JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 Jojo no kimyōna bōken, alternately translated as JoJo's Venture) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. It is famous for its original art style (complete with over-the-top violence), intricate plot, and numerous Western rock music references. Every main character's name in each series can be read as JoJo.
Table of contents |
Manga
Part 1: Phantom Blood
The story begins in Victorian England with young Jonathan Joestar living at his father's wealthy estate. Another young man, Dio Brando, comes to stay with them having recently lost his father. Jonathan tries to befriend him but Dio's plan is to achieve wealth and power by any means necessary. Hoping to drive Jonathan mad, Dio acts like a perfect gentlemen around his adoptive father Lord Joestar but is physically abusive to Jonathan whenever possible.
Seven years later Jonathan's father falls ill. Dio is very attentive and brings him his medicine every day. Jonathan is suspcious as he is certain Dio is up to no good. Jonathan discovers an old letter writen by Dario Brando (Dio's father) on his deathbed requesting Lord Joestar care for Dio. In his letter, Dario describes his symptoms which are identical to Lord Joestar's mystery aliment. Jonathan believes that Dio must have poisoned his own father and is now trying to do the same thing to Lord Joestar. Dio discovers Jonathan with the letter and Jonathan accuses Dio of poisoning Lord Joestar. Dio decides that he must kill Jonathan before he is exposed.
In order for Dio to kill Jonathan, he puts on a cursed mask that transforms its user into a vampire permanently. Fighting ensues and Jonathan is able to burn Dio down with their house. However, Dio survives, and takes off to plot his revenge. Later, Jonathan meets a man with a strange power called the ripple (波紋 hamon) which is most effective against vampires. After teaching Jonathan how to use the ripple they both set out to seek out and defeat Dio.
Their chase takes them to a village in Europe where most of the villagers have been turned into vampires by Dio. Eventually they fight their way to Dio and a fight between Dio's eye beams and Jonathan's ripple ends with a loss for Dio.
Somehow Dio's head was still intact, and while the heroes travel back home by boat they are ambushed by Dio. Dio manages to sink the ship and take Jonathan's body with him to the bottom.
Part 2: Battle Tendency
The second JJBA series takes place in the 1930s, and follows the misadventures of Joseph Joestar, the grandson of Jonathan Joestar, as he fights zombies and vampires with some help from a cybernetically-enchanced Nazi.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
The most popular series, Series 3's main character is Kujo Jotaro, the grandson of Joseph Joestar. Jotaro is a juvenile delinquent who believes he is possessed by an evil spirit, and first appears in a police holding cell. To prove his possession to Joseph and his friend, Muhammed Abdul, Jotaro takes the gun from a nearby guard and tries to shoot himself in the head. The bullet stops in midair, but Joseph and Abdul see a spectral hand clutching it. Avdol explains that Jotaro has a Stand, a manifestation of psychic power, that he and Joseph also possess. Jotaro's is called Star Platinum, Avdol's is Magician's Red, and Joseph has Hermit Purple.
Jotaro's mother Holly falls ill, and the Stand wielders see thorny vines entangling her body. They discover that Dio is still alive and is causing the illness due to his Joestar blood, and they must find him and defeat him to save Holly's life. What follows is a 13-volume travelogue with copious amounts of conflict and over-the-top violence.
Kakyoin Noriaki (Hierophant Green) Jotaro's classmate, is possessed by Dio and forced to try to kill Jotaro before they leave. Tower of Gray downs the plane they take. Jean-Pierre Polnareff (Silver Chariot) joins them to avenge his sister's death. Captain Tenielle (Dark Blue Moon) sinks the boat the heroes took, forcing them to board the ghost ship Strength, which tries to kill them. In Singapore, Devo (Ebony Devil) and Rubber Soul (Yellow Temperance) attack them. In Calcutta, they encounter the cowardly cowboy Hol Horse (The Emperor), his companion Nena (The Empress), and J. Geil, the Man With Two Right Hands (Hanged Man), who killed Sheri Polnareff. The death car Wheel of Fortune tries several times to run them off the road to their deaths. J's mother Enya (Justice) sends townspeople-cum-zombies against them in Cairo. Dan Steely (The Lovers) interferes in Karachi. The heroes get briefly saddled with the secretly sadistic baby Mannish Boy (Death 13) before they leave Arabia, and then they get the bull terrier Iggi (The Fool) in Abu Simbel.
The OAV series starts with Volume 20, with the appearance of N'Doul (Geb, having exhausted the 13 tarot cards, the stands are now named after Egyptian gods), who blinds Kakyoin and puts him out of commission. Oingo and Boingo (Khnum & Thoth) try to defeat the heroes, and then Boingo tries to help Hol Horse. The evil Anubis sword possesses Polnareff. Mariah (Bast) magnetizes Joseph, causing metal objects of various sizes (up to and including cars and escalators) to fly at him. The cowardly Alessi (Sethan) uses his Stand to de-age victims to infancy, and then kills with a submachine gun and axe. Daniel J. D'arby (Osiris) offers to tell them where Dio is if they play a game of chance; Polnareff and Joseph are turned into poker chips upon losing, and Jotaro must beat D'arby in a poker game to get them back. The falcon Pet Shop (Horus) fights Iggi, and Terence Trent D'arby (Atum) challenges the heroes to video games. When they get inside, they are trapped inside Tenor Sax, and must defeat the Stand wielder Kenny G to escape.
Upon reaching Dio, the villain seems to teleport around, and puts Abdul inside a sarcophagus in the blink of an eye. Abdul is killed by an invisible force that reveals itself as Vanilla Ice and Cream, Dio's most loyal henchman who does "every little thing I ask of him," including decapitating himself. Dio uses his blood to resurrect Ice as a vampire, and Ice attacks the heroes, killing Iggi. Dio reveals the nature of his stand, The World: it can briefly stop time. He chases Jotaro and Joseph, until a climactic battle between The World and Star Platinum, where Dio uses an oil tanker (a steamroller in the manga) as a weapon, and Jotaro must use Star Platinum in ways he never thought he could.
Part 4: Diamond Doesn't Break
Part 5: Golden Wind
Part 6: Stone Ocean
Part 7: Steel Ball Run
Anime
Two OVA series have been adapted from Series 3. The original six-episode series in 1993 began with Joseph, Jōtarō, Polnareff and Kakyōin in the Egyptian desert on their quest to find Dio (volume 20 in the manga). The series offered very little exposition, assuming the viewer already knew the backstory. A prequel seven-episode series was released in 2001, offering an explaination for those unfamiliar with the story in the previous series. It started with Joseph coming to Japan to explain Jōtarō's strange behavior (volume 12 in the manga).
Video Games
Several video games have been adapted from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The first was an RPG based on Series 3 released in 1993 for the Super Famicom. Later, two fighting games were also adapted from Series 3 by Capcom, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, both in 1999. A third Capcom game was based on Series 5 titled JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Gold Whirlwind (ジョジョの奇妙な冒険: 黄金の旋風) and released for the Playstation 2 in 2002. This game will be released in Europe as GioGio's Bizarre Adventure.
External links
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