My adventure with JoJo's Bizzare Adventure, Phantom Blood

Here's yet another review of the first 9 episodes of the 2012 anime adaptation by David Production. Yeah, I know, this series is several years old already, and you'll probably find an endless amount of people who have already seen and commented on it.

All things taken into consideration, I'm a relatively new JoJo watcher after all the hype has dried up, which is why I believe I'm in a good position to have a go at it. I barely jumped on the hype train when the animated adaptation was announced, and I didn't continue when JoJo fans started spamming their memes on my social media feed.

What's the joke here?

But with all the fanfare that's out there about JoJo, I felt the need to at least give my thoughts on the first part adaptation of the eponymous manga, now that I've actually watched it.

To start off, the story is as black and white as it can get, and the characters are just as one dimensional. From the very beginning, it gets to define a very clear protagonist and a very clear antagonist.

The main hero of this first part adaptation, Jonathan Joestar is the son of a wealthy businessman. He's a kind and honest man who wouldn't hurt a fly. The main villain, Dio Brando on the other hand is a man of low birth who also happens to have one of the worst personalities ever (Asshole in the common tongue, and definitely a psychopath). Jonathan is clearly good and radiates positive vibes, and Dio is diabolically evil and manipulative. In fact, Dio is so comically fucked up that he even kills Jonathan's dog out of pure hatred for the good natured man.

Where's PETA when you need em?

All this unrestrained violence for what? For a stone mask belonging to the Joestar family estate that would turn anyone who wears it into a vampire.

I do however must point out that there is an interesting aspect to this. Usually in common fiction (e.g Cinderella), it's the lower class who gets to show how much better they are than the rich who's only goal is to live a luxurious lifestyle.

The luxurious evil sisters who turned Cinderella's life a living nightmare.

But here, we have Jonathan, who's dad is rich as fuck. And yet, he's a humble man with pure intentions. Dio on the other hand is his polar opposite, and of low birth. I can't say I've seen this kind of role reversal often in fiction.

Anyways, let's fast forward to the ending because I assume every single one of you already watched it.

Dio manages to don the stone mask which turned into a vampire, and then he started turning both living and dead into zombies who would wreak havoc on towns and villages. Mind you, this is all set in the Victorian era. I mean sure, it's not often that you get to see non-post apocalyptic zombies, but it just makes this series bizzare. (Haha, you caught me, Araki!)

Hirohiko Araki is the author of the manga if you didn't know that already.

An interesting observation.

Our hero met powerful people on his journey, who all taught him some special fighting technique which he used against Dio in the final act, and won! But alas, you just don't kill vampires that easily. Dio returned from the dead as a severed head with his zombies, and proceeded to wreak havoc once again.

This screenshot sums it all up.

Jonathan then sacrifices himself to finally get rid of the menace.

They were childhood friends, but it's still astonishing to see Jonathan hold any friendship for that scumbag.

I also forgot to mention that Jonathan's wife (who were wed to him and already pregnant just an episode earlier) was on a Honeymoon on the boat when Dio attacked. She decided to save the baby of a random dead woman and then escaped. Then the first part of JoJo's Bizzare adventure ends.

I excuse myself for this quite disjointed post, but you see, I actually watched the first part in reverse order starting with episode 9. I originally watched a few episodes years ago, but then I thought I actually watched up to episode 10 and that wasn't the case. So, I backtracked (9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1) and tried to remember the earlier episode I was on, and for some reason, I forgot almost everything.

I might be sounding critical of Phantom Blood, but I'm actually not. Sure, the plot and characters are paper thin, but they also make for an easy watch. The soundtrack was alright and the opening song was amazing. Furthermore, Anime studio, David Production's strict adherence to the manga's suave artstyle and pinkish colour palette was a genuine plus. Overall, I think we're off to a decent start and I'm mildly curious to where this all leads to.

None of the images or videos posted or linked in this post belong to me. If you enjoyed reading my ramblings, all I can do is wish you a Happy New Year.

Check out my other posts on anime and manga here.