[manga] JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Homoerotic Beatdown Manga
This was requested by yoshitsune and maybe I bit off more than I could chew. D: At any rate, under the cuts you will find eight images, a fairly lengthy description of the series, and seven discs with seven zips. D: Please bear with me.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a long-running shounen series famous for its hyperkinetic and detailed art, memorably weird characters, and overall cheerfully strange storyline. Araki Hirohiko himself has said something along the lines of that when he made this series, he just wanted people to be able to read it and go, "Man, that was fun!" (instead of gaining a deeper understanding of life from it, which ruins many a fine series). The mangaka loves western pop culture and music, and has named his characters after various bands and foods and movies that he happens to like. JoJo is extremely influential in the manga and gaming world; it has inspired such mangaka as Togushi (Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter) and Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin); characters in Street Fighter and King of Fighters were based on JoJo characters (such as Guile and Benimaru); and even shoujo mangaka have fallen under its evil sway, such as the well-documented love that CLAMP has for JoJo. (They've written horrifying mpreg doujinshi for JoJo, and have ganked both character designs and plot points from JoJo.) It's intelligent, badass, weird, AND silly at the same time, which means I love it, and I've loved it since I first heard of it about ten years ago.
Unfortunately, the ridiculous saga of the Joestar family has been largely unknown in the US, although it's already been translated into several other languages. But part of the manga has just been released in English so, you know, do me a favor and pick it up, okay? Please?
This FST has a large number of songs, and not because I just threw everything I could think of into a list and pretended it was an FST. >_> This wretched series is 87 volumes and counting - yes, eighty-seven - and even if you break it up into seven arcs, each arc is about as long as your average regular manga series. So I tried to stick with 5-15 songs per arc, and this is what I ended up with. I really do apologize.
I promise that this will not add your tenth copy of "Pretty When You Cry" to your music collections, though.
Yes, I actually have read about 84 out of the 87 volumes, and that's because the series is like junk food for the brain. You can plow through five or six volumes at a go because the action is so fast-paced and ridiculous, and it's so much fun that it doesn't weigh your mind down over-much (unless you stop and try to apply realistic proportions or the laws of physics, which you should NEVER do with shounen!) What I also like about JoJo is that although it is a shounen manga, and there are a lot of fights...
1) None of the fights are ever more than a handful of chapters long. Basically the JoJo du Jour takes a beating for a chapter or two so that he can learn the enemy's style and weakness, and then he'll strike back decisively for a quick win. You will never have a battle that drags on for 20+ chapters. Usually it's 4-5 chapters; the most I've ever seen was 10 chapters and that involved multiple separate fights with different characters.
2) NO TOURNAMENTS. DEAR GOD NO BATTLE TOURNAMENTS.
3) Usually (and I'm saying in the first four arcs at least) the heroes don't win by pulling a new random power out of their asses. They have a very specific, limited set of abilities, and to win, they just have to figure out how to use those abilities in creative ways. They win because of their brains and by using strategy, not because they bust out a secret technique. How cool is that?
4) His female characters never suck. Some may be silly, but they don't SUCK. Araki's idea of a heterosexual relationship (when he can be arsed to put one in, which is rarely) apparently involves one of the two people being a certified nutter. His women are either badass or hilariously psycho or both, which I think makes them fun.
5) The characters come from all different races and backgrounds, as the mangaka has travelled the world and says that he thinks it's boring if everyone in a series is Japanese or American or whatever. There have been Egyptians, Italians, Native Americans, African-Americans, you name it.
Another thing that will strike you while reading JoJo, particularly the later arcs, is the homoeroticism. Shounen manga, with its overabundance of muscular men and manly friendships, is kind of skewed that way anyways, and paired with the mangaka's love of drawing his characters lying all over each other in skanky outfits - well, this series has broken the safety glass on my gaydar more times than I can count. I think the best way to understand this series is to understand that the mangaka's favorite musician is Prince. So he was aiming for Prince - who is fabulously fabulous, badass, and heterosexual as hell - and sort of fudged that last criterion.
