JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the greatest pieces of media ever made by a human. It’s bombastic, colorful, quotable, heart-felt, and most of all dope as fuck. Let it be known that I regret everyday I read through manga and anime sites and skipped over JoJo cause it looked too weird. Push me down the stairs, jump on my stomach, and shit in my mouth. The worst decision I ever made. Deciding to finally to read through it (I can’t actually remember why) was easily as great as the day I decided to try the whole “anime” thing in general.

For those not in the know. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki is a manga (now with anime adaptation currently covering parts 1 through 4) series that’s been running since 1987. It’s a generational epic following members of the Joestar family battling foes with weird superpowers. Each part follows a different JoJo (i.e. JOnathan JOestar, JOeseph JOestar, JOtaro KuJO) in a different setting and time period.

It began as, what basically amounted to, a ripoff of Fist of the North Star with some added gothic horror elements. Big muscly men kicking the shit out of each other with supernatural martial arts. Since then, both its subject matter and art style have changed completely. At first our heroes used arts, called Hamon (or Sendo, or The Ripple), and it was used to fight vampires. Later on, Mr. Araki thought it’d be cool to use psychic powers instead; not wanting the fight to look boring by just having two weirdly dressed hunks stare at each other while shit blew up he invented Stands. He also got really in fashion, so all of the characters turned into super androgynous skinny guys.

Stands are one of JoJo’s biggest claims to fame, right next to it’s character designs and poses. Araki always liked to show his superpowers visually, giving the readers a better idea as to where each fight’s weirdness was coming from. Hamon had a glowy yellow aura and vampires just shapeshifted to get their powers. Stands took the form of ghostly people “standing” behind the fighters. Each Stand (at first, they got weird real quick) is capable of simple things, like picking things up, punching someone, etc, but also have a special ability. Fire control, shooting green rocks from its hands, stopping time, turning anything into a bomb, binding you to a radio tower and reflecting damage done to it…. Weird real quick, like I said.

Yeah Araki used Stands to just do whatever he wanted with the powers. Stands could be and do anything, and I mean ANYTHING. They’re my favorite part of the series and probably my favorite kind of superpower in fiction. Creativity oozes from each one, from design to power, and it isn’t just set dressing. Stand battles are some of the coolest fights in all manga/anime. Back in the day (Part 3 mainly, that’s where Stands debuted) they just threw punches at each other, and don’t get me wrong I love that too. Rapid-fire fisticuffs are a trope I can’t adequately explain how much I love (and they use it a lot). Later fights are just more interesting though. It’s like a chess match, but if everyone that you played against had different pieces that did different things, and sometimes you weren’t even sure you were playing chess at all. Finding out how the heroes were going to beat a Stand that seems unbeatable is one the best parts of the series (Sometimes it’s by bullshit psuedo-science, but still great).

So Araki wrote six parts, all going further into the future (stopping at around 2005 I think), before ending it there. Then he releases Steel Ball Run, a kind of reboot. He wanted to get back to what made the series special to him, so he started back at the beginning in an alternate universe. Steel Ball Run is my favorite part of JoJo. It’s got great art, interesting characters, and even more bizarre Stands (Believe me here on that. Ever since part 5 they’ve been getting stranger and stranger). It follows a race across America (in 1890) for fifty-million dollars and the search for the “Holy Corpse.”

The JoJo of this part is Johnny Joestar, the alternate reality equivalent to Jonathan Joestar. They’re about as different as different gets, and that’s not taking the art style change into account. Jonathan was a paragon of chivalry and a gentlemen above all else. He fought for the justice of his family and to stop a childhood rival from becoming an unstoppable evil. If he were a D&D character, he’d be a lawful good paladin that started three hour long arguments over why it was better to arrest the goblin raiding party so they could have a proper trial.

Johnny isn’t that. Johnny is a straight-ass G, that’ll shoot you in the teeth for looking at him funny. Johnny Joestar is the most unscrupulous JoJo’s in the series, only going through his journey for his own self-betterment, and eventually to help his only friend, Gyro (don’t ask him to help anyone else though).

Johhny starts his part of the story as a chronically depressed, former horse-racer, who became paraplegic after acting like a dick and getting shot in the spine. He really fits the original anti-hero archetype in the beginning, barely being able to keep it together for more than a few hours before failing all over himself. He has a poor relationship with his father (One of the few traits he shares with Jonathan. I swear George Joestar is one of the biggest assholes in all of JoJo, regardless of universe.) on account of his brother dying and him being the blame for it. No one’s with this skinny loser when he shows up to the Steel Ball Run Race in his crappy 1800’s wheelchair.

It’s sad (more than me if you can believe it), until he meets Gyro Zeppeli, a weirdo wearing a grill with his name on it, that throws around “steel balls.” Said balls let Gyro manipulate this alternate universe’s version of Hamon, called Spin. With Spin, Johnny, if only momentarily, moves his legs, and from there he latches onto Gyro for the entirety of the race, hoping to learn the art.

