JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is an existential nightmare
Hirohiko Araki's intergenerational supernatural fantasy epic is home to some really wild ideas
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood, was first published in 1987, the year I was born. Closing in on 40 years since it’s inception, there’s something about the style and tone of Hirohiko Araki’s supernatural saga that makes it almost evergreen. It’s not timeless, it’s beyond time itself.
Colourful, inventive, surprisingly brutal and almost always astonishing, the intergenerational fable of a family of superpowered miscreants locked in an eternal battle with nefarious forces is something worth paying attention to, even if it occasionally misses its mark.
Beyond anything else JJBA in all its constituent glory presents a world that is terrifyingly supernatural, where the laws of science and religion violently clash, often contradicting itself several times over, and the end result is this really fascinating exploration of life, death and all that entails between.
I’ve found it excruciatingly hard to form some kind of coherent thesis around my feelings about this fable, so please forgive the fragmented presentation of this article, but I wanted to talk about these conceptual big-brained moments in the series thus far, and the ramifications they have for the world the Jostar family inhabit.
As a huge caveat to this article, I should note that I have not read Parts 7, 8 or what’s been published of 9 yet, some of my musings may be answered by events in those chapters, and I will add that I will be spoiling some pretty major events throughout Parts 1-6.
Here we go.
Born of a lifelong bloodfeud between dandy fop Jonathan Joestar and his malignant adopted brother Dio Brando, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is the chronicle of one family’s historic battle with supernatural forces across the globe, across the eras and through many different understandings of reality. It starts with a cursed mask, a vampire army and the ultimate hater, and spirals out into a saga of time and space distorting magnitudes.
Continuity is a bit rough in Araki’s work, and as it has progressed he seems to have turned his back on the world of vampiric thralls, immortal pillar men and Hamon users, but there’s so much going on throughout the series that I have to applaud him for keeping things fresh. It’s an evolution of ideas, but one that seems powered by jet fuel.
Even if you’ve not engaged with JJBA you’re probably familiar with the iconic Stands: physical manifestations of a user’s fighting spirit that have unique properties, although often the critical power is just the ability to punch really hard and really fast. Oraoraoraoraoraoraora! You know the drill.
A power unlocked by an unknown metal found at the site of a meteorite landing formed into an arrowhead, only a select few are able to harness it and only users can see the supernatural entities of their allies and enemies alike.
This concept has allowed the series to create some truly bizarre characters. Some highlights below:
A chain smoking, jazz magazine reading orangutan who has the power to summon a phantom cruise liner
A group of sentient plankton taking the form of a human being and in the process gaining a human soul.
A twink who can summon a heat seeking fighter plane to stalk his foes
A mummy who can hide in mirrors
A child with a comic book that can see into the future
A mangaka who can open his opponents up like a book, read their secrets and write false truths that become real.
Evidently one of the biggest pulls of the series is in just how inventive it’s myriad conflicts become. Stand users rarely use their powers in ways you would expect, nor are they defeated by conventional means, and especially from Part 4 onwards these encounters get more alien, non-euclidean and supernatural.
One of the big questions that gets constantly asked in JJBA is what happens after you die, and the series goes out of its way to answer this in a very…excuse the pun…roundabout way. The afterlife takes many forms here, heaven being but one of them. Death, far from an insignificant agent in this world, is something stood against in open defiance. Dying is simply something that people can choose not to do, and this manifests in a myriad of ways:
The undead feature heavily in parts 1&2, hapless souls drained of their life energy and returned from the grave with a vigorous hunger.
Dio Brando, having been defeated at the conclusion of Phantom Blood, makes a dramatic return in part 3, with a new body and terrifying new powers to boot.
The plucky teenage protagonists of Part 4 discover the existence of a serial killer stand user after being contacted by the ghost of one of his young victims. It also presents the process of ascending into the afterlife in a really harrowing manner.
Part 5 culminates in a key cast member revealing that he was killed by the antagonist quite some time ago, but has simply refused to die until the fight is over. It’s revealed towards the finale that he knew when he was going to die, as another stand user with the ability to show the future through sculptures had shown him.
Part 6…well I was a little confused but I think the world ends more than once and the sole survivor ejects himself into a new reality. Prior to this the previously mentioned sentient plankton stand user dies and is seen ascending to heaven. There’s also this weird green baby that absorbs the villain and transforms his powers and I think that was supposed to be Dio Brando reincarnated but I honestly have no idea. It’s my favourite part so far.
This is a series featuring vampires, ghosts, a facsimile of the judeo-christian afterlife, multiple dimensions, existences where death paradoxically is both inevitable and unattainable, and the concept of the soul as something that can be willed into existence by not-particularly-omnipotent forces. Also aliens are real. No, the series doesn’t elaborate on this that much.
I’ll admit i’ve been very up and down on the series as i’ve watched and read over the years. I really loved Stone Ocean, a relief after Golden Wind fell flat on me, and I think the stories are starting to rely a bit too heavily on the unique hellish logic puzzles of the stand battles and as a result I have failed to connect on an emotional level with a lot of the storytelling presented here.
Beyond the weirdness factor, and the lavish fashionista art style a lot of this is standard shonen manga fare, but it can be much more. As evidenced by its unique approach to an all bets are off understanding of existence, each part of the series has something of philosophical interest to say.
What does it mean for the human soul if heaven is real but death can be denied to an almost infinite degree? If intelligent life exists outside of Earth are they also duty bound by the laws of the almighty? Is the stand creating arrow a divine artefact or simply a catalyst for the natural evolution of humanity?
Is the series ultimately saying that because god created man in his own image, we are in fact divine artefacts ourselves? Do we have free will, or does the number of stand users able to predict the future implie that everything is pre-determined? Would finding a way out of this dimension break the stranglehold such pre-destination has on us?
What’s the deal with that porno ape?
Despite my minor gripes with the series I’m excited to continue reading. Beyond anything else Araki’s artwork is sublime, his frames of reference being renaissance art Vogue magazine covers and fashion illustrations crafts these incredibly beautiful tableaus that celebrate the human form. Men are gorgeous, women are fierce, he cannot draw animals to save his life. Just look at Iggy for christ’s sake. What dog looks like that?
It’s a great read, my return to manga has revitalised me in a way I was not expecting, and I will probably write about the other things I’m currently reading in the future.