I hope that this mix is fun, because honestly, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure can barely take ITSELF seriously - so why should you?
This is about as heterosexual it's gonna get. (And even THEN it's pretty wrong, Giorno x Jolyne.) (New image drawn in like an hour by nemissa, holy shit, used with permission)
PROS
You meet the Joestars, the Zeppelis, Speedwagon, and, most importantly, DIO BRANDO, the baby-killing, puppy-kicking bastard. ♥
Backstory is always good.
This is the arc in which the most screaming of WRYYYYYY, UREYYYYYY, URYYYYYY, KUAAAA, GYAAAA, etc goes on. For those of you with RIDICULOUS SOUND-EFFECT fetishes, or /b/tards. >D
Sets the bar for ridiculous violence.
The baby scene. Oh my god. I have yet to meet someone who could read the baby scene and not LOVE DIO BRANDO. >D CONS
The anatomy's kinda horrible, and the art's really oldschool shounen.
The mangaka doesn't quite seem to realize that his manga is ridiculous. Still seems to be taking it somewhat seriously at this point.
Seems to have inspired CLAMP as well as many other mangaka. Some of CLAMP's jojo-related fan-nonsense and plot ripoffs hurt me so much. XD This may be a plus to some of you.
A little more boring than the later arcs, but it HAS TO BE READ FIRST to get to the rest
Part 1 is set in the 1880s, and is the saga of the young lord Jonathan Joestar and his adopted brother/arch-nemesis Dio Brando. Jonathan's father, Lord Joestar, adopted Dio out of a mistaken sense of gratitude towards Dio's father, a thief who had 'saved' the lord's life. Dio turns out to be the sort of guy who's perfect on the outside and completely rotten on the inside; he's made it his personal mission to ruin Jonathan's life out of envy. So he steals Jonathan's girlfriend, shows him up in academics and sports, kisses up to Jonathan's father, burns his dog alive, you know, the usual stuff. But when Jonathan finds out that Dio is planning to kill Lord Joestar, he declares that this is NOT ON and hurries to find a way to thwart Dio's evil plans. But since Dio is so charming and popular, he can't openly attack or denounce Dio.
At this point the story is very Fist of the Northstar-ish, with huge muscular men posing and being manly and noble and yelling out battle cries. But then the story takes a sharp turn into the 'bizarre' and never looks back.
Jonathan's an archaeologist-in-training and has been studying a family heirloom for his thesis. This heirloom, a stone Aztec mask, has some kind of strange power to "unlock the hidden potential of the human mind," but Jonathan's not sure what the hell this means; as far as he can tell the mask needs some kind of blood sacrifice to unlock its power. Dio, however, decides to use himself as the first test subject, and kills Lord Joestar to provide the necessary blood. When Dio wears the mask, it plunges tentacles into his brain and turns him into a vampire. And you know what vampires say?
WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
(Or UREYYYY, or URYYYY; he's not particularly picky about it.) Now Jonathan is locked in a battle to the death with the newly-vampiric Dio Brando and his vampire crew, including Jack the Ripper. Although JoJo is ENORMOUS AND BURLY, his muscles alone can't harm Dio. He has to learn a SPECIAL TECHNIQUE called hamon (ripple) which uses some weirdo combo of sunlight and vibration to destroy the undead. He learns this from the Italian hamon master Will A. Zeppeli, who had learned it from the famed Tibetan monk Tom Petty and his two disciples, Dire and Straits.
Don't look at ME, I'm just reporting it.
After many battles, Jonathan succeeds in cutting Dio's head off, but this apparently isn't enough. When Jonathan goes on his honeymoon cruise some weeks later, the severed head of Dio sneaks aboard and attacks him, sinking the ship and killing Jonathan. But Jonathan, in his dying moments, is able to clutch Dio's head to his chest and take Dio to the bottom of the ocean with him.
Forever Love, dude. Forever Dream.
