Manga tells about the adventures of heroes who are all united by a nickname JoJo, which consists of the initial or final syllables of their names ( Joenathan Joeold, Ku joe Joetarot, etc., with the exception of two of its versions), while they are somehow members of the Joestar family or its subsidiary lines.
A feature of the manga is the division into parts, each of which has its own genre, setting and main character. Plot they are connected slightly, but usually cameos of heroes from previous parts are found.
In each of the parts, the main character has superpowers, with the help of which he opposes enemies with similar or different abilities.
References to music, haute couture and cuisine play a significant role in the manga.
Plot
Each new part showed Araki's evolution as a mangaka and stood out from the previous ones.
The action takes place at the end of the 19th century in Great Britain and tells about the confrontation, a member of an ancient aristocratic family and, the son of a poor man, whom Jonathan's father raised as his son. Dio betrayed George in order to take possession of the family's wealth, and soon, becoming a vampire, decided to conquer the world. Suddenly, JoJo has a strength that can effectively resist vampires.
The first part is distinguished by a poorly developed plot and characters, but already in it the main elements of the franchise were manifested: the presence of musical references, the concept, battles in which a stake is placed on various tricks, and, secondly, on physical strength.
The action takes place in 1938 and tells the story of the confrontation of Jonathan's grandson - "The People of the Column" (ancient supervampires who have awakened from a thousand-year slumber) against the background of the preparation of the world for the Second World War.
The second part introduced a much more interesting protagonist. The concept of jamon was developed, and a new superpower appeared - Mod ("mode" in Russian), which is used by the People from the Column.
The action takes place in 1989. It turns out that Dio Brando survived the battle with Jonathan Joestar 100 years ago and gained new strength - the personification of spiritual energy, a spirit with superpowers that can be summoned by the owner. Stands are also awakening among Jonathan's descendants - Joseph, his daughter and grandson. However, Holi is not strong enough to control the Stand and may die, so Jotaro and Joseph, along with other heroes affected by Dio, travel to Egypt, where their family's longtime enemy has taken refuge, to fight him and thereby save Holi.
Part 3 received cult status. Stands have become an integral part of the franchise. A feature of Part 3 is that it combines the features of the first two and subsequent parts - so, here Araki shows physically perfect and courageous heroes, in contrast to the future parts, in which they have a more androgynous appearance.
The action takes place in a Japanese city in 1999. Joseph's illegitimate son, together with Jotaro Kujo, tries to find a maniac with a Stand that terrorizes the city.
Part 4 moved from the masculinity of the previous three parts to showing androgynous characters. Many aspects of the work of the stands got their explanation, and evolving stands also appeared. The main villain is considered the best in the series.
JoJo-poses (JoJo-poses, ジ ョ ジ ョ 立 ち) - poses of the heroes of the manga and anime JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (“JoJo's Bizarre Adventure”), often becoming the subject of copying, parody and fanart.
Origin
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga was created by Japanese manga artist Hirohiko Araki in 1987 and has been in production for over 30 years. The manga, currently consisting of 8 arcs, pursues the adventures of characters under the pseudonym JoJo. On the covers and in many issues, characters often take on various vivid poses - for example, covering part of their face with the palm of their hand, bending strongly or crossing their arms.
The popularity of copying the poses from the manga owes to the Japanese fanfic community Bungei Junkie Paradise: the first photos in which fans repeat the JoJo poses appeared on the community website in June 2002.
The website says that on April 9, 2003, the community launched the “JoJo Pose School” (ジ ョ ジ ョ 立 ち 教室, JoJo Dachi Kyōshitsu). Project participants copied poses from the manga and posted photos online.
“School” has attracted the attention of both anime fans and the Japanese Internet community in general. Already in 2003, the first offline meetings were held for those who like to copy poses from the manga, photos from which were published on the Bungei Junkie Paradise website.
