack before moving onto her lastly.
  • Even after curb-stomping Koichi, he continues to beat him bloody and forcefully sticks his foot in his mouth just to further humiliate him.
  • Everything he does to Hayato after he receives Bites the Dust.
  • Even after he knows he's dead, he smiles evily as he tries to force Reimi to look back in the Ghost Alley out of a mix of spite and curiosity - needless to say, his subsequent fate is more than well deserved.
• Knight of Cerebus: While many of the villains in Part 4 were definitely horrible people, they usually had a few humorous quirks, with some joining Josuke's social circle after their fights. Kira, on the other hand, has an air of creepiness about him starting from his first appearance, and his mannerisms are just downright disturbing. He further cements this trope when he murders Shigechi in broad daylight after four long chapters of trying to comically steal his "girlfriend" back, averting the normal standard of the other arcs in Part 4 having a mixture of comedy and seriousness but being mostly harmless in the end.
• Lack of Empathy: To a horrifying level: there's no low he wouldn't stoop to in order to keep his identity a secret, even murdering innocent children without a grain of remorse.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He took on a new identity to protect himself by skinning off the face of Hayato's father. At the end of Part 4, he is run over by an ambulance, and both police and EMR personnel note that his face had been torn off in the accident.
• Lecherous Licking: Does this to hands that he finds attractive, even if they're not attached to a body. This goes hand-in-hand with his aforementioned cat motif.
• Leitmotif: The 2016 anime adaptation introduces him with "Killer"; its melody recurs in other tracks related to Kira, including "First Bomb", "Second Bomb", "Another face, same mind", and "Third Bomb".
• Life-or-Limb Decision: In Dead Man's Questions, he's forced to cut off his arm when it gets attacked by spirit cleansers.
• Light Is Not Good: In the anime, he wears a white suit as Kosaku, but he is far from good.
• Literally Shattered Lives: As he's being dragged away by the hands of Ghost Girl's Alley, he and Killer Queen are subsequently torn apart, breaking into pieces like glass.
• Logical Weakness: To remotely detonate Killer Queen's bomb, he has to mimic the motion of pushing the button with his hand. He can be prevented from setting off the bomb by someone or something immobilizing his hand, like Echoes pinning it to the ground.
• Long-Range Fighter: Ironically, for someone whose Stand whose main strength lies in making physical contact with his opponent, Kira leans more towards being a ranged fighter. To make up for his inferior ability to fight close-quarters combat, Kira uses his ingenuity to make clever use of his ability to create ranged weapons that could put distance between him and his opponent, best seen with Stray Cat's improvised air bombs.
• A Love to Dismember: Has an erotic fascination with women's hands, but has absolutely no use for the rest of the woman's body. (In fact, he typically has Killer Queen dispose of everything but a hand immediately.) Take it from there...
• Madness Mantra: At the height of his delirious Villainous Breakdown, he chants how he will detonate Killer Queen Bites the Dust even as he's mortally wounded and his hand is tied down by Koichi's Stand.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: When he discovers that Hayato had witnessed his recent killing, Kira plans to do this with him. He uses Killer Queen to turn a few of Hayato's hair strands into a bomb that would create an explosion small yet precise enough that it could be mistaken for a concussion, thus making it look like Hayato had killed himself from slipping and hitting his head in the bathroom. Unfortunately, his father points out that the effort is meaningless because Rohan is planning on investigating the Kawajiri family the next day, and Hayato's sudden death would only make it even more suspicious. Fortunately for Kira, awakening Bites the Dust undid his murder.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: He lives in a luxurious villa which he inherited from his grandfather, and has a taste for designer Valentino suits. Jotaro notes simply by looking at the jacket Kira had left for repair that he must come from a well-off family to be able to afford such suits.
• Meaningful Name: "Yoshikage" means "lucky shadow", and he's a serial killer named "Kira," predating Death Note. Maybe this is part of why Light was unimpressed with his fans' nickname for him — it was unoriginal.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Kira makes a point to not develop close relationships, only sees women as a source of hands, and doesn't think twice about killing the boys when they get too close to exposing his crimes. It's played up a bit in the English dub when he details his strict life.
  Kira: That is how I cope with this backwards life we find ourselves living. It's what brings me happiness in a world fraught with hardship and misery.
• Motive Rant: "You can call me Yoshikage Kira. I'm currently 33 years old. Not that you'd care, but I reside in northeast Morioh's villa district. Also, I've yet to marry..."
• Mr. Fanservice: As Kosaku, he gets a couple of ShowerScenes where he is totally naked.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Majorly averted, which is rather surprising for a serial killer with a power based around killing without leaving evidence. Kira is willing to go to surprisingly elaborate lengths to solve problems discreetly without killing anyone; this is because he really wants a peaceful life and vehemently dislikes the act of fighting, and is also smart enough to realize that excessive deaths will draw unwanted attention to him. It's only when he's enraged that he casually kills people (usually for insulting him)... and these murders indeed draw that attention his way.
• Near-Villain Victory: Once he gains Bites the Dust, he almost is able to defeat Josuke's group once and for all, even technically killing them when they got caught up in the time loop. It is only due to Hayato's quick thinking and a sudden change of schedule that the heroes were able to escape alive from the timeloop.
• Nervous Tics: Has a bad habit of biting his nails when desperately stressed. Yoshihiro remarks that this is something he's done since he was a child, as it was the only way he could express his despair and frustration with things not going his way.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Bears a striking resemblance to David Bowie's getup during the 1980s, with his pink suit in particular being derived from one that Bowie prominently wore during the supporting tour for Let's Dance.