01. Gomez - Machismo [ lyrics ]
Kind of self-explanatory.
02. Big Black - Bad Penny [ lyrics ]
Well, it's obviously about the sort of guy who is a total asshole but seems to get away with it, no matter how badly he behaves.
03. Ruby - Bud [ lyrics ]
More songs for Dio! Everyone loves him!
04. Ludes - Your Dog Don't Bark
This one's for poor Jonathan, whose life is ruined by Dio. Also because Dio burns his dog to death, making the very end of the song almost hilarious in a way. (I'm cruel orz)
05. The Doors - End of the Night [ lyrics ]
Well, this song's based on the Blake poem 'Auguries of Innocence,' and in particular the lines about how some people are born to sweet delight, and others are born to endless night. As Jonathan and Dio say they're like two sides of the same coin, one good and one bad, well...
06. Dio - Rainbow in the Dark [ lyrics ]
Oh, come on! >3
07. Voltaire - The Headless Waltz [ lyrics ]
Kinda obvious.
08. Gavin Friday - Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves [ lyrics ]
Hahaha, this is sort of a joke, but at the same time, I do think Jonathan and Dio are fond of each other in a "too bad you must die" way.
[[ ZIP FOR PART ONE (31 MB) ]]
PROS:
Joseph Joestar, possibly the most awesome of all the Joestars. He has twice the personality of all the others combined, and I REALLY LIKE the other Joestars.
Possibly the funniest of all the arcs. See above.
CYBORG NAZIS VS. AZTEC VAMPIRES.
The really crazy posing begins.
Also, it's the retarded adventures of a young man in leather with a motorcycle.
Demonstrates how it's possible to be both heroic and sentimental and also hilariously pragmatic and badass.
The introduction of the Joestar motto: RUN AWAYYYYY!!!
The introduction of slightly questionable PASSIONATE MALE FRIENDSHIP between young men with high ideals. We will return to this concept again. Oh yes.
The start of LOTS AND LOTS OF MAN-BLING (which will continue throughout the rest of the series) CONS:
Joseph gets OLD in the later arcs! That's not right! ;_;
...okay, so that ending was a little deus ex machina. But how ELSE do you beat an ultimate life form?
Joseph, did you just marry Suzi Q because she was THERE?
How come Caesar ditched the Zeppeli PimpHat?! Don't you like looking like a ringmaster?
Part 2 picks up 40 years later with Jonathan's 18-year-old grandson, Joseph Joestar, who is ALSO an improbably huge 6'5" British man with green eyes. This JoJo has the most STYLE out of all the JoJos, I think; he deflects laser eyebeams with shotglasses and would quite happily kick someone in the nuts and run away if he needed time to think of a better plan. This arc of the story is so much fun to read, simply because Joseph's very clever and quick-witted - but he's also a goddamn idiot that will have you slapping your forehead and groaning at the terribleness of it all.
Also, if you think part 1's story was weird, well, in this arc Joseph battles cyborg Nazis and a quartet of Aztec vampire gods named Santana, Wham!, AC/DC, and Cars. His allies in these battles are the MILFy hamon mistress Lisa Lisa and an Italian boy his own age, Caesar Zeppeli (the grandson of Will A. Zeppeli from part 1.) This arc is set in NYC, Mexico, Austria, and Rome; one of the best parts about the JoJo manga is that the author loves to travel and the locations are always (sort of) accurately described. Well, except for the parts about horse-racing half-naked Aztec gods in the Colosseum.
01. Mindless Self Indulgence - Stupid MF [ lyrics ]
Joseph, as nice a guy as he is, is a delightfully arrogant and jackassy hero who doesn't hesitate to punch people in the face if they annoy him. This song is pretty much his attitude towards the world. ;;^^
02. Machine Gun Fellatio - Muthafukka on a Motorcycle [ lyrics ]
Joseph roadtrips through Mexico on his motorcycle in search of his missing "Uncle Speedwagon," kicking Nazi ass on the way.
