What JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Accomplishes That Other Anime Cannot

JoJo's premiered in Weekly Shōnen Jump back in 1987 and ran in that popular magazine until 2004 which is about when part 6 ended. Part 7 and onward is now running in the monthly magazine Ultra Jump. This leads many people to believe that JoJo's is a cross between a shōnen (meant for younger male audience) manga and a seinen (meant for younger adult males) manga. With that being said, JoJo's is an anime and manga that has done things that many others cannot do or replicate even if they try: combine many genres and thematics all into one great storyline. Let's tackle these one at a time and have it all come together at the end.

Typical of shōnen manga and shōnen anime, JoJo's has many fights that occur within the series. Some of the most memorable fight in all of anime happen in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Who hasn't heard of the fast-paced, hard-hitting fight between Jotaro and DIO? However, JoJo's is not just a battle anime, which is why we're discussing how it bring so many genres together and makes it work so well. Look at the fight between Kakyoin and Mannish Baby from Stardust Crusaders. Kakyoin has to outsmart this genius baby in order to save himself and his friend from a hellish and nightmarish demise that they all would have succumbed to at the hands of Death 13. This battle has a lot of outsmarting happening in it but it also shows that JoJo's can be rather gruesome and horrific with its battles. Death 13 literally dripped nightmare eyeballs into Kakyoin's mouth while he was in the dream realm that Death 13 resides in. Not only that but in this fight there's slapstick comedy when Death 13 enlarges Joseph's metal arm and had Star Platinum bang itself in the face with a frying pan. This fight has cunning strategy, high stakes, slapstick comedy and gruesome visuals all in one episode.

 JoJo's deals with a lot of themes within this anime; sometimes all at once. For example, a large theme in Golden Wind was fate. Fate was something that Diavolo thought he had on his side. He thought fate willed him to seek out the Stand Arrow and ascend beyond a normal stand user and achieve Requiem. Fate embodied by the stand Rolling Stones dictated that Buccellati, Abbacchio and Narancia were all destined to meet their end trying to defeat the boss of Passione and save his daughter Trish from certain death. This was a big theme in this part but another theme that might be more unnoticed than the theme of fate is the theme of loss. Abbacchio was corrupted and selfishly took a bribe that ended in the death of his partner. Buccellati lost his father at a young age to gangsters involved in a drug trade. These losses shaped these important men into becoming who they are in Golden Wind and it shaped them into deciding to rebel against Diavolo and the entire Passione gang in order to pursue a more noble goal: save Trish and clean up the streets of Italy. Would these men have taken the same course of action if they had not experienced loss and hardship earlier in their lives? I personally don't believe so.

Many people only think about stands when they think of JoJo's but there's so much more to this colorful universe. In early parts of JoJo's vampires and Pillar Men were the large threat and the only way to deal with those powerful enemies was with clever usage of light and of course Hamon. In Part 2 Nazis played a role in the plot of the story. Part 5 is all about gangsters in Italy. A large part of part 6 takes place in a prison in Florida. In part 7 most of the story revolves around taking a trek across America on horseback. What other anime can boast having Nazis, vampires, famous British criminals, gangsters, stand users, prison inmates and horse riders all in one anime?

With all of that being said we haven't even scratched the surface of how creative and interesting the cast and stands are. In one fight the protagonists are pitted against the Sun and must deduce where the stand user is and in another fight has a vampire that can stop time drop construction equipment on a high school kid. The fights in JoJo's can fit the mold of a shōnen story and have one buff guy punching another but it can also have very interesting battles of cat and mouse where deduction, intelligence and critical thinking can make the difference between one stand user vanquishing another. A lot of anime deal with magic and the ideal of magic and JoJo's flips it on its head and the "magic" becomes the character's stands and abilities. Stands aren't magic by any means but it can deal with the same ideas as magic can in other stories. One anime has it's characters shoot fireballs or ice at their enemies? JoJo's Bizarre Adventure does that but it also has a stand called Jail House Lock where it can make a person only be able to remember three pieces of information and the moment they deduce or discover a fourth piece of information the first piece of information that they remember is completely gone. One anime has it's characters have super speed? JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has a cat-plant named Stray Cat that can control air and shoot bubbles at its enemies. The creativity and complexity of stands as well as the simplicity of other stands makes JoJo's cast and abilities extremely diverse.

 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has some of the most colorful and varied casts in any anime with gorgeous character designs and fashion choices to boot. JoJo's boasts deep themes, a wide variety of locations and spans across decades. It tackles many ideas and problems that the watcher or reader can really appreciate. If there is another piece of media that handles so many things so well, I have yet to come across it.