ANIME ONLY WATCHERS, YOU ARE WELCOMED, BUT ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK OF BEING SPOILED.
IF YOU ARE STRICTLY LOOKING TO DISCUSS THE PART 6 ANIME SERIES, STONE OCEAN, WITHOUT SERIES-WIDE SPOILERS, PLEASE REFER TO THAT THREAD.
(Credit to SolarKnight for the original thread and Sibersk Esto for the second thread. I did nothing. I am merely an Okuyasu to their Jotaro and Josuke.)
What is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a manga series created by Hirohiko Araki. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1987 to 2004, and then switched to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump where it still runs today. It is currently the 9th longest manga ever with 127 volumes at the moment.
What is JJBA about?
JJBA narrates the story of the Joestar family's "bizarre adventures" across multiple generations, taking place in settings varying from the streets of Victorian England to a cross-country adventure through Italy to a horseback race across all of the US. There will also be plenty of posing and much fabulous-ness.
The story is divided like this:
Part 1: Phantom Blood
This is where it all started. It is the story of Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando and during the late 19th century in England. After the death of Dio's father, he is adopted by the Joestar family. Despite being shown great hospitality, Dio's only goal is to one day become the sole heir to the Joestar fortune. When his plan doesn't work out due to Jonathan finding out about his schemes, Dio uses an ancient stone mask that had been kept as a memento of Jonathan's mother to transform into a vampire. After a battle that left both badly hurt, Jonathan is found by Will A. Zepelli, an Italian master of a mystic power called the Ripple (also called Hamon by some), so that he can master those powers and then embark on a journey to defeat Dio and prevent him from ruling the world.
Part 2: Battle Tendency
50 years after the events of Phantom Blood, it follows Joseph Joestar, Jonathan's grandson. The story follows the quest of Joseph, Caesar Zepelli (Will's grandson), and their Ripple master Lisa Lisa to fight the Pillar Men, ancient super beings that are higher in the food chain than even vampires and the creators of the stone mask, to prevent them from obtaining the Red Stone of Aja, which would allow them to perfect the stone mask and turn them into ultimate beings without any weaknesses at all.
It is a fan favorite and considered by many as one of the greatest battle shonen manga.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
By far the most popular and well known of all of the parts, Part 3 introduces the concept of Stands to the series, one of its most iconic features. This time, the story focuses on Jotaro Kujo, Joseph's grandson. Having survived the ending of Phantom Blood, Dio returns and obtains the power of Stands. Due to Dio having stolen Jonathan's body after his death, this awakens a Stand in all of the living members of the Joestar bloodline. While this gives Jotaro and Joseph superpowers, it causes Holly, Jotaro's mother, to fall deathly ill because she does not have the ability to control it. With the only way of curing Holly being to kill Dio, Jotaro and Joseph, along with a group of allied Stand users, embark on an adventure to Egypt to defeat Dio once and for all.
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable (also known as Diamond is not Crash)
Taking place in the town of Morioh, the protagonist this time is Josuke Higashikata (the kanji for -suke can also be read as Jo), Joseph's illegitimate son. It introduces the concept of a special kind of Arrow, which gives whomever it pierces a Stand ability. In the beginning, it could be said that it follows a "Stand user of the week" formula while trying to find the Arrow and destroy it. After that is accomplished, the serial killer Yoshikage Kira is introduced, and the objective switches to finding and defeating him for the safety of Morioh.
It originally had some really bad scanlations which the fandom has dubbed as "Duwang" due to a mistranslation of Morioh, and turned it into a meme.
Part 5: Vento Aureo (Golden Wind)
Before the events of Part 3, Dio conceived a son called Haruno Shiobana, who changed his name to Giorno Giovanna when he moved to Italy. Giorno has a dream, and that dream is to be a Gang Star and gain control of Italy's mafia to change it into something that turns his home into a better place and helps its people. To do so, he joins Passione, a mafia consisting of many stand users, with the intention of climbing up the ranks so that he can take over from the inside.