Some of these meetings attracted more than 500 participants, and due to the too large number of those who wanted, the organizers had to look for alternate options for mass posing.
After the JoJo Pose School project stopped organizing meetings in 2004, the trend did not stop: fans took over the organization of massive J0Jo posing.
In 2005, the term “JoJo-pose” was included in the Japanese Encyclopedia of Modern Words (現代 用語 の 基礎 知識). According to Know Your Meme, since 2006, JoJo pose has often been cited as a popular trend in Japanese media articles about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and the manga author.
Subsequently, Araki himself repeatedly copied JoJo poses, including with the founders of the “JoJo Pose School”.
In 2007, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood was released on the Playstation 2 console, the gameplay of which involved JoJo-poses. In addition, the poses appeared in the game's trailer.
Later, JoJo-posing became widespread outside of Japan. References to various poses from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure have appeared in dozens of anime, games, and other cultural works.
Asia Pop Comic Convention Manila, July 2018 - JOESTARSCREAM
Value
JoJo posing - copying the poses of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure characters - is a popular fan activity among fans of manga and anime. References to various poses from JoJo often appear in anime, games and other works. In addition, JoJo poses are often used in fan art and memes.
Sometimes the JoJo pose is jokingly called any overly artsy pose.
Below are eight popular JoJo poses featuring various manga characters.
Gallery
Have I ever mentioned that I love JJBA?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Having run for 25 years, over 8 arcs in which a whole new cast of characters is introduced each time, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has exactly one metric motherfuck of characters. And here, I select something of a balance of personal favorites and generally great characters (admittedly my favorite of the lot is # 3, but I don’t quite consider him the best).
P.S: A couple of these writeups will be copypasta'd in part from previous writeups because what even is the point in rewriting the exact thing I already wrote?
10. Jolyne Kujo (Part VI: Stone Ocean)
Jolyne is sort of a halfway point between her dad and her great-grandfather. She has Jotaro's badass delinquency and one-liners, mixed with the thuggish hot-headedness of Joseph.
Though she’s never quite as good at being either of those two as they are, she also gets a decent backstory explaining her delinquency, featuring the all-too-common factor in JoJo backstories (daddy issues). And once she decides to try and reconcile with her father, she is perhaps the most determined and unflinching JoJo of the lot.
9. Dio Brando (Part I: Phantom Blood / Part III: Stardust Crusaders / Part VI: Stone Ocean)
Controversial choice, I guess, since Dio is perhaps the most iconic character in the whole franchise. But let’s face it - Dio is basically two-dimensional as hell. Aside from the “Daddy Issues” excuse, he’s completely irredeemably evil - he’s never even really displayed as anything else until the Stone Ocean flashbacks, when we see how he was around his allies.
COMPLETELY HETEROSEXUAL is what he was around his allies.
But no, even though he isn’t an especially well-written character, Dio is so fucking good at being evil it’s hard to care. He’s one of the most creatively evil villains ever written - from chucking Danny in the incinerator to walking up walls with his superstrength to toying with Jonathan’s jugular, Dio is a joy to watch.
This becomes even more obvious in Stardust Crusaders - as short as his screentime is in it, he uses The World like a kid with a new toy, fucking things up at whim in an almost Joker-like fashion.
9. Johnny Joestar (Part VII: Steel Ball Run / Part VIII: JoJolion)
Thank fuck for Gyro. That is to say, without him, we would have had no interesting protagonist to carry Steel Ball Run until Johnny eventually came out of his shell. Character development, beeyatch!
Even early on, though, Johnny wasn’t bad, though mostly because he had Gyro to bounce off of. In a way, their dynamic was similar to Caesar and Joseph from part II, but with the roles reversed.
Unlike them, though, the breathing room in Steel Ball run allowed for more Seinfeldian dialogue, building up the bromance between the two of them, allowing us to gradually get attached to Johnny whilst Gyro carries the weight. And once we learn about Johnny’s backstory, how he became crippled, and why he dislikes Diego - oh yeah, and Daddy Issues ™ - you understand his character a lot better. He starts off unmemorable but by the end he’s one of the best JoJos.