  • His crimes are loosely based on those of Tsutomu Miyazaki, a Serial Killer who had gained major publicity in Japanese media in the years leading up to Part 4's publication. Like Kira, Miyazaki's murders were motivated in part by an erotic fixation on his victims severed body-parts, and he was known as a seemingly unremarkable working-age adult living in his parents home while committing his crimes (though Miyazaki was unemployed at the time).
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: An odd inversion in the form of his famous speech to Shigechi, which details the pains he's taken to live an average, quiet life... and exactly why Shigechi needs to die to keep that life undisturbed.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: His first interaction with the Main Characters is trying to comically get back the hand of his latest victim. He then abruptly kills Shigechi with his Stand effortlessly (after it's established that Shigechi is one of the strongest Stand users in Morioh) just as the boy was just about to be saved.
• Obsessively Normal: He wants nothing more to live a very quiet, very normal life. His lifestyle, daily routine, and overall appearance are intricately designed to be as mundane as physically possible and on a strict and reliable timetable. There's just one problem for Kira; he happens to have a constant, overwhelming desire to murder women, cut off their hands, and take them as "girlfriends". No matter what he tries, he can't break the addiction, so instead he simply indulges it every once in a while, killing anybody who discovers his crimes or otherwise threatens to upset his "quiet life".
• Obsessively Organized: The reason why he's so obsessed with having a normal, predictable life. Kira has a routine and he follows it religiously, and is motivated to deal with his pursuers because they threaten that routine. He even delays finishing off Koichi after noticing that one of his socks was inside out, and couldn't concentrate on killing Koichi until he put his sock and shoe back on right, despite knowing that Josuke would be arriving to help in less than a minute.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Often acts very calmly and careful, even under pressure. However, upon gaining Bites the Dust, he becomes noticeably more confident, to the point of feeling invincible. According to his father's observations, this attitude is apparently very unlike Kira. Makes it all the more fitting that this newfound overconfidence is the main reason Kira eventually gets caught.
• Paper Tiger: Kira, being a serial killer, is used to attacking defenseless people without Stands and killing them quickly. As a result, Killer Queen is a Glass Cannon because of his lack of actual fighting experience and gets clobbered easily when he doesn't have explosives to fall back on.
• Pet the Dog: After dealing with Stray Cat, he remains at home to make sure Shinobu is okay even if it meant that he would be late for work. Given Kira's obsession with not wanting to stand out, which includes being late for work, that's saying something.
• Pocket Protector: When Hayato uses Stray Cat to shoot Kira with one of its air bubbles, Kira reveals to have only suffered minor injuries. When Kira accidentally breaks Shinobu's china set and spilled some coffee on his wrist, Kira removed his watch and kept it in his pocket. Turns out that his watch was what protected Kira from the air bubble.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: After gaining Bites the Dust, most of Kira's hair turns white.
• Power Stereotype Flip: When you hear "character who can make anything explode", you probably don't picture an Obsessively Normal Soft-Spoken Sadist who makes a point of leaving behind as little trace as possible and has lain low for decades without being noticed. Of course, much of what makes him scary is that a mixture of the rules for Stands and his mastery of his own abilities means that he can use this insanely destructive power largely for stealth.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Played With, which is surprising for a serial killer. Kira has a habit of acting on impulse, especially when it comes to his decision to murder a person when other options are available, but he also knows that such an action is potentially harmful to his desire for a normal life and can go times without acting on such impulses if he has to.
  • This is probably most prominently shown when he refrains from killing Shinobu when provided a chance and freaks out after killing Hayato out of anger for being blackmailed, while he realizes that he could potentially get away with it, it ultimately hinders his goal of living a peaceful family life.
• Properly Paranoid: Due to his irrational paranoia, Kira is extremely savvy of the kind of mistakes that usually get serial killers caught. His preparations to counter everything are done so well, that only his arrogance manages to undo his plans. He would have remained undetected if not for his habit of walking around with his "girlfriend" in a paper bag.
• Punny Name: Sort of. His last name is Kira, and his Stand's name is Killer Queen (pronounced in Japanese as "Kira Queen").

R-Y

• Rapid-Fire Nail Biting: After impulsively murdering Hayato, Kira starts to panic, terrified that he's about to be discovered, and engages in his habit of biting his nails as he tries to think of a way out. He does it so much in that moment that he's bitten his fingertips into a bloody mess.
• Real Men Cook: He's shown multiple times to be a fairly talented cook, in contrast to Kosaku Kawajiri. The first thing he does after taking over Kawajiri's life is make a delicious dinner, which leaves Shinobu incredulous.
  Shinobu: Since when do you cook? Since when can you cook?!
• Red Right Hand: His fingernails grow unnaturally fast. They seem to grow unnaturally fast when he's thinking about killing, too. A more straightforward example is Sheer Heart Attack, a self-operating bomb that's directly attached to Killer Queen's left hand.
• Required Secondary Powers: When he utilizes Stray Cat's invisible bubbles to make bombs, he uses his knowledge of proportions to calculate the distance and trajectory needed to keep track of them despite the bubbles being invisible to him as well.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He comes to the conclusion that Jotaro can stop time due to the lightning-fast beatdown Jotaro gave him during their first meeting. While Kira's assumption is correct, he didn't realize that Jotaro wasn't stopping time back then, Star Platinum is just really fast even without time stop.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Averted. Kira is seemingly aware of every single time that the time loop kicks into effect when using Bites the Dust, with Hayato being the only other one aware of this due to being Bites the Dust's host. The main issue Kira has is that his memory isn't immune to the loop; he goes in knowing that he's activated Bites the Dust but Kira has to deduce from scratch, every loop, that Hayato is acting differently and knows something he doesn't.
