JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's most iconic hero, Jotaro Kujo, has matured as a character throughout the series, but one thing has always been a constant -- his unusual taste in hats. Starting with his school uniform cap in Part 3 and continuing through his final appearance in Part 6, all of Jotaro's hats appear to fuse with his hair, leading fans to question how exactly his headwear works.
As it turns out, the answer is hiding in plain sight. In one of the first episodes of the Stardust Crusaders anime, a photo of a slightly younger Jotaro can be seen in his house. In the picture, he is still wearing his famous hat, but there's a difference -- the hat has a clear beginning and end, and although it is still the same color as his hair, they aren't seamlessly blended together as they are in the present. Jotaro's hat wasn't always so strange, as it turns out. What exactly happened to it?
In Stardust Crusaders Episode 26, "Iggy the Fool and Geb's N'Doul, Part 2," Jotaro's hat is knocked off his head by N'Doul's stand and later retrieved by Iggy the dog. In Episode 41, "D'Arby the Player, Part 2," Jotaro takes off his hat during his heated video game battle with D'Arby the Younger. In both cases, his hat retains the same spiky shape as before, while the spikes of his hair appear to be somewhat shorter. The answer, then, seems to be that his hat is ripped at the back -- part of his stereotypical Japanese delinquent aesthetic -- and its shape and color just happen to blend seamlessly with his hair, creating the illusion that they are one and the same.
Jotaro's hats in Parts 4 and 5 are more confusing. They're white instead of black but still blend seamlessly into his hair on a gradient, and flecks of black hair can be seen even at the hats' edges. A theory by Reddit user Skrygornias suggests that the back of the Part 4 hat has holes that Jotaro's hair shows through and that the back of the hat is dyed a darker color in order to blend with his hair better. This theory may seem overly detailed, but given what we know about how the hat works in Part 3, it makes a lot of sense.
In Part 6, Jotaro's hat changes to dark purple, which blends more easily with his black hair. The color pages of the manga give his hair a purple tint to make the hat-hair blend seamless. Since Part 6 hasn't been animated yet, viewers have yet to see how the anime will portray this version of Jotaro's iconic headwear.
Despite confusing JoJo fans for many years, the most likely explanation for Jotaro's hat is surprisingly simple. Of course, the fact that Jotaro is an animated character makes it easier for the transition between his hat and hair to look seamless, but a ripped hat is a notably grounded explanation for a strange aspect of a famously strange series. The only question remaining is how Jotaro gets a half-ripped hat to stay on his head during all those action scenes -- maybe it's pinned down? We'll likely never really know the bizarre truth.