03. Spike Jokes - Der Führer's Face [ lyrics ]
I got this from angrybabble, which is a satirical song from a real Disney short called "Donald in Nutziland" in which I think Donald Duck becomes a Nazi and everyone mocks him. At any rate, this is for Stroheim and all his weirdo Nazi crew.
04. Cafe Tacuba - El Aparato [ lyrics ]
My understanding is this is a song about Mexican peasants who got abducted by aliens. This'un's for the quartet of Aztec vampire gods, Cars, Wham, AC/DC, and Santana.
05. Ween - Voodoo Lady [ lyrics ]
Joseph gets trained in the ways of hamon by the mysterious hamon-user Lisa Lisa, who has no qualms about letting him die if he can't climb up the mysterious oil-covered phallic tower to the platform on top.
06. Depeche Mode - Now This Is Fun [ lyrics ]
Joseph and Caesar undergo the world's fastest hamon training, and by the end of the month can walk on water and stop knives with a fingertip. Exploding vampires shouldn't be a problem!
07. Simple Minds - Big Sleep [ lyrics ]
Oh noes, emo woes!
08. Coil - Slur [ lyrics ]
Joseph has to meet the remaining vampire gods in the Colosseum at sunset for a demonic horse race right out of Ben Hur.
09. Genesis - Dance on a Volcano [ lyrics ]
Prog rock for the end of the arc.
[[ ZIP FOR PART TWO (34 MB) ]]
PROS:
The best place to start if you had to just start anywhere in the middle, which is why they picked up the manga for US release starting here
Really cool if you like travelogues
You actually get a sense of what it's like to be on a long roadtrip with these morons
Introduces Stands and Jotaro (who's gonna be around for a while so you might as well get acquainted)
ROAD ROLLER!!!!111 (this is the arc in which Dio dumps a steam roller on Jotaro) CONS:
The most formulaic of the arcs (as in they fight a bunch of people as they travel through Eurasia, and then they fight Dio at the end)
May upset people who expect all the heroes in their series to live happily every after (or just live, period >3)
Part 3 is the most famous and popular arc, and has had the most merchandising tied to it (two video games, ovas, garage kits, you name it). THIS is the arc that is being translated and released in the US, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up! (Besides, the hero of this arc makes at least a cameo on the next three arcs.) This arc is set in 1987 in Japan.
The hero this time is Joseph's 17-year-old grandson, Kujo Jotaro, a half-Japanese kid who's still 6'5" with 'greenish' eyes. Jotaro is more serious and, well, 'badass' than Joseph; he's sort of got a 'gang leader' look to him, but being a Joestar, he's actually very nice and full of righteousness and so on. When you meet Jotaro, he's gotten thrown in jail for being involved in a massive brawl in which he was miraculously unharmed. He wasn't actually at fault so the police released him from custody, but when his mother came to pick him up, he absolutely refused to leave the jail cell, saying that he's been 'possessed' by an evil spirit. He thinks he's a menace to society and won't leave the jail until he's figured out what the hell is going on. To prove his point, he snatches a gun from a cop without moving from the spot and then shoots himself in the head, only to have the bullet stop in midair, held by an invisible hand. Jotaro's mom panics and calls her father, and Joseph flies over from NYC to deal with his punk-ass grandson. After much posing and some tough love (i.e. a beatdown), Joseph explains to Jotaro that this isn't possession; Jotaro has a Stand and so does Joseph.
In this arc, the mangaka got rid of the idea of 'hamon power' and replaced it with 'Stands,' that is, physical manifestations of psychic powers that will "stand by me". Stands look like gods or demons or plants or animals or robots hovering invisibly by their user, and only other Stand-users can see them. (If you've played any of the Persona games, Persona are pretty much Stands. JoJo-references strike again!) Each Stand has a different set of powers and abilities, and to damage a Stand will injure the user, and vice versa. The Stands in this arc are named after tarot cards, like Jotaro's Star Platinum or Joseph's Hermit Purple, but when the mangaka ran out of those he started naming them after songs and bands, as usual. (You can see how this influenced many series to come.)