• Saying Too Much: Kira falls victim to this after believing Hayato was beaten, acting smug enough to arrogantly reveal his identify to Hayato, unaware that Josuke had been close by thanks to Hayato contacting him earlier than Kira anticipated.
• Self-Made Orphan: While his father is already a ghost by the Part's beginning, it's thanks to Josuke's trickery during the final battle that causes Kira to blow up his father's photograph. Granted, it is by accident, and Kira is visibly angry, but it's mostly because Josuke played him like a fiddle; morality-wise, he doesn't seem all that bothered by his father's death.
• Serial Killer: One that kills women for their hands, which he has a strange fetish for (he thinks of the hands as his "girlfriends" and he seems to show no interest in the rest of the body). He is all the more dangerous because his Stand's abilities leave no evidence and he tries to keep a low profile (killing anyone who comes in between him and the normal life he wants to live).
• The Shadow Knows: In a Freeze-Frame Bonus of the anime, when Kira-as-Kosaku enters the bath to meet with Hayato, his shadow shows Killer Queen instead of his own with the thumb ready on the trigger.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: With a tie patterned with the logos on his Stand.
• Shout-Out: Apart from the ones to both Queen (Stand name and ability names) and David Bowie (appearance), a fan analysis of the influence of music on the series makes a comparison between the lyrics of their joint work song "Under Pressure" and the later chapter arcs told from Kira's point-of-view after he goes into hiding as Kosaku. And it fits.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: His clothes and Stand have cat skull emblems to symbolize his nature as a Serial Killer and his Stand.
• Smug Smiler: After gaining Bites the Dust, it practically becomes his default expression until Hayato manages to counter it. Even in the 'Great Days' opening, he wears a sly smile◊ just before the logo appears due to him triggering a bomb.
• The Sociopath: Despite his Affably Evil nature, Kira stands out as one of the more depraved villains in the series. The ways he murders his victims are anything but pretty, his paranoia is off the charts, and he proves to be a physically and mentally abusive parent. Worst of all, he has no justification for his crimes. He knows murder is bad, but he brushes it off as an addiction.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He very rarely raises his voice. Driven home best in the English dub, courtesy of D.C. Douglas. And it makes him even more terrifying.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Most of the time Kira presents himself as a gentleman of sorts and peppers his speech with sophisticated language. However, when his back is against the wall and his normal life is being threatened, he devolves into dropping various swears in his speech, showing of the Psychopathic Manchild he is underneath.
• Spoiled Brat: Of a more sinister sort. His parents doted on him heavily, which is implied to have led to his sense of entitlement to a peaceful life. His father Yoshihiro continues to dote on him post-mortem thanks to his Stand "Atom Heart Father", creating Stand users to try to indirectly kill anyone who disturbs his murderous son's "peaceful" life.
• Spotting the Thread: Subjected to this on two occasions, after some of his lies don't pass muster. First is when he is injured, obviously stares at Crazy Diamond fixing up Jotaro, and immediately asks Josuke to fix him too despite him posing as a normal civilian ignorant of Stands, when only a Stand user would figure that sort of thing out that fast. The second is when Hayato deduces his identity since Kira doesn't act like his father.
• Straight Edge Evil: Kira fits most of the criteria. He adopts a self-disciplined and temperate lifestyle: he doesn't smoke, only drinks occasionally, and takes great effort in ensuring that he remains physically fit. The only "vice" in his life is his sexual urges, particularly his hand fetish, which in turn drives his compulsion to kill.
• Stupid Evil: What makes him so scary is that he takes great lengths to avert this. He avoids conflict when possible and just wants to get the job done. There is only one case where he plays it straight. When he taunts Jotaro.
• Suddenly Shouting: A terrifying example combined with Mood-Swinger from when he corners a woman in her home after killing her boyfriend:
  Kira: Now, I believe I asked you to tell me your name.
  Woman: What did you do to my boyfriend? He was right here before—
  Kira: DON'T EVER ANSWER A QUESTION WITH A QUESTION! YOU DID LEARN PROPER ETIQUETTE WHILE YOU WERE IN SCHOOL, NOW DIDN'T YOU?! I'M ASKING YOU TO TELL ME WHAT YOUR NAME IS!
  Woman: Minako! My name is Minako!
  Kira: [instantly calming down] Minako. Hmm. What a beautiful name your parents bestowed upon you. I approve.
• Teens Are Monsters: He murdered his first victim Reimi when he was around 17, in his late teens.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: What makes Kira so eerie isn't just his killings and appearances, but also how, to an outsider, he seems completely normal. He has a collection of modest achievements that paint him as someone moderately skilled, but not special. He always poses in photos so to not stand out (if he's in the frame, he's in the back of the group), and his routine, minus the severed hands, is completely and utterly mundane. He's practiced this to a degree that it veers into outright Weirdness Censor territory for other Morioh residents, given his blatant waving about of his "girlfriends" in broad daylight with other people about.
• Third-Person Person: When feeling particularly arrogant, he will refer to himself as "Yoshikage Kira," rather than saying "I," in his Internal Monologue and sometimes out loud. This ends up coming back to bite him when he does this while gloating to Hayato, who's called Josuke.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • In his first encounter with Jotaro, Kira makes the mistake of assuming that he would be a pushover because of Jotaro's severe injuries. A No-Holds-Barred Beatdown proves him wrong, and Kira quickly wises up from it and tries his best to avoid Jotaro in the future.
