Diego Brando

Diego Brando (ディエゴ・ブランド, Diego Burando?), commonly known as Dio (ディオ, Dio?), is a major antagonist in Steel Ball Run.

As a strong contender in the Steel Ball Run, Diego becomes an intermittently powerful rival to Gyro and Johnny; eventually also allying with Valentine.

Gender: Male
Sexual orientation: bisexual
Species: Human
Nationality: British
Age: 20 years
Height: 1.65

Diego is a young man of below average height and of average thin build. He has light hair, dark eyebrows and light, bold eyes.

He commonly wears an equestrian helmet with the letters 'D', 'I' and 'O' loosely mounted on bent studs emerging from a small ribbon tied at his forehead, a high-necked jumper patterned with a diagonal grid, light, long gloves, wide-legged pants and long, dark boots.

After obtaining the Holy Corpse's left eye and fusing it with his own, the iris of his left eye has the word 'TURBO' engraved on it, and he temporarily gains a marking under said eye reading 'DIO', contrasting with the Gyro cross he gains on the bottom of his right eye.

As a child, he was a kind and joyful boy. His mother raised him with love and taught him to maintain his dignity even in the most dire of situations. At the age of five, seeing his mother sacrifice her hands so that he could be fed, Diego developed a resentment of everyone around him for allowing that to happen, and an insatiable ambition, on par with that of the original Dio Brando.

Since then, Diego has been driven to climb the social ladder so that he can once again seek revenge on all those who hurt him in the past.

Diego possesses a strong misanthropy, describing humanity as a 'flock of pigeons', and resents humans as a whole for the death of his mother. Thus, Diego is naturally solitary, never seeking to join with anyone, and should he have to cooperate with someone, he will maintain a certain separation between them. Diego views human life as worthless and will sacrifice anyone to further his unscrupulous goals.

Diego sees Johnny as his rival and although these two are not brothers as their original counterparts are, they have both influenced each other's lives quite a bit. Diego and Johnny have competed in several jockey races, with Diego constantly crushing Johnny in each race they have both entered doing everything possible to humiliate him, despite this both Diego and Johnny have a genuine respect for each other for their skills as jockeys and their great mastery in their rides. In the Steel Ball Run race, both faced each other repeatedly to obtain the parts of the Sacred Corpse.

He is also quite treacherous. Despite allying himself with the President, he eventually breaks his alliance with him and goes on to team up with Hot Pants in a plan to steal the parts Valentine still had in his possession. Which shows that in order to achieve his goal he has no qualms about allying himself with different people and then betraying them the moment they are no longer useful to him.

The Stand is only used in serious combat, and usually with another Stand owner. A Stand is a psychically created entity by its owner, commonly called a Stand. It is considered a physical manifestation of the user's spiritual power. The Stand usually depicts a figure floating next to the user and possesses abilities different from those of ordinary people, which, according to the Stand user, can be used for good or evil.

Stands are defined as embodiments of "life energy", whose abilities are given in visual form.

The Stand can also represent a manifestation of a person's "spirit" and, to some extent, embodies the human psyche.

Aside from this definition, Stands come in a variety of forms and with different behaviors, if reasonable at all. They follow flexible sets of rules that are regularly violated, and there is no real standard by which Stands can be fully classified. Such as the embodiment of psycho.

Diego first became a dinosaur after he, along with a number of villagers, were controlled by Dr. Ferdinand into stealing the left eye of the sacred corpse held by Johnny and Gyro.

After Ferdinand was defeated, Diego stole the corpse part and fused it with his left eye, allowing himself to retain the ability to turn into a dinosaur. While he initially benefited from barely enhanced senses and strength, the Stand and all of its abilities eventually became his own.

stand: Scary monsters

Transforming into a Utahraptor dinosaur, Diego gains stripes spelling out "DIO" all over his body. His hair turns into spikes that end in round, ball-shaped tips at the back of his head. The imprints of his plaid shirt are still visible on his chest.

After being under the Stand's influence for a while, Diego is able to turn into a more human form, while still maintaining sharp teeth, claws, dinosaur legs, and a tail, with a crazy expression, on his face.

Since the Stand is bound to Diego's body, its appearance is based on the form it takes.

Infection: Scary Monsters demonstrate the ability to infect other living beings with a virus that transforms them into dinosaurs and causes them to fall under the user's direct command. Each infected person or animal has a distinct appearance and abilities, as well as the ability to infect others with the virus by biting or scratching them.

Morph: Unlike Ferdinand, Diego is able to change his own body into a dinosaur, either completely or as a hybrid of the two.

Since he was a child, Diego had a talent for relating to horses; even those that were apparently untamable, allowed themselves to be handled by him.

Diego's parents were financially weak and tried to get rid of him when he was a baby. However, his mother felt guilty and risked her own life to save him from drowning, upon which his alcoholic father left them both. His mother changed her surname to 'Brando' and became a farm worker, but she and Diego lived in poverty in the stables.

Five years later, the man who had arranged his employment demanded sexual favors from him and, after his refusal, sabotaged his means of getting food. No matter how many times he and his mother fell out, she refused to discard the little dignity they had left; she taught Diego that eating out of shoes due to the lack of proper plates was unacceptable.

Partly because of their example, Diego developed a strong sense of pride. Another year later his young mother died of tetanus infection, which Diego (at the age of 6) believed to be a result of the humiliation they had to suffer. The boy grew resentful of everyone who abandoned them and vowed to himself to get revenge against the man who had harassed his mother.