The 'explanation' for Stands is that a recent shipwreck salvaging expedition discovered a British ship that had sunk a century ago, and one of the items they found was a coffin with the word 'Dio' on it. Of course, that salvage ship was later found completely empty and lifeless (shades of Bram Stoker). Joseph says that through his Stand's psychic photography he discovered that the coffin contained their family's arch-nemesis Dio Brando, who had survived the centuries by attaching his own severed head to Jonathan Joestar's body.
No, really.
Dio has a Stand ("The World"), and therefore anyone with Joestar blood also developed Stands through their psychic connection with their ancestor's stolen body. (They can tell that it's their ancestor's body because all Joestars have a star-shaped birthmark on the back of their necks, and...okay, it IS stupid. Just accept it.) However, only people with a strong fighting spirit can control Stands, and Jotaro's mom isn't a brawny Joestar man like her father and son. Her stand starts eating her alive and puts her into a coma, and Joseph and Jotaro, at a loss how to save her, basically decide, 'what the hell, let's go kill Dio and see if that helps.' So they head off on a massive roadtrip with a merry bunch of weirdoes across the entire continent of Asia to reach Egypt, where they think Dio is. So, this is the most like a "tournament" arc of the story, but really, this arc is where the author's travel experiences add a lot to the manga; the characters eat local food and see local sights and there are all sorts of those little details. It's like a roadtrip story, with asskicking on the side.
01. Brian Eno - The Jezebel Sprit [ lyrics ]
Obviously, a song about an exorcism. Er...Jotaro thinks he's possessed at the start of the series. Yeah.
02. The Strokes - Hard to Explain [ lyrics ]
It's hard to pick a song for Jotaro, since he's so goddamn stoic. The mangaka says he was aiming for someone who was calmer and more laid-back than the spazzy Joseph, but it's hard to convey someone who's quiet in a manga without making them come across as stone-faced. Well, this is the best I could do.
03. Daft Punk - The Brainwasher
Dio LIIIIIIIIIIVES! And he's described as a "weirdly sexy" man who comes up to young men at night and takes over their minds.
04. Brian Eno - Burning Airlines Give You So Much More [ lyrics ]
So our party starts their journey west! But they don't seem to realize that if you get into a supernatural fight on a plane, THE PLANE WILL CRASH.
05. Ladytron - International Dateline [ lyrics ]
So they keep going west, by boat and camel and jeep and train, and battle more stupid villains along the way.
06. Duran Duran - Tel Aviv
07. Hot Hot Heat - In Cairo [ lyrics ]
They finally reach Cairo, where Dio is sleeping in the darkness somewhere. Gotta find him. Yup.
08. White Zombie - Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks, and Cannibal Girls [ lyrics ]
Did I mention that the villains are weird?
09. The The - Giant [ lyrics ]
OH NOES, EMO WOES
10. Coil - Are You Shivering? [ lyrics ]
Dio's power (which you may know already) is one hell of a creepy one, if used right. He uses it to kill people right in front of Jotaro, and neither can move to defend themselves.
11. Tenacious D - Dio [ lyrics ]
Dio has rocked for a long long time~ o/~
12. Pixies - Where Is My Mind? [ lyrics ]
This song is apparently about snorkeling, stoned, in the Caribbean. Jotaro becomes a marine biologist of some sort after this is all over, possibly because fishes don't require conversation. You know this is what he spent all his time doing, as an independently wealthy young man!
[[ ZIP OF PART THREE (75 MB) ]]
PROS:
Really has the most "everyday life" feel of all the arcs (for whatever THAT'S worth in this weird universe)
An experimental arc, both in terms of art and structure
Hilarious characters, including the BEST MARTY STU EVER (a 20-year-old male model/mangaka who is a complete weirdo and who gets his ass kicked by Josuke before becoming 'good')
A younger, more open, less mysteriously badass JoJo
The beginning of the mangaka's obsession with drawing naked serial killers for PAGES AND PAGES AND PAGES, WHAT GIVES, MAN CONS:
The episodic nature of this arc can be frustrating to some people
The art can fluctuate wildly (but is starting to get better)
You get the impression that the series was supposed to have ended with Arc 3, and he's basically drawing whatever the fuck comes to mind
A few (very few) hanging plot threads
Dammit, Joseph! Knocking up random women isn't right! How could you?