Part 6: Stone Ocean
It is the first story to star a female Jojo, Jolyne Kujo (sometimes written as Cujoh), daughter of Jotaro. In an attempt to bait Jotaro, Jolyne is framed for murder and thrown into the Green Dolphin Street Prison. While helping Jolyne break out from prison, Jotaro gets attacked by the enemy Stand, Whitesnake, while trying to protect his daughter and he gets both his Stand and his soul/memories taken from him. Without both of those, Jotaro will eventually die, so Jolyne rejects her opportunity to escape from prison so that she can find Whitesnake's Stand User and save her father.
Part 7: Steel Ball Run
We're back to the late 19th century, but this time in an alternate universe where you'll find new versions of the Jojo characters you know! While initially unrelated to JJBA during its run in Weekly Shonen Jump, it was announced as the 7th part of JoJo when it moved to Ultra Jump and changed to the seinin genre.
Johnny Joestar, a former genius jockey that became a paraplegic, meets Gyro Zepelli. Convinced that Gyro's rotation abilities are the key to regaining the use of his legs, Johnny follows Gyro to compete in the Steel Ball Run race, a race by horse across the entire United States. While it starts as a gigantic, but otherwise normal race, it is soon found out that the actual purpose of the race is a plan to find and collect the parts of a holy corpse made by the president of the US.
Part 8: JoJolion
After the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, Morioh was devastated, and weird structures that came to be called Wall Eyes started appearing all over the town. One day, a girl called Yasuho Hirose finds a naked, unconscious man beneath one of the Wall Eyes. This man, our protagonist, has no memory of anything before he woke up, but it is shown that he has a Stand that is able to remove things via bubbles (and also that he has 4 testicles). He is adopted by the family of Yasuho's childhood friend, the Higashikata family, and given the name of Josuke Higashikata. Wishing to know more about himself, Josuke and Yasuho start investigating any clues that may lead to revealing his past.
Part 9: The JOJOLands
O'ahu, present day. Dua Lipa is the trending musician, and COVID is still a major concern. On this island lives a 15-year-old boy named Jodio Joestar. Living with his sibling and mother, he acts as a dealer for certain illegal substances. One day, his employer comes and shows him an excellent find: a Japanese person has landed in Hawaii with a diamond worth over six million dollars. Normally it would be impossible to steal, but for someone with a Stand…
This is a story of a young boy and his quest to become rich.
Sounds interesting, how can I read this?
Parts 1-5 have received translated manga releases outside of Japan. Online sellers like Amazon carry them, as do popular brick-and-mortar stores like Barnes & Noble. Part 6 is due for its own physical translated releases sometime later in 2023.
Parts 7 and onward are currently not available in English-translated physical releases. Still, the Internet can help you out.
Are there any adaptations of this story?
Yes, yes there are.
-Phantom Blood movie: In 2007, Phantom Blood received a theatrical animated movie. Unfortunately, it never received a home release. It is said that the reason for this is that Araki hated the movie and forbid it from being released on DVD.
-Phantom Blood videogame: A brawler for the PS2, it was the first time part 1 was released as something other than a manga. It wasn't that well received IIRC, but it allowed you to play pretty much any character that so much as threw a punch during the story arc.
-Stardust Crusaders drama CDs: Audio retellings of part of Stardust Crusaders. It has Norio Wakamoto as Dio.
-Stardust Crusaders RPG: Released for the SNES, it adapts part 3 and was the first Jojo videogame.
-Stardust Crusaders fighting game: Possibly the biggest exposure most people outside of Japan have to JJBA. Made by Capcom for the CPS3, it is considered a classic by many fighting game fans.
-Stardust Crusaders OVAs: Released simply as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, these OVAs are an abridged retelling of part 3's story.
