There is one interesting problem when you look back in time, and watch a story that
was popular in an older era.
Especially when that story is still popular in present day.
The problem is that you will see nothing but cliché tropes, overused themes, and tried
and true plotlines.
You will wonder how this common stereotype of a story got popular in the first place.
Then you will realize: Oh...
That's because this was one of the first.
Of course, because something is old it's not automatically good, and we’ll get to that.
When you have a series as...historic as this one, you can’t expect constant perfection.
You need things to be, bizarre, from time to time.
"JoJo’s bizarre adventure", is a combination of elements that are amazingly stylized, amazingly
predictable, but also amazingly enjoyable.
Most of the time.
While the series is lengthy, currently airing its 4th part right now, I wanted to look at
the first two parts.
Where the story first began.
Ladies, Gentlemen and others my name is Arkada and welcome to glass reflection.
Today the 2012 anime directed Kenichi Suzuki, produced by David Production and biased of
the original manga by Hirohiko Araki JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure, Phantom Blood and Battle
Tendency.
Let’s Jam.
Let us assume for a moment that you have never heard of JoJo before.
It’s difficult I know.
But, we need to think like that to answer an obvious question: "How would you describe
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to a person?"
Do you talk about overly muscled men, weird ass poses, magical guardians... though that’s
getting ahead of ourselves.
The title is actually the best description for this series that you could ever hope for.
This series for lack of a better description is truly bizarre.
JoJo’s is this Mish Mash of 80’s culture, male bravado, and most of the common tropes
that have existed in Shounen anime since the beginning of time.
It's filled with constant battles that mean life or death, but they are always fought
in almost the same way.
Allow me to demonstrate the usual order of operations for these early JoJo battles.
I attack you with this super awesome technique!
Haha that’s what I wanted you to do, so I cancel your technique with a technique of
my own!
I figured you’d try that, which is why I did this other thing before the fight even
began!
Next you’ll say “That’s Impossible!”
That’s impossible!
It wasn’t the originator for a lot of these tropes and this style of battle but it sure
as hell refined it.
You may notice that I’m starting from the beginning with this series and not just
talking about it as a whole.
The series is still airing, but JoJo is laid out such that you can almost say every arc
is a story unto itself.
There are connections between them sure.
But you don’t necessary need to have watched them all to get a understanding for what JoJo
is.
Hell, some people might even recommend you skip some of it, probably because Phantom
Blood is terrible.
Oh no, there I go sprouting my opinion again.
But yes I personally find the initial arc of the JoJo cannon terrible.
Phantom Blood is 9 episodes that tells the story of the OG JoJo, Johnathan JoeStar.
I hope you are ok with his name by the way because, shit, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Johnathan gets a new adopted brother, Dio, who the show wants you to know is evil incarnate.
There is nothing redeemable about this character at all, and heck he even kicks a puppy.
A PUPPY.
So, to make a long story short: Dio gets ahold of a stone mask that turns him into an immortal
vampire.
JoJo then needs to learn how to use the mystical martial art power of sunny D to vanquish Dio
and save the world.
All the while fighting minion’s named after members of Led Zeppelin, and accompanied by
a moral sidekick named R EO SPEEDWAGON.
Subtlety is not something the writer of this series possesses.
But Phantom Blood, Is just a mess.
It has by far the most uninteresting JoJo in the entire series.
(note I’m only up to Diamond as I do not read manga).
The motivation for the two characters fighting to the death is horrendous.
The pacing of this arc is insanity.
I realize that in 9 episodes they cover 5 volumes of manga, which is impressive.
But It's not as impressive is just how slow it feels.
Despite blitzing through the arc like nothing, the entire thing feels like its dragging.
If I told someone to watch JoJo because I enjoyed it, which I did, and they told me
they stopped before hitting Battle Tendency, I would not be surprised.
Disappointed but not surprised.
Normally, I am of the mind that if a show doesn’t grab you early on, then it’s not
worth the slog.
Even just to get to the good bits, regardless of how rewarding they might be.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve never gotten into long shows that need me to watch 30-50
episodes before it gets good.
But this is one of the situations where I feel I can make an exception.
Because skipping Phantom Blood will have little effect on your enjoyment.
WHAT DO YOU MISS IF YOU SKIP PHANTOM BLOOD?
Well If you care about such things, you miss the option to start everything from the beginning.
You miss the early explanations about the ripple power, or hamon depending on if you
are watching sub or dub.