Part 4 is set back in Japan in the fictional town of Morio-cho in the year 1999. The Joestars have discovered that the now-quite-elderly Joseph has been a little indiscreet in the past; he had a fling with a Japanese woman in the mid-1980s and apparently sired a son who is now in his teens. After everyone slapped Joseph upside the head for his nonsense, Jotaro reluctantly travelled to Morio-cho to meet his new uncle, who would be something like 15 years his junior) and offer him a chance to join the family and get in on Joseph's inheritance. He meets Higashikata Josuke, a high schooler who looks like an old-fashioned Yankee, regent hairstyle and all. Of course, everyone makes fun of his silly hair, and when they do, the normally sweet-natured Josuke goes nuts and administers a beatdown, often without actually touching them. Jotaro realizes that this is Josuke's Stand, Crazy Diamond, and he decides to hang around a while to figure out what's going on. There's dozens of high schoolers running about with Stands who need to be contained. (Come on, if you had psychic powers as a high schooler, wouldn't you use them to get your way?) So Araki wastes a lot of time on these self-contained stories, and then remembers that he needs a proper plot and introduces Yoshikage Kira, a serial killer who explodes women with his bomb-making stand, Killer Queen, and then takes home their severed hands to be his "girlfriend" (with all that entails, use your imagination) until they get too smelly and he has to "break up with them" and kill again.
(For the record, the -suke in Josuke can also be read as -jo.)
01. Nina Simone - Summertime [ lyrics ]
This is my favorite cover of this song ever, mostly because of the unsettling, creepy vibe she puts into it. After all, Morio-cho is a town where a dozen young girls have been raped and murdered in the past decade, and nobody seems to notice!
02. Kishidan - Kira Kira [ lyrics ]
Kishidan is a genuine YANKEE BAND. You owe it to yourself to watch the video for this, at the very least, to see why it's just right for Part 4. XD
03. The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket
04. The Delltones - Pretty Vacant [ lyrics ]
More songs for the young tardlings of Part 4.
05. Tommy February6 - ChOOse mE or Die [ lyrics ]
The token girl in this arc is a young lady named Yukako, who becomes infatuated with one of the heroes and kidnaps him to prove her love for him (and to improve his grades). When he tries to escape, she tries to strangle him with her hair stand, Love Deluxe. She really does love him, though, and this is probably the cutest pairing in the entire series!
06. The Golden Palominos - Victim [ lyrics ]
The heroes meet the ghost of a murdered girl, who is doomed to haunt the town until her killer is found. (Araki ganked her story from the "Humans can Lick Too" horror story I remember well from my childhood)
07. Greenskeepers - Lotion [ lyrics ]
Aha, and here's Yoshikage Kira, our psychopathic killer! :D (Seriously, get this song, it's HILARIOUS.)
08. Penpals - Here Comes Your Man [ lyrics ]
There's a prolonged battle between Kira and Jotaro (aided by Koichi), and Kira escapes into the body of another man.
09. Black Heart Procession - Fingerprints [ lyrics ]
But he can't escape forever...
10. Sweet - Ballroom Blitz [ lyrics ]
And there's ANOTHER badass final battle, with kind of a hilarious conclusion.
11. Adam Ant - Scorpio Rising [ lyrics ]
And life in Morio-cho returns to normal...sort of...
[[ ZIP OF PART FOUR (42 MB) ]]
PROS:
The start of the detailed, gorgeous art
Accurate information about slumming in Italy
Men who always shoot their guns braced with both hands, not one-handed gangsta-style (this cover image notwithstanding)
Makes its own gay jokes (it'll have chapters of innuendo leading up to a gay joke that's like something you'd read in a fic)
Will innure you to skanky man-fashions (possibly a con?! I was able to watch Zoolander after reading this arc and not find any of the clothes WEIRD.)