7. Jotaro Kujo (Part II: Stardust Crusaders / Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable / Part VI: Stone Ocean)
Jotaro is pretty much the poster-boy for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and with the possible exception of Dio he’s perhaps the most iconic and beloved of the lot. Following on from a ridiculously strong lead in the previous arc, Jotaro took the lead by letting the rest of the cast take the lead, allowing him to be cool, stoic, and rarely break a sweat, - Jotaro is about as cool as they come ...
The one-liners help.
He’s calm and collected at all times, but this doesn’t keep him from emotional moments - if anything it serves to make them more intense. It’s been stated by Hirohiko Araki that he doesn’t really know how to act around people, and tends to assume people know what he’s thinking anyway (which is of course completely wrong). This comes back to bite him in his relationship with his daughter, in spite of him always having the best interests in mind for her.
6. Diego Brando (Part VII: Steel Ball Run)
WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU IN ALL STAR BATTLE ARGH
THIS FAT SACK OF SHIT GOT TO BE IN IT AND NOT DIEGO WHAT IS THIS GAY BULLSHIT
Anyway, Steel Ball Run was where Araki finally got the hang of backstories. He’d tried them numerous times before, but with few exceptions (Jolyne, Pucci, the Zeppelis, and that’s about it) they were always superfluous.
Every significant character in Steel Ball Run has a backstory - and each and every one improves the character, providing basis for their motivations instead of being the only substance they have. And while Diego's backstory is an obvious ripoff from Tezuka's Dororo, it adds a lot to what could have just been a Dio clone, making him sympathetic where the original was not, having built himself up from his terrible childhood to a successful jockey.
Despite being similarly ruthless to the original, he’s not amoral, and straddles the line between villain and anti-hero, making him a dynamic character and a joy to watch.
Also, he's a fucking dinosaur.
5. Jean-Pierre Polnareff (Part III: Stardust Crusaders / Part V: Vento Aureo)
Jean-Pierre Polnareff is a character we love for being ... well, an idiot. Polnareff is fucking stupid from start to finish. Amusingly so. He’s comic relief, in the sense that he’s the Butt Monkey of the team. He also set the trend for a specific member of the cast to constantly be the first to get attacked by the stand user of the week (followed by Oyakusu and Narancia). However, on top of this, Polnareff actually has probably the most character development of anyone in Stardust Crusaders.
And the worst luck with toilets out of anyone ever.
Initially, Polnareff was a distant, lone wolf (and in the anime version, he was also willingly working for Dio as opposed to having been brainwashed). He felt no loyalty to the team, and was only working with them out of convenience to try and find the man who killed his sister. By the end of it, he’s extremely loyal to, uh ... the surviving members of the team, partly through the sacrifice of certain others.
You know what, I’m just going to stop there. I can’t really go into more detail without saying who dies. If you’re annoyed that I told you that anyone dies, don’t be, someone always dies in JJBA. It's a given.
Anyway, short version is that he's lovably stupid and has some pretty solid character development.
4. Gyro Zeppeli (Part VII: Steel Ball Run)
Part VII wasn’t just where Araki got the hang of backstories - the dialogue is noticeably much better, and Gyro supplies the bulk of it.
Though Johnny is technically the protagonist, Gyro firmly led the story, bringing Johnny into the Steel Ball Run to begin with, being the first to have a backstory and a motivation to be in the Steel Ball Run, and most importantly, being one of the most instantly loveable and attention-grabbing characters in the entire JoJo saga.
It’s quite hard to not love Gyro - he’s wacky, loveable, creative, compassionate, and has one of the most noble goals in an arc full of noble goals.
3. Funny Valentine (Part VII: Steel Ball Run)
At this point you have probably worked out what my favorite arc is, if you didn’t already know.