  • After implanting Bites the Dust into Hayato, Kira arrogantly believes that he is just a snot nosed little brat and doesn't think he's smart enough to disrupt his plans. This is most obvious after Hayato comes up with the plan to use Stray Cat against him, Kira assumed that Hayato needed to have repeated the day three or four times in order to come up with said plan, when in actuality Hayato only repeated the day twice. Then, after luck saves him from Stray Cat's bullets, he arrogantly reveals his identify out loud never imagining that Hayato had a backup plan in case the first plan failed.
• Undignified Death: After eluding detection for over 15 years, Morioh's resident Serial Killer meets an ignominious end at the hands of an ambulance, by accident no less.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Kira really isn't a born fighter and has zero experience in Stand battles (a number of DIO's Tarot Cards were able to perform more effectively in a straight fight than Kira, despite using weaker Stands). Killer Queen and its sub-Stands Sheer Heart Attack and Bites the Dust all rank 'A' in Development Potential, meaning that he has yet to explore his Stand's full capabilities in any meaningful way. Fortunately for him, Killer Queen is a very powerful Stand by default, and thanks to sheer luck, Kira himself ends up with an abnormally high number of Stand abilities. Kira also frequently manages to make up for his lack of experience or fighting spirit with cunning and sheer luck. It's also shown that even with his lack of finesse, Killer Queen is still pretty physically powerful, just not on the level of those such as Crazy Diamond or Star Platinum.
• Unwanted Spouse: Subverted. Kosaku was this, having married Shinobu only because they had a kid and then somehow surviving so many years married to her in a dead-end job. Kira, on the other hand, not only repaired the marriage between Shinobu and Kosaku by taking the latter's position, but he officially starts it by doing something so stupidly illegal in order to save himself, he charms and wins over Shinobu's heart. By the time Stray Cat happens, Shinobu is so completely in love with Kira, she's making up excuses to fling herself at him. Kira on his part, despite ignoring her advances while trying to not kill her, starts to grow fond of her as well.
• Villainous Breakdown: After being tricked into blowing up his father and cornered by Josuke, Kira starts to lose it as Josuke starts tearing him down. Seeing Okuyasu survived his explosion and losing Stray Cat at the same time makes his desperation exceed further to the point he attempts another Bites The Dust, which only ended up leading to his death. After-which, he's dragged into oblivion begging Reimi to answer where he'll end up before screaming as he's told it's somewhere he'll never find peace and tranquility.
• Villainous Cheekbones: Sports a noticeable pair, as himself and even as Kosaku. He's also one of the most unhinged villains in the series.
• Villain Episode: Kira surprisingly gets a few chapters in the manga and sections of the anime to himself in the latter half of the story. While giving him some context to why he acts the way he does; it also gives reasons as to why he needs to be stopped. Parts of Kira's first and second battle against the heroes is also from his point of view.
  • His battle with Stray Cat is framed similarly to how a protagonist of this series tries to analyze their enemy's unknown abilities and figure out how to beat them before getting killed, and is motivated to save his "wife" Shinobu, someone who's threatened by that same enemy and is yet another staple of the series.
• Villainous Lineage: There is evidence that he inherited his malignant soul from his father, considering how supportive the old man is of his son's hobbies.
• Villainous Underdog: Kira holds the very unique distinction amongst JoJo Big Bads for not only possessing a Stand that isn't a Story-Breaker Power but, aside from his father and later Hayato (unwillingly) and Stray Cat, he lacks any dedicated minions of his own. Aside from having a strong and versatile Stand, Kira is flat out weaker in direct combat then the majority of the heroes and therefore he has to make up for it by either using his brains to make the most use out of his bombs or, as he does for the majority of Part 4, get the hell out of dodge and hide.
• Villainous Valour: One defining aspect of Kira is his sheer determination to keep his quiet life. When cornered by the heroes the first time, he goes as far as to cut off his own hand to buy himself time to escape. And later after his final defeat, despite being incapacitated in his delirious state, he still attempts to activate Bites the Dust. Even Rohan can't help but acknowledge his determination.
  Rohan: His tenacity is certainly impressive...
• Villain with Good Publicity: Kira has always made it a point to lay low, never making it to the top to make sure he doesn't draw attention, but he appears to have some business friends at Kame Yu who are unaware of him being a Serial Killer. It's to the point that when he flees the scene of Sheer Heart Attack after cutting off his hand, a group of people familiar with him are visibly concerned over his various wounds, asking in earnest if he's okay.
• Visible Victimology: He targets women with pretty hands. Because he kills them and uses their hands as fetish objects.
• What Is This Feeling?: As he takes on Kosaku's identity, he starts to develop some feeling of protection for his wife, Shinobu. He's at a complete loss when he protects her from Stray Cat.
• White Shirt of Death: He wears a white business suit for the final battle (in the anime, the manga had the suit purple) which does a good job to highlight his blood loss whenever he takes a wound, especially in the last episode.
• Where's the Kaboom?: When he attempts to blow up Stray Cat, he has this reaction when the bomb fails to go off due to Stray Cat using its power to devoid it of the air necessary to explode.
• Would Hurt a Child: Kills Shigechi(a middle schooler) and even almost successfully kills his other host body's son(a grade schooler) twice... just because they somehow know that he's a murderer.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: The main reason why Kira is able to stay one step ahead of the heroes is his ability to exploit every given opportunity that presents itself to its maximum effect. When he's defeated by Jotaro and cornered by Josuke, he pretends to be an injured passerby and try to trick Josuke into healing him. When that fails, he cuts off his left hand to buy time for his escape, where he proceeds to swiftly alter his face and adopt a new identity, then fading into the crowd of townsfolk returning from their workdays. In his final fight, he uses Stray Cat as a weapon to gain the upper hand against Josuke, even though Hayato meant to use Stray Cat against Kira in the first place. Defeated by Josuke and cornered once again? Use Bites the Dust on himself to undo the entire scenario using a female paramedic who happened to be nearby.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: If he wants to detonate a bomb remotely, he must mimic the motion of using a detonator with his hand. If he's unable to do it for any reason (like for example, Echoes pinning his hand to the ground), he is unable to detonate it.

Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, & Killer Queen Bites the Dust

Killer Queen / Sheer Heart Attack / Killer Queen Bites the Dust

^{Sheer Heart Attack}
"That was not the sensation of human flesh expolding! Over here!"

^{Killer Queen Bites the Dust}
"No, you're not seeing things. Killer Queen's Bomb Type 3 has already been activated. Your time has come!"

Kira's Stand is Killer Queen, who is able to make anything it touches into a bomb that can be triggered by touch or a detonator on Killer Queen's finger. Anyone killed by the bomb leaves zero evidence — which is what kept him off the police's radar. It is not considered a sentient Stand. Killer Queen possess a secondary ability called Sheer Heart Attack, an indestructible bomb on tank treads that is released from Killer Queen's left hand. Despite having a long range, it keeps Killer Queen's full power, but this comes at the cost of only being able to act automatically, blindly picking its targets based on their heat signature.

After growing desperate post killing Hayato Kawajiri, Kira is pierced by the arrow for a second time and awakens a new third bomb type: Bites the Dust. This ability allows Kira to implant a bomb into anyone who knows his identity and obliterate time allowing Kira to either reverse time for one hour or turn the implantee into a bomb that will kill anyone who questions them about Kira's true identity before resetting the day. That person's death then becomes a fixed point in time and, even if they never meet the person implanted with Bites the Dust again, they will still die. However, Killer Queen's other bombs can't be used at the same time as Bites the Dust, leaving him defenseless until he stops the time loop.

His Stand and its powers are named after Queen songs and albums: "Killer Queen", its parent album, Sheer Heart Attack (and by extension the song of the same name), and "Another One Bites the Dust".

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• Action Bomb: Sheer Heart Attack is a miniature tank which Kira can release at any moment and which can create blasts. The catch is that the ensuing explosion doesn't destroy it and it's indestructible, so it can repeat its attack indefinitely.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the live-action adaptation, Sheer Heart Attack appears as early as the Nijimura Brothers arc when it kills Keicho, even before Killer Queen itself.
• Alliterative Name: Its romanized Japanese name is Kira Kuīn.
• Artificial Stupidity: Sheer Heart Attack is completely automated (which means it can have the strength of a short-range Stand despite technically being a long-range Stand), but can be easily fooled if its would-be-victims are clever enough, since it only uses heat-seeking to track its targets. It almost appears to learn how not to fall for the same trick twice, but that's only because it tends to blow up a heat source it's fooled by.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Sheer Heart Attack is borderline invincible, has incredible destructive power, is fully automatic and is incredibly persistent, making it an incredible ability...for setting up long-distance traps, and not direct confrontations. Kira can't use his normal bombs while having Sheer Heart Attack out and has to manually retrieve it, and due to its automatic nature, once Sheer Heart Attack's target becomes aware of its targeting system it becomes easy to trick, so if Kira is in the near vicinity his opponent could just distract Sheer Heart Attack and make a beeline to the now defenseless user, which is exactly what happens. This is why despite its strengths, Kira only ever uses it once.
  • Bites the Dust is one of the most overpowered abilities in the series, but the limitations on it make it also extremely impractical in the long term. For starters, Yoshikage essentially gives up Killer Queen to start the process by attaching it to someone and making them a "bomb" of sorts, meaning if he is attacked by another Stand, he has to recall it, ending the loop and stopping its effects. As a result, it's worthless for direct combat if the person he's chosen as the "bomb" is legitimately capable of ending him under their own power such as if they have a Stand of their own, as Bites The Dust will only trigger if someone else asks them about Kira's identity. It also does not allow Kira to maintain his memories of each loop, but it does allow the person who has been picked as his "bomb" to keep their memories of each loop, meaning they can exploit this to change the events of what happened, even if only slightly. Lastly, Kira is not able to benefit from the effects of Bites the Dust, meaning if someone asks him about his identity, it will do nothing to protect him. The reason the ability is so dangerous is that because Hayato (a boy who doesn't have a Stand of his own to threaten Kira with) is the "bomb" chosen, the heroes have no way of finding out the truth until Kira gets overly cocky. And Hayato almost kills Kira with Stray Cat on his own even discounting how it was also a Batman Gambit to get him to blurt out his identity in earshot of Josuke.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: Killer Queen's ability kills people instantly with explosions that leave no trace of their remains; it would be of very limited utility to anyone who wasn't a Serial Killer.
• Berserk Button: Sheer Heart Attack will sound pissed off if it's tricked into exploding against something that wasn't a human... and then, continue to target things that are hotter than one's body temperature anyway.
• Character Catchphrase: Sheer Heart Attack has one, almost to the level of Pokémon Speak.
  "Kocchi wo miro!" ("Look over here!")
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Killer Queen is a contrast to The World in many ways.
  • While The World exemplifies the notions of radiating golden and shiny metallic elements that signify a divine appearance; Killer Queen is associated with darkness with various skull motifs and has a very skeletal-feline appearance. Justified, as DIO is a god-complex vampire that wants to be well-renown, while Yoshikage Kira wants to hide his true nature in the shadows of society.
