Will Anthonio Zeppeli

Zeppeli stands at a middling to tall height with a muscular frame and sharp, pointed features. Dark curls slip out from beneath his hat, and a thin, carefully trimmed handlebar mustache sits above his lip. He alternates between two versions of the same ensemble, a suit worn with a bow tie and top hat, first rendered in a rainbow print and afterward in checkers, with the checkered look being the one the anime keeps.

Bold yet decidedly odd, Zeppeli devotes himself to the fight against evil and holds that a person's courage grows in proportion to the trials they survive. He keeps a level, methodical head in combat despite the grotesque foes he faces, and coaches Jonathan to imagine himself in an enemy's position so as to anticipate their moves. Warned by his master Tonpetty that finishing his studies would seal his death, he walks toward that end without flinching and gives his life for Jonathan, staying alive long enough to drag himself forward even after his lower half is severed.

His righteousness has deep roots. After surviving a vampire's attack, he spent the rest of his days probing the Stone Mask and mastering the Ripple to strike back at the creatures it births, setting human courage against the monstrous power of vampires and zombies. He reveres the Ripple as a summit of the human spirit, one only a hard life can produce, and ties a steady breath to a steady mind. He is also thoroughly eccentric, handing an injured Jonathan the Ripple before they had ever met, teaching through roundabout stunts such as landing a Zoom Punch before explaining it or using a wine cup as a hidden radar, and indulging small quirks like over-peppering his food until he sneezes.

Raised in a scholarly household, Zeppeli was drawn to mysteries from childhood and later joined the archaeological society at his father's university, traveling widely. On a dig into an underground Aztec ruin in Mexico, the group unearthed the Stone Mask. During the voyage back, crew members began dying until it emerged that someone had donned the mask, that someone being the expedition's leader, Zeppeli's own father. All fifty-eight aboard were slaughtered; Zeppeli survived only by leaping into the sea, and his father was destroyed by the morning sun before a fishing boat rescued him days later. Two years on, still searching for a way to break the mask, he met a healer in India who sent him to the master Tonpetty. There he learned the Ripple alongside Dire, even as Tonpetty foresaw that completing the training would cost him his life, a fate he chose to accept.

Years of study under the Tibetan masters made Zeppeli an authority on the Ripple, which he applies not only to strike but to leap, walk on water, mend wounds, revive plants, and glimpse the future. His arsenal runs from the Zoom Punch, which stretches the arm's joints into a semi-ranged blow, to the Ripple Cutter, in which wine spat through his teeth turns sharp enough to slice; from the Sendo Wave Kick, a knee strike that shreds the undead from within, to the sunlight-charged Sunlight Yellow Overdrive that reduces zombies to ash.

Learning that Jonathan had defeated the mask's owner Dio Brando, Zeppeli presented himself, healed the young man's shattered arm, and volunteered to teach him the Ripple before joining his quest with Robert E. O. Speedwagon. He engaged Jack the Ripper briefly, then handed the fight to Jonathan as a lesson. When Dio appeared, Zeppeli attacked at once, only for his arm to be flash-frozen and his techniques disabled until Speedwagon reached him. Later, unable to help against Bruford because of Tarkus, he and Jonathan wove leaves into a glider to flee, and when Tarkus caught up, Zeppeli entered the battle with Poco's help and finally revealed his prophesied end. Bound in Tarkus's chains, he was cut in two at the waist and lost an arm, while Jonathan's neck was broken, yet in his final moments he channeled all his life force into Jonathan through his ultimate technique, restoring his student and enabling the defeat of Tarkus. He clung to consciousness briefly, scolded Jonathan for mourning, urged him to finish Dio and destroy the mask, and died in his arms. His body was cremated, a letter he had sent Tonpetty arrived too late to save him, and Speedwagon took to wearing his checkered top hat.