Them as a duo is really enjoyable throughout part 7. A relationship like it was in Phantom Blood (part 1), with Jonathan and William Zepelli, but this is so many leagues better. Gyro and Johnny are a lot more nuanced as characters, and have goals outside of winning the race. Johnny learning Spin lessons from Gyro are key plot points, the last being the most memorable. Their friendship is the meat of the story, it’s just as important as any of the Stand fights.

Back to Johnny though. He’s a cold motherfucker. Throughout the part, Johnny’s only interested in learning Spin and collecting parts of the Holy Corpse. He couldn’t give any less of shit about the race or anyone in it. His “dark determination” as Gyro calls it, is his most interesting trait. JoJo hasn’t really had anti-heroes so willing to take a deep dive into darkness to get what they wanted. Parts 1 through 6 were guys (one gal) fighting for the world or what’s right. In 4 you get Josuke (who’s great) who’s like also a shitty teenager, but still the nicest guy on the planet. 5 has a “mobster” (gangstar if you prefer) that’s the same way Monkey D. Luffy is a”pirate.” Nothing like this.

Johnny just wants what he wants and will blow your brains out to do so. It’s weirdly refreshing to know that your hero will shoot first and ask questions later. I like how irritable he is too. I can remember so many times throughout where Johnny’s just saying something like, “Hey, shut the fuck up and teach me Spin,” or “We should just kill her and keep going.”

And this is with character development. Steel Ball Run is a coming of age story, and Johnny becomes a fuller person as it goes. His confidence is boosted and he gets a kick in his step (sort of intentional pun), but he does not lose that attitude. Him being a shit-heel is not a flaw, it’s a personality trait. No amount of hard living is going to burn that out of him.

I also love Johnny’s stand, Tusk. Stand’s were originally all named after the major arcana in Tarot (Sound similar to Persona? Guess where they were looking during the career aptitude test?!), eventually switching to being references or just names of American bands/songs/albums (Araki LOVES American music. All the Stands, besides some call-backs, are musical in nature. Another reason to love Stands). Tusk is named after the Fleetwood Mac song of the same name (great song). It’s also an Act Stand. Back in Part 4, a character, Koichi Hirose, had a Stand named Echoes. Echoes went up in Acts, starting with 1 and going to 3 as Koichi grew as a person, changing form and getting new abilities. Tusk does the same (it goes to Act 4 though), and it’s perfect for a coming of age story, since character growth is the whole point.

Tusk starts as this weird looking plushy thing that let’s Johnny spin his nails and shoot them like bullets. Not the biggest gun guy in real life, but guns as superpowers is always cool to me. Gun Stands have been a thing before,not as abstract (Emperor was literally a gun and Sex Pistols kicked bullets around) as this though. It fits the tone as a Western and also Johnny’s nature as a fucker. Tusk doesn’t shoot as hard as a gun, but they can throw down JoJo death holes (JoJo death holes are perfectly circular, black holes that tend to appear on peoples’ bodies when they’re injured. Some are actually bullet holes, but they also show up from every other injury too, like stabbings and explosions) like nobody’s business.

Nail bullets grows into spatial warping at the Acts increase. Johnny can move his death holes around if he misses a vital or his target all-together when Tusk hits Act 2. This is probably my favorite property of Tusk. It’d be terrifying if someone was shooting at you, and they could just move the holes over to you if they missed.

Act 3 let’s Johnny shoot a nail in his head that pulls him (or just parts of him) into a wormhole that can carry him to better vantage points. This is probably the most surprising ability of Tusk, still cool no doubt, just the last thing I’d expect from a shooting power.

4 is…. 4’s weird. And there’s spoilers so ignore this paragraph if you don’t wanna know. Act 4 (which can only be attained for short times) will infinitely rotate a person and make them bound to wherever they were hit and spin (down to the cellular level) until they disintegrate. Not even leaving this dimension will help (this happens don’t question it), you will be dragged to that dimension’s equivalent area of where you were hit and spin you there too. Also it punches you. This is one of those JoJo powers where I had to really think about how it works for a while before I could move on. King Crimson did the same thing to me; had to move on there though, wouldn’t have finished part 5 otherwise. Like I get it, but man I remember when the end all be all of Stands was just stopping time.

The song Tusk has one line I love that I think describes Johnny perfectly, “Real savage like.” I don’t know if Araki used this line, this almost seemingly ad libbed line, as a basis for Johnny, I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

Cause he is. Johnny’s a mean dude with one of the meanest Stands in the entire series. It’s stated that Stands are influenced by their users, so even after all of his growth and lessons from Gyro, Johnny’s influence on Act 4 makes it fuck someone into the ground until they turn into dust.

Real. Fucking. Savage like.