-Vento Aureo videogame: The first PS2 Jojo game. It is a brawler that retells most of part 5's story in its own way. It was planned to be released internationally as GioGio's Bizarre Adventure, but Araki's refusal to change the musical references prevented it from happening.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012-Present Day) Anime: It is the anime that is currently airing, and what Jojo ERA is most excited about. It's produced by David Productions and has so far faithfully adapted Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable, Vento Aureo/Golden Wind, and Stone Ocean. Watch it on Crunchyroll (or Netflix for Part 6). Parts 1-5 have been dubbed and can be found playing on Toonami; Part 6 has its dub on Netflix.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2017 movie): A film adaptation of a section Part 4 by Takashi Miike. Its quality is largely unknown.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle: A fighting game developed by CyberConnect2. It is the first time ever that characters from multiple parts appear in the same game and interact with each other. It was on August 29, 2013 in Japan, and in April 29th, 2014 in the US. In 2022, it received an updated re-release in the form of JBA: All Star Battle R.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven: A tag team arena fighting game based on the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise, developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Namco Bandai Games exclusively for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. The game was released on December 17, 2015, in Japan, and June 28, 2016, in North America.
-Light novels: There are a couple of light novels, however, none of them were written by Araki, so it's very likely that none of them are canon. For the most part, they are some sort of expansion to the story.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga: a book written by Hirohiko Araki. In the book, Araki discusses the techniques used for creating manga, along with developing stories and world-building. The book was released on April 17, 2015 in Japan. It was published by VIZ Media in June, 2017.
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1421594072/?tag=era0f0-20
-Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Abridged: Ok, this isn't official at all, but it is too good for me to not give it a mention. It is a parody of the Stardust Crusaders OVAs.
Ok, now for a few guidelines for this topic:
- PLEASE MARK SPOILERS FOR PART 9 CHAPTER DISCUSSION/CONTENT
- ALL SPOILERS FOR PARTS 1-8 WILL BE UNMARKED. This includes talking about the endgame sequence of JoJolion.
- IF YOU EVER POST FANART, PLEASE SOURCE. It is just rude for the artist to not do so, so be sure to at least make a mention of the author.
- BE CIVIL. I'm sure this goes without saying, but it bears repeating.
Ok, I think that's about it. If any of you have a better short, mostly spoiler-free summary of the stories you're welcomed to submit it, as well as anything that you guys think might need to be added.
IF YOU ARE STRICTLY LOOKING TO DISCUSS THE PART 6 ANIME SERIES, STONE OCEAN, WITHOUT SERIES-WIDE SPOILERS, PLEASE REFER TO THAT THREAD.
(Credit to SolarKnight for the original thread and Sibersk Esto for the second thread. I did nothing. I am merely an Okuyasu to their Jotaro and Josuke.)
What is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure?
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a manga series created by Hirohiko Araki. It was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1987 to 2004, and then switched to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump where it still runs today. It is currently the 9th longest manga ever with 127 volumes at the moment.
What is JJBA about?
JJBA narrates the story of the Joestar family's "bizarre adventures" across multiple generations, taking place in settings varying from the streets of Victorian England to a cross-country adventure through Italy to a horseback race across all of the US. There will also be plenty of posing and much fabulous-ness.
The story is divided like this:
Part 1: Phantom Blood
This is where it all started. It is the story of Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando and during the late 19th century in England. After the death of Dio's father, he is adopted by the Joestar family. Despite being shown great hospitality, Dio's only goal is to one day become the sole heir to the Joestar fortune. When his plan doesn't work out due to Jonathan finding out about his schemes, Dio uses an ancient stone mask that had been kept as a memento of Jonathan's mother to transform into a vampire. After a battle that left both badly hurt, Jonathan is found by Will A. Zepelli, an Italian master of a mystic power called the Ripple (also called Hamon by some), so that he can master those powers and then embark on a journey to defeat Dio and prevent him from ruling the world.
Part 2: Battle Tendency
50 years after the events of Phantom Blood, it follows Joseph Joestar, Jonathan's grandson. The story follows the quest of Joseph, Caesar Zepelli (Will's grandson), and their Ripple master Lisa Lisa to fight the Pillar Men, ancient super beings that are higher in the food chain than even vampires and the creators of the stone mask, to prevent them from obtaining the Red Stone of Aja, which would allow them to perfect the stone mask and turn them into ultimate beings without any weaknesses at all.