  • The World is Star Platinum's superior in terms of stats- with Jotaro only winning due to taking advantage of its user's lack of experience in Stand combat. Killer Queen, outside of its Sheer Heart Attack, is always portrayed as inferior in physical prowess to Star Platinum and Crazy Diamond, relying on tricks to get ahead in combat.
  • While the World relies on its user's unorthodox non-Stand uses of signs, knives and steamrollers as weapons to make up for its rather limited physical abilities outside of its time-stop, Killer Queen relies primarily on innate, bestowed or team-tactic Stand abilities- such as Sheer Heart Attack, Bites The Dust, and Stray Cat- outside of its main power.
  • While The World can continuously use its initial 5-second and eventual, potentially ever-increasing time stop endlessly with no limitations, Killer Queen has specific conditions to use its specific time based power with conditions that can backfire on its initial owner under the right conditions.
    • While The World has its time-based powers from the beginning, Killer Queen only gains its final power as a miraculous solution to solve Kira's current dilemma.
• Close-Range Combatant: Subverted. Killer Queen's strength lies in its ability to turn whatever it touches into a bomb, which would make close-quarters combat a breeze as Killer Queen could end the fight with a touch. The problem is, Kira isn't a natural-born fighter and is quickly outmatched by stronger and more close-combat efficient Stands. This is best seen in his battle with Josuke, whose Crazy Diamond's superior speed prevents Killer Queen from even touching him. The only time Killer Queen is able to fight up-close is against Koichi, who has a Stand of similar speed, and it is effective against Echoes Act 3, but it can't compare to Crazy Diamond or Star Platinum.
• Dub Name Change: All-Star Battle, Crunchyroll, and the official dub turns Killer Queen into Deadly Queen, while Sheer Heart Attack is shortened to Heart Attack. Surprisingly, Bites the Dust is unchanged; even though it's only part of a song title, that reasoning didn't stop a number of other name changes. While the Crunchyroll subs also used Deadly Queen, a typo occurs in the final episode where it is referred to by its original name, averting this for a brief moment.
• Evil Counterpart: Killer Queen is essentially the evil mirror of Crazy Diamond. Crazy Diamond has the ability to repair and heal anything it touches except the user and the dead and is an inherently selfless ability, Killer Queen can destroy everything it touches and is inherently a selfish and destructive ability.
• Glowing Eyes: In the anime, once Bites the Dust is obtained, Killer Queen's eyes start glowing faintly.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: When pierced by his father's Arrow, he gains an ability called "Bites the Dust", which attaches a miniature Killer Queen to Hayato which will kill anyone who asks him about Kira. After that, the loop will reset. The really scary part is that, unless Kira is killed or compelled to deactivate Bites the Dust^note he can't summon Killer Queen to defend himself with Bites the Dust active, each person who died in the last loop will still spontaneously explode in the next one at the same time they first exploded... oh, and if you try to kill yourself to end the loops, you can't, because Bites the Dust is designed to protect whoever it's latched on to from anything other than the detonator, so you and possibly your friends will die, over and over and over again...
• Having a Blast: Killer Queen has the ability to imbue things with explosive energy. Whenever someone touches the imbued thing... BOOM. Not the object, by the way, but the person. He can also directly make people explode, and because it's a Stand, no one but other Stand users can hear it. Plus, his secondary ability, Sheer Heart Attack, allows him to launch an autonomous, indestructible, heat-seeking bomb from the Stand's main body. See "Groundhog Day" Loop for his third bomb.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • Every humanoid type Stand in the anime has a sound effect for it being summoned and de-summoned, which is normally a sort of magical hum. Killer Queen's, on the other hand, sounds like a warped and pitched-down shriek, which, given its user's habits, fits perfectly.
  • Sheer Heart Attack's "Look over here!" is also quite harrowing — when you hear it, you know someone's going to get hurt. Badly.
• Homing Projectile: Killer Queen has some degree of control over Stray Cat's air bullets, as Kira can freely change the direction of their trajectory while his father provides assistance from the areas Kira can't see.
• Implacable Man: Sheer Heart Attack is completely indestructible and will track the hottest target it can find. That said, it knows when it blows up a human and when it doesn't.
• Limit Break: "Killer Queen Bites the Dust" provides one last resort for Kira. Should he be sufficiently pressured enough to feel true desperation, he is able to manually turn back time an hour by simply by telling an innocent about his identity and pressing a switch. Unlike the automated version of Bites the Dust, Kira retains his memory of the events prior to the recursion and is able to change past events. He revives Hayato this way after impulsively killing him and later attempts it once more as a last-ditch attempt to escape Jotaro and the other Stand users.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Subversion, though, as Killer Queen is made to erase evidence. It may blow its victims to pieces, but every single piece disintegrates into nothingness shortly after death, leaving absolutely no trace of the victim's body. In fact, Kira's so skilled with this ability, he can cause Killer Queen to erase everything but certain parts of the human body.
• Mad Bomber: Killer Queen has the ability to make things explode... but there's definitely something horribly wrong with its user's thought process.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Killer Queen takes several elements from the Queen song that serves as its namesake: "She's a Killer Queen/ Gunpowder, gelatin/ Dynamite with a laser beam/ Guaranteed to blow your mind/ Anytime"; "Playful as a pussy cat..." Additionally, the distinctive clicking sound heard when the Stand detonates one of its bombs is almost identical to the finger-snapping heard at the start of the song. Killer Queen's name also relates to Kira's Obsessively Organized tendencies with the line "...to avoid complications/she never kept the same address..." Now, what does Kira do once his original identity is outed? Changes address (and face/lives) with another man to avoid the hassle this revelation would cause.