Funny Valentine is quite easily the most underrated JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character (seriously, 9 MAL favorites, what the fuck).
Despite being the arc's villain, he has perhaps the most noble goal of anyone - to secure prosperity for his country. If he wasn’t so deliciously evil about how he did it, he wouldn’t even be a villain.
But thankfully, he is. And due to the nature of his stand, he’s ridiculously good at it. D4C makes him damn near unstoppable, and he executes every action he takes with it in the utmost of style. “Dojyaaaaaaa ~ n”, anyone?
Like pretty much everyone in Steel Ball Run, his backstory makes him so much better than he would otherwise have been. Even before he went into politics, he’d fought tooth and nail for his country. He'd been through hell for it, even having the Stars and Stripes carved onto his back in the process (incidentally this is like the coolest piece of character design I swear).
Scars and Stripes.
He is also an extremely dynamic and unpredictable character. His face is an unreadable mask, and he is all too silver-tongued when he needs to be. In spite of his willingness to do anything to reach his goal, he has a sense of honor, ensuring to keep his promises - though sometimes only in the most literal sense.
His defeat is one of the best moments of characterization in JoJo, though. I won’t say exactly why what with spoilers and all, but his final actions are equal parts one of the most heroic and evil things in JJBA.
2. Yoshikage Kira (Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable)
Kira's characterization revolves around an excellent paradox: his desire to live a perfect, normal life, in contrast to his carnal desire for women’s hands ... forcibly separated from their bodies.
This is shown excellently by his various strange and meticulous habits, but more than anything by his stand. Killer Queen is one of the stands stated to have formed as a manifestation of its users will. Ignoring for a second that Killer Queen has an absolutely bitchin ’design and a brilliant name pun that works on god knows how many levels (listen to the song in question if you don’t get it), it’s a perfect representation of Kira. It suits him down to the personality, the appearance, and especially how well its ability suits both him and his needs. It's probably the most perfect stand-to-user matchup in the entirety of JJBA.
This even carries over to his afterlife as shown in the Deadman’s Questions arc of Under Execution, Under Jailbreak. While most of his previous life is a mystery to him, his drive for normalcy in the face of being born into deranged circumstances is what drives him. I think it’s a great reflection of his character.
It also helps that this is a great contrast to the usual JJBA Big Bads. Dio wants to continue raising his vampire minions and live like a king, feasting on virgin maidens. Cars wants immortality. Diavolo wants to maintain a gang of superpowered mobsters, and keep his identity hidden. Pucci wants the end of the world (sort of, it’s complicated). And Funny Valentine just wants his fucking napkins. Against all this, Kira just wants to hang around with his… girlfriends.
Also, fun fact: his design is based on David Bowie.
1. Joseph Joestar (Part II: Battle Tendency / Part III: Stardust Crusaders / Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable)
Joseph Joestar is perhaps the quintessential JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character.
While Joseph is a dead ringer for Jonathan in appearance, you would never mistake one for the other - they’re polar opposites in terms of personality. Where Jonathan was noble, gentlemanly, and generically heroic, Joseph is brash, loud, and not afraid to pick a fight.
On top of that, he’s not just willing to fight dirty - fighting dirty is his defining character trait. Not that he is without a sense of honor, though - his reasoning for picking fights is always noble (well, almost), and does not hesitate to put himself in harm’s way for a loved one.
While this does, to some degree, make him sound like a standard idiot hero shonen protagonist, the key factor that sets Joseph apart from the ilk is that his attitude is misleading - he's incredibly smart and quick-witted, and always prepared. Joseph is a big fan of Sun Tzu's “The Art Of War”, and it shows in his continued pragmatism in combat and his constant trickery.
And that was my top 10 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure characters. If you think I’ve made a mistake here and missed out a character I shouldn’t have, then feel free to shut the fuck up and stop being a whiny little bitch.
Or just post a comment. That'd be kinda nice.