It is a fan favorite and considered by many as one of the greatest battle shonen manga.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
By far the most popular and well known of all of the parts, Part 3 introduces the concept of Stands to the series, one of its most iconic features. This time, the story focuses on Jotaro Kujo, Joseph's grandson. Having survived the ending of Phantom Blood, Dio returns and obtains the power of Stands. Due to Dio having stolen Jonathan's body after his death, this awakens a Stand in all of the living members of the Joestar bloodline. While this gives Jotaro and Joseph superpowers, it causes Holly, Jotaro's mother, to fall deathly ill because she does not have the ability to control it. With the only way of curing Holly being to kill Dio, Jotaro and Joseph, along with a group of allied Stand users, embark on an adventure to Egypt to defeat Dio once and for all.
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable (also known as Diamond is not Crash)
Taking place in the town of Morioh, the protagonist this time is Josuke Higashikata (the kanji for -suke can also be read as Jo), Joseph's illegitimate son. It introduces the concept of a special kind of Arrow, which gives whomever it pierces a Stand ability. In the beginning, it could be said that it follows a "Stand user of the week" formula while trying to find the Arrow and destroy it. After that is accomplished, the serial killer Yoshikage Kira is introduced, and the objective switches to finding and defeating him for the safety of Morioh.
It originally had some really bad scanlations which the fandom has dubbed as "Duwang" due to a mistranslation of Morioh, and turned it into a meme.
Part 5: Vento Aureo (Golden Wind)
Before the events of Part 3, Dio conceived a son called Haruno Shiobana, who changed his name to Giorno Giovanna when he moved to Italy. Giorno has a dream, and that dream is to be a Gang Star and gain control of Italy's mafia to change it into something that turns his home into a better place and helps its people. To do so, he joins Passione, a mafia consisting of many stand users, with the intention of climbing up the ranks so that he can take over from the inside.
Part 6: Stone Ocean
It is the first story to star a female Jojo, Jolyne Kujo (sometimes written as Cujoh), daughter of Jotaro. In an attempt to bait Jotaro, Jolyne is framed for murder and thrown into the Green Dolphin Street Prison. While helping Jolyne break out from prison, Jotaro gets attacked by the enemy Stand, Whitesnake, while trying to protect his daughter and he gets both his Stand and his soul/memories taken from him. Without both of those, Jotaro will eventually die, so Jolyne rejects her opportunity to escape from prison so that she can find Whitesnake's Stand User and save her father.
Part 7: Steel Ball Run
We're back to the late 19th century, but this time in an alternate universe where you'll find new versions of the Jojo characters you know! While initially unrelated to JJBA during its run in Weekly Shonen Jump, it was announced as the 7th part of JoJo when it moved to Ultra Jump and changed to the seinin genre.
Johnny Joestar, a former genius jockey that became a paraplegic, meets Gyro Zepelli. Convinced that Gyro's rotation abilities are the key to regaining the use of his legs, Johnny follows Gyro to compete in the Steel Ball Run race, a race by horse across the entire United States. While it starts as a gigantic, but otherwise normal race, it is soon found out that the actual purpose of the race is a plan to find and collect the parts of a holy corpse made by the president of the US.
Part 8: JoJolion
After the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, Morioh was devastated, and weird structures that came to be called Wall Eyes started appearing all over the town. One day, a girl called Yasuho Hirose finds a naked, unconscious man beneath one of the Wall Eyes. This man, our protagonist, has no memory of anything before he woke up, but it is shown that he has a Stand that is able to remove things via bubbles (and also that he has 4 testicles). He is adopted by the family of Yasuho's childhood friend, the Higashikata family, and given the name of Josuke Higashikata. Wishing to know more about himself, Josuke and Yasuho start investigating any clues that may lead to revealing his past.