  • As for Bites the Dust, imagine hearing the song's Title Drop every single time a new person dies per loop. Another one really did bite the dust, now didn't they?
• Musical Theme Naming: Kira's Stand and its abilities Sheer Heart Attack and Bites the Dust are all named after Queen songs.
• Necessary Drawback:
  • Only one of his first bomb can be active at a time. This is particularly notable when Kira upgrades himself with Stray Cat. He can either set a mine or shoot a grenade, but not both, and the fact that he stops doing the latter clues Hayato in to the fact that he's done the former.
  • Sheer Heart Attack shares the same weakness that later automatic long-range Stands have: in exchange for having both power and range, it sacrifices all precision, only being able to follow its pre-programmed directive to target the hottest thing in the area. This means it can easily be distracted by creating other sources of heat around it.
  • When he sends out Sheer Heart Attack, it can only be deactivated if it's manually retrieved, unlike his other bombs which can be remotely disabled. This means that if an ability affects Sheer Heart Attack, Synchronization will cause Kira to suffer that effect until he can get to where he released Sheer Heart Attack. Normally, this isn't a big deal, as Sheer Heart Attack is Nigh-Invulnerable and able to shrug off any attack, but abilities that ignore durability, like Echoes ACT 3's Freeze, will hinder Kira.
  • Bites the Dust can also be deactivated at will and is much stronger than the other two kinds of bombs, but it has some major drawbacks because of its nature. First, because it's an automatic Stand, it has very specific requirements to be planted and activated. Second, it requires Killer Queen to be "passed on" to someone else, which means that not only can Kira not plant other bombs as long as Bites the Dust is active, he cannot use Killer Queen at all without deactivating the ability. This one nearly gets him killed when Hayato (the one he attached Bites the Dust to) tries to assassinate him with Stray Cat's air bullets with no way to defend himself that he only survived through sheer luck, and why he was forced to recall Killer Queen in a panic when Josuke attacks shortly after. More importantly, while Kira is aware that he has reversed time at the start of each loop, he does not know what's happened in previous cycles: if it activated when someone talked to Hayato, if the boy tried to tell someone else, or if someone else died in a fresh time loop. Kira has to deduce for himself each cycle that Hayato is aware that he's traveled back in time by looking at Hayato's uncharacteristic behavior, as Killer Queen is the one preserving the events and memories of previous cycles, and that's attached to Hayato. This is the primary reason why Hayato was able to get rid of Bites the Dust; Kira had no idea that Josuke and all his friends were going to die in a matter of seconds on the final loop, and this is why Kira retracted Bites the Dust when Josuke was beating him with Crazy Diamond.
  • Finally, Kira can't detonate offensive bombs too close to him, as the blast would harm him as well (these are distinct from when he uses his bomb ability to erase someone, which creates no splash damage). His inability to bomb in close quarters is compounded by his lack of fighting experience, which makes him relatively weak in a straight fight despite the high physical strength and Touch of Death ability of his Stand.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Bites the Dust is almost exactly tailored to the problem Kira has at the moment he receives it. Basically, Hayato finally has hard evidence of Kira's identity and deeds — and Kira kills him in a panic, meaning he'll have to go back into hiding... until the Stand Arrow happens to empower him again. Time is reversed so Hayato is still alive, and thanks to a tiny remote Killer Queen following him, Hayato is trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop where if he ever tries to reveal Kira's identity or anyone else even asks him questions about it, anyone in the conversation will explode. And in each successive loop, people who died previously will still die. Not only can Hayato suddenly never divulge this evidence, but nosy people will die seemingly randomly, meaning Kira can never be found out. The remote Stand even protects Hayato from any other kind of harm, so he can't even commit suicide. Bites the Dust basically guarantees Kira's victory, and only through some meticiulous planning and a little bit of luck is Hayato able to force Kira to deactivate it so he can protect himself when Josuke attacks.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Sheer Heart Attack forces Jotaro to go all out, and even he fails to destroy it. Koichi's Echoes, while upgraded, can only slow it down from a certain range, only being able to stop it moving while being fairly close to the rolling bomb. The only thing that visibly damages Sheer Heart Attack is Star Platinum attempting to tear it apart at the mouth, and that is an incredibly dangerous proposition considering its explosive yield. Kira, on the other hand, has no such durability...
  • Of note is that Star Platinum: The World pummeling Sheer Heart Attack (the likes of which has previously outright killed other Stands) is Played for Laughs to emphasize the incredible durability of it.
• Obviously Evil: To contrast Kira himself, Killer Queen is more evil-looking than most Stands. Its name, powers, Hellish Pupils, and cat-skull motif all serve to hammer in that this is the Stand of a murderer and it exists only to kill.
• Personality Powers: The abilities of Kira's Stand seems to be born out of his will to leave absolutely no evidence behind, hence the fiery explosions, with its gladiator garb and physique reflecting his obsession with physical fitness. Kira's 3rd manifestation of his Stand power Bites the Dust is born from his sheer desperation to not get caught after killing Hayato when he lost his temper. It not only prevents Hayato from ever telling anybody about Kira in any way and kills anyone chasing Kira's old identity, but it also resets time to before Kira killed Hayato.
• Power Perversion Potential: You wouldn't think a Stand that creates bombs could be used for perverse reasons, but when the user is a man with a fetish for women's hands but not the actual full woman, being able to blow someone up while still keeping the hand means he can easily acquire hands from women and he leaves no physical evidence behind when he kills them.