The fights are still awesome!
More crazy mofos, like Vinegar Doppio
Also, it will make you so hungry for Italian food after reading this ("Mmmm...Risotto ...Formaggio...")
The lone girl isn't whiny or annoying; you almost feel sorry for her to be stuck in a crowd of teenage boys who are completely uninterested in her feminine charms. CONS:
Dude, I still don't understand exactly how King Crimson's power works.
And hello, Araki, you can't just end an arc by entering the Konami code. Really. LAME.
Part 5 was set in Italy in 2001, and was the twistiest and most homoerotic arc yet. If you look at these characters, who are all extremely slim and long-lashed and pouty- mouthed and beautiful and FABULOUSLY FABULOUS, you'd barely believe that this was the same artist and same series as the enormous men of parts 1 and 2. The prettyboys of Part 5 spend all their time wearing ridiculous skanky costumes and lying all over each other (I call this particular picture "the manpile" - note the lone neglected girl at the top left, who isn't squished at all.) (Or look at this, which is supposedly a HOSTAGE SITUATION.)
The hero of part 5 is Giorno Giovanna, the half-Japanese son of....Dio. Yes, apparently Dio got around in the time of part 3 and somehow impregnated women without killing them (even the author's like, 'I don't know HOW that could happen, so please just pretend it did.' But if you think about it, the body in question is actually Jonathan Joestar's, so GioGio is sort of the mpreg baby of Jonathan and Dio. Yep.) This arc basically chronicles Giorno (GioGio) and his quest to become the most powerful gangster in Italy - a Gang Star, if you will. *groan* He's aided by four other fabulously-dressed guys with Stands, all named after Italian foods. Actually, in this arc, they're all named after food, like the villains Risotto Nero and Ciocolatta. And so there's about a dozen volumes of fighting enemy Stand-using gangsters while finding a way to the boss of their syndicate. In theory, the plot is about protecting the boss's daughter from all the people trying to kill her.
But still? Ridiculous. The young idiots waste their time arguing over things like vegetarianism and teaching each other basic math, and sometimes they're just plain bizarre, such as when they're torturing information out of an enemy stand user. One of them zips the enemy's head right off his body with a Stand, and they turn his disembodied head towards the sun, prop open his eyelids, and put on his glasses to magnify the sunlight into his eyes. Then they turn on the boombox and start breakdancing around him until he breaks and spills the information.
Also, this arc is most likely to spawn late-night discussions as to which Backstreet Boy each character corresponds to.
01. Metro - Criminal World [ lyrics ]
Illegal activities and homosexuality! That's this arc in a nutshell! :D
02. T Rex - Telegram Sam [ lyrics ]
03. Gary Glitter - Do You Wanna Touch Me [ lyrics ]
04. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant [ lyrics ]
05. The Ramones - Pinhead [ lyrics ]
06. Gorillaz - Dirty Harry [ lyrics ]
All of these are songs for the skanky young men of the "Passione" gang: Bruno Buccellati, Giorno Giovanna, Guido Mista, Narancia Ghirga, Fugo Pannacotta, and Leone Abbacchio.
07. Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a 17-year-old Girl [ lyrics ]
Poor Trish Una! Surrounded by all these hot boys dedicated to protecting her...and NONE OF THEM WANT TO DO HER!
08. The Cure - 10:15 Saturday Night [ lyrics ]
The Passione gang's job is to safely transport Trish to her father, the reclusive leader of their syndicate. All you see of him is a shape huddled under a coat by a phone, muttering about Trish. (I had fun misinterpreting the lyrics to this song, hee hee)
09. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal [ lyrics ]
But Trish does get attacked and almost killed! Oh noes!