Part 9: The JOJOLands
O'ahu, present day. Dua Lipa is the trending musician, and COVID is still a major concern. On this island lives a 15-year-old boy named Jodio Joestar. Living with his sibling and mother, he acts as a dealer for certain illegal substances. One day, his employer comes and shows him an excellent find: a Japanese person has landed in Hawaii with a diamond worth over six million dollars. Normally it would be impossible to steal, but for someone with a Stand…
This is a story of a young boy and his quest to become rich.
Sounds interesting, how can I read this?
Parts 1-5 have received translated manga releases outside of Japan. Online sellers like Amazon carry them, as do popular brick-and-mortar stores like Barnes & Noble. Part 6 is due for its own physical translated releases sometime later in 2023.
Parts 7 and onward are currently not available in English-translated physical releases. Still, the Internet can help you out.
Are there any adaptations of this story?
Yes, yes there are.
-Phantom Blood movie: In 2007, Phantom Blood received a theatrical animated movie. Unfortunately, it never received a home release. It is said that the reason for this is that Araki hated the movie and forbid it from being released on DVD.
-Phantom Blood videogame: A brawler for the PS2, it was the first time part 1 was released as something other than a manga. It wasn't that well received IIRC, but it allowed you to play pretty much any character that so much as threw a punch during the story arc.
-Stardust Crusaders drama CDs: Audio retellings of part of Stardust Crusaders. It has Norio Wakamoto as Dio.
-Stardust Crusaders RPG: Released for the SNES, it adapts part 3 and was the first Jojo videogame.
-Stardust Crusaders fighting game: Possibly the biggest exposure most people outside of Japan have to JJBA. Made by Capcom for the CPS3, it is considered a classic by many fighting game fans.
-Stardust Crusaders OVAs: Released simply as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, these OVAs are an abridged retelling of part 3's story.
-Vento Aureo videogame: The first PS2 Jojo game. It is a brawler that retells most of part 5's story in its own way. It was planned to be released internationally as GioGio's Bizarre Adventure, but Araki's refusal to change the musical references prevented it from happening.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012-Present Day) Anime: It is the anime that is currently airing, and what Jojo ERA is most excited about. It's produced by David Productions and has so far faithfully adapted Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable, Vento Aureo/Golden Wind, and Stone Ocean. Watch it on Crunchyroll (or Netflix for Part 6). Parts 1-5 have been dubbed and can be found playing on Toonami; Part 6 has its dub on Netflix.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2017 movie): A film adaptation of a section Part 4 by Takashi Miike. Its quality is largely unknown.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle: A fighting game developed by CyberConnect2. It is the first time ever that characters from multiple parts appear in the same game and interact with each other. It was on August 29, 2013 in Japan, and in April 29th, 2014 in the US. In 2022, it received an updated re-release in the form of JBA: All Star Battle R.
-JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven: A tag team arena fighting game based on the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise, developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Namco Bandai Games exclusively for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. The game was released on December 17, 2015, in Japan, and June 28, 2016, in North America.
-Light novels: There are a couple of light novels, however, none of them were written by Araki, so it's very likely that none of them are canon. For the most part, they are some sort of expansion to the story.
MISCELLANEOUS
- Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga: a book written by Hirohiko Araki. In the book, Araki discusses the techniques used for creating manga, along with developing stories and world-building. The book was released on April 17, 2015 in Japan. It was published by VIZ Media in June, 2017.
Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1421594072/?tag=era0f0-20
-Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Abridged: Ok, this isn't official at all, but it is too good for me to not give it a mention. It is a parody of the Stardust Crusaders OVAs.
Ok, now for a few guidelines for this topic:
- PLEASE MARK SPOILERS FOR PART 9 CHAPTER DISCUSSION/CONTENT
- ALL SPOILERS FOR PARTS 1-8 WILL BE UNMARKED. This includes talking about the endgame sequence of JoJolion.
- IF YOU EVER POST FANART, PLEASE SOURCE. It is just rude for the artist to not do so, so be sure to at least make a mention of the author.
- BE CIVIL. I'm sure this goes without saying, but it bears repeating.
Ok, I think that's about it. If any of you have a better short, mostly spoiler-free summary of the stories you're welcomed to submit it, as well as anything that you guys think might need to be added.
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