• Psycho Pink: Killer Queen is often colored pale pink which adds to its unsettling appearance appropriate for a murderer's stand.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Subverted; since Killer Queen only needs to touch something to make it a bomb, it has no need to employ a pummeling, its preferred attack being a swift chop. Not that a Stand Rush would do him any good; the only times Kira tried to pull it off were against the helpless Koichi and Josuke's Crazy Diamond, which worked well against the former since he was pinning Echoes at the same time, but not so great against the latter, which outpaces him by magnitudes.
• Required Secondary Powers: Kira has to detach Sheer Heart Attack from Killer Queen to use it, which has the unfortunate side effect of making it completely useless against Josuke, since he can just "heal" it back into Killer Queen.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Played With. The carrier of Bites the Dust will remember everything even after it rewinds time. However, Kira himself does not keep any of his memories from the previous loops and the only way for him to know if time has reset is by guessing it.
• Signature Sound Effect: Killer Queen gets a few in the anime; the sharp "-CLICK" of it pressing its detonator button and the synthetic, shriek-like sound it makes when summoned. For Sheer Heart Attack, it's the "rattling chinaware" sound of its tank treads rolling.
• Sigil Spam: Killer Queen is dotted with those cat-eared, open mouthed skulls. A similar design appears on Sheer Heart Attack's face, and Kira himself has a tie with the same symbols.
• Squishy Wizard: Without his bombs, Killer Queen's close combat capabilities are relatively subpar in comparison to Star Platinum or Crazy Diamond and he goes down relatively easy after a few punches. Partially a case of Overshadowed by Awesome, as Killer Queen is able to beat Echoes Act 3 in close combat; it's just that few Stands can trade blows with Star Platinum or Crazy Diamond and come out on top.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Killer Queen runs on this trope, with all three of its abilities, or as Kira himself calls them, "bombs", having some sort of explosion based effect.
• Suddenly Speaking: In the Latin American Spanish dub, is not Kira the one who talks while Bites the Dust prepares to kill its targets, it's Killer Queen. This might've been a mistake with the dubbing but still interesting since it might be the first time Killer Queen is heard talking.
• Superpower Lottery: Killer Queen winds up having access to four dangerous abilities in addition to its formidable combat prowess. Three of these abilities (Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, and Bites the Dust) are native to him and either are his Stand, or could be considered Stands in their own rights, while Stray Cat is a completely separate Stand that he is able to utilize for team attacks.
  • Also something of an aversion, at least for an Arc Big Bad. While Killer Queen is legitimately a top-tier Stand, and Kira ends up with an abnormally large and diverse number of Stand abilities, even with Bites the Dust and Stray Cat it's still not an "ultimate" Stand or ability like Kars' Ultimate Lifeform form, The World/Star Platinum, King Crimson or Gold Experience Requiem, or Pucci's various Stands, perhaps due to Kira's lack of ambition in improving those abilities. Unlike those Stands and abilities, Bites the Dust has a Necessary Drawback that prevents it from becoming a Story-Breaker Power for Kira to repeatedly abuse.
• Super-Strength: While Kira prefers to use Killer Queen's Touch of Death via explosions for most forms of combat, Killer Queen is physically strong enough to punch clean through the human body on its own, as shown by inflicting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice through Koichi's chest.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Bites the Dust works on a variation of this. When he implants it into Hayato, anyone learning anything from the boy about Kira's current identity in any way causes the instigator to be spontaneously detonated and for time to jump back by an hour. In an ironic twist, it's intended to prevent Hayato from telling anyone else about Kira and to act as a trap, but Hayato never did so intentionally; Rohan forcefully read Hayato's memories out of impatience. Jotaro, Josuke, and Koichi all independently made the connection that Kira was someone related to Hayato when they saw Bites the Dust preventing Hayato's suicide, and this caused them to instantly die as well.
• Tongue-Tied: Bites the Dust can turn any Muggle who knows Kira's secret identity into a carrier of a miniature Killer Queen. If anyone tries to interrogate them about Kira, Bites the Dust will cause an internal explosion that destroys the interrogator, then causes a repeating temporal time loop that only ends when Kira lets time resume normally or retracts Bites the Dust to defend himself.
• Touch of Death: One touch from Killer Queen means you are already dead since you've already become a bomb. The only defenses against this ability is that Kira can only make one bomb at a time and that Killer Queen can't directly turn Stands into bombs.
• Treasure Chest Cavity: Killer Queen's six-pack abs are actually a compartment cover where it can store anything to its liking. It uses this to merge with Stray Cat and convert its Bubble Gun into bombs.
• Unblockable Attack: Killer Queen doesn't hit you with a bomb. It turns you into a bomb. You become what explodes. You can't avoid getting hit by a grenade if you are the grenade, after all.
• Where's the Kaboom?: While Kira has the vocal utterance of the trope when Stray Cat prevents a bomb from exploding, Killer Queen wordlessly gets its own confusion off quite well by how it repeatedly clicks its detonator finger in vain to get it to go off.
• The Worf Effect: Star Platinum's Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs are most frequently used as a final attack to incapacitate or destroy a target, even if only briefly; when Sheer Heart Attack takes three of its barrages and can still function properly, that's your cue to realize that it's literally invincible.
• You Are Already Dead: Once Bites the Dust has been triggered, it's already game over for the target no matter how they try to resist. Killer Queen has already entered the target's pupil to blow them up.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The main theme of Bites the Dust. Anything that happens in a previous loop will happen in all future loops, like Shinobu's china set breaking even when it's caught after she trips, or Heaven's Door turning Hayato into a book even when Rohan doesn't trigger it. The only way to avert these fates is to force Kira to end the current loop before these events would have occurred.

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