You miss Dio’s introduction, though as the Lex Luthor of the franchise his best bits
are still to come. and….well all that can be explained to you quickly.
You don’t need to waste almost 3 hours on it.
Hell there’s even a re-edited recap episode that covers most of it in just over 100 minutes.
So you have options.
Next up is the far better part to this first season of episodes.
It's called Battle Tendency, AKA THE PART WHERE THE DRUGS KICK IN.
It's the story of Johnathan’s grandson Joseph and his battle against the “Pillar Men”.
These are beings from thousands of years ago who got sealed away until they German Natzi’s
came along.
(BECAUSE NATZI'S MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER).
Also they were the creators of the stone masks, like the one that turned Dio into a vampire
back in the previous arc.
WHY IS BATTLE TENDANCY BETTER?
This can be summed up with one thing: Joseph JoeStar is a fucking boss.
He comes off at times as a dimwitted naive punk of a man.
One who doesn’t really have a reason or desire to fight, but that changes right quick.
His quirky attitude and fighting style is both unique and fucking amazing.
He’s a character that is more tactician then brawny fighter.
He is a master at using both his environment and his opponent to achieve victory.
Even if that victory is just the chance to run and fight another day.
He is a refreshing change to a battle formula that previously was just “If I punch harder
I can win”.
During the arc Joseph's wits get challenged by a slew of opponents with greater and greater
intensity.
This is the start of the gradual scale that these stories love to use.
You start off with an impossible to defeat threat, ie Dio and his vampire powers.
Then you upgrade to beings that created said powers.
Which downgrades creatures of Dio’s power to mere cannon fodder.
Only then for these new beings to be upstaged by a greater villain later on.
Everything the hero faces is more powerful than the last, they usually only win by the
skin on their teeth.
Only to face head on the next enemy who was quite a bit more powerful than the last.
I mentioned that the series is predictable because it has this formula that it follows
to a T. But it does it so well from this point on that it hardly matters.
Style is a word that many people myself included would use to describe this series.
The color palette changes from scene to scene, hell sometimes from cut to cut.
The framing is usually off kilter from Centre.
The poses (though not as outrageous as later parts in the series) are ridiculous.
But there is so much charm here, especially from Joseph that the whole ride feels like
an intense rollercoaster without breaks.
There are problems with this formula though, namely the running commentary.
There's this habit of having a character, like Speedwagon, to serve as a narrator to
the action.
It’s the opposite of show don’t tell.
But when characters are fighting to the death, the commentary makes things feel less like
a brawl and more like a calm game of chess.
Every detail of the fight gets expanded upon and explained.
Despite that anime is visual storytelling and we should just be able to see what’s
going on with our eyes.
The intensity and ferocity of the battle can still be felt, but the payoff feels disjointed.
This first section of JoJo’s re-adaptation is a product of its time.
The entire story from these two arcs was written before I was even born.
Even with David Production’s phenomenal effort, it still feels like it at times.
This series is not a masterpiece, but as a part of history and an entertaining romp,
few could serve you better.
If you haven’t watched it yet, you should.
I stand by my thoughts of the initial arc though, either skip it or watch the re-cap.
Unless of course you want to see everything from the beginning.
Otherwise it’ll take far too long to get a feel for what JoJo is, plus Battle Tendency
is just stupid amounts of fun.
Though shit doesn’t get truly real until Stardust Crusaders, but that’s for another
time.
At the time of this video JoJo has been licensed by Warner Brothers, and is available for streaming
in Sub over on Crunchyroll.
Links in the description.
The dub is quite good, but I'm weary about recommending the DVD release because it uses
Dub titles and not subtitles for the Japanese track.
Though at present it’s the only way to watch the dub so I’ll leave that choice to you.
Now for alternate anime recommendations.
If you can handle the 80’s animation then, as a piece of history, I recommend you to
check out some Fist of the North Star.
It’s from the same era story wise, the action is in the same style and many of the character
designs share similar traits.
Though admittedly it just doesn’t have the same flair as JoJo.
Second recommendation goes to HunterxHunter.
It's another favorite shounen of mine, despite being fairly long.
But all in all is worth the length as the story and the characters makes the journey
worth the watch.
Finally I’d like to thank patrons Rurika Adachi, Calhounboy, Viktor Ekmark, Nicolai
Grey, Joshua Garcia and Jocelyn Atkins without which I would not be able to produce these
videos to the same extent that I would like.
And that’s it from me, thank you gentle viewers for watching.
Until next time, Stay Frosty.