10. Butthole Surfers - Shame of Life [ lyrics ]
The Passione gang decides to betray their syndicate and go on the run, mostly because they love their leader Bruno SO MUCH.
11. Green Day - She [ lyrics ]
Trish decides that she's tired of her man-harem protecting her and starts kicking ass with her own newly-discovered Stand. They still are completely uninterested in her feminine charms, though.
12. REM - Crazy [ lyrics ]
Ah, Vinegar Doppio! The syndicate boss, Diavolo, sends his advisor Doppio after Passione. Doppio is several crayons short of a full box, let's just say.
13. Roots Manuva - Chin High [ lyrics ]
14. The Rolling Stones - Jig-saw Puzzle [ lyrics ]
There's a lot of introspective nonsense in the middle about loyalties and what their priorities in life are and their morals and stuff.
15. Subtle - Long Voice (remixed by Mike Patton) [ the lyrics of the original, non-remixed song ]
Diavolo's stand, King Crimson, is another hella cool stand (if only its powers made logical sense). Fighting it is completely surreal, and even more so in the final battle.
16. Nino Rota - Speak To Me Only With Thine Eyes (The Godfather Theme)
Well, I don't think it's a spoiler that GioGio really does become a Gang Star, eh?
[[ ZIP OF PART FIVE (63 MB) ]]
PROS:
Set in America! With a female JoJo!
Lots of women, for once, but of course they're all gay for the current JoJo, which makes this kind of like one of those lesbian prison movies.
Araki's idea of a straight man is a crossdressing serial killer who is in love with Jolyne and wants to marry her. It's sort of hilarious.
It's still homoerotic, even with only about three men around.
Everyone's wearing lipstick now, men and women alike! (Possibly a con?)
The return of the PimpHat! This time it's a furry one with horns, worn by Weather Report.
Jotaro evidently has a wrinkled, hideous portrait hanging in his attic somewhere. Look at him! (What, I like Jotaro, I think that's a plus orz) CONS:
God, Jotaro, you asshat! What a terrible father you are! XD No wonder she wants to punch you!
Oh my god, so Dio pretty much canonically had sex with a teenage altar boy. That's not quite right. (They were lying about a hotel room and Dio's half-naked and his pants are falling off. Also said altar boy can knot cherry stems with his tongue, AND DEMONSTRATES.)
The ending is KIND of random (again, pulling superpowered Stands out of his ass when he gets bored with the powers of the current ones)
Part 6 (Stone Ocean) is set in 2011 on an island prison off the coast of Florida. Jotaro's (slightly-delinquent) 18-year-old daughter, Jolyne Kujo, was framed for a murder by her boyfriend and sent to the island prison Stone Ocean for 15 years. Jotaro apparently has been a shitty father and always dashing around the world to take care of one thing or another, and he doesn't even show up for this. But he sends a strange pendant to his daughter in prison, and when she accidentally scratches her finger on its sharp edge, she develops the power to summon a Stand, Stone Free.
When Jotaro FINALLY shows up to rescue her (and is perplexed that his daughter isn't jumping for joy to see him, the dumbass) he gets attacked by the stand Whitesnake on the way out of the prison, which can extract both a person's soul and their Stand power out of their head in the form of CDs. Jotaro is able to get Jolyne out of the prison before going into a coma, but Jolyne, who is now sorry that she'd been mad at her father (although she's quite justified) voluntarily lets herself be re-captured so that she can hunt down Whitesnake and get daddy's soul and stand back.
Part 6's art continues along the trend of "twisty, detailed, and kind of homoerotic," and even Jotaro, who is supposedly 41 or 42 years old, looks younger and prettier than he did in part 3, when he was 18. (Snakeskin pants?!) This arc involves fighting enemy Stand users in prison and, well, the ending sort of opens up the way to part 7, where the mangaka just said, "fuck it, I want to do an AU of part 1!"
01. Basement Jaxx - Romeo [ lyrics ]
Besides being a fun song about a chick who isn't going to put up with nonsense, the boyfriend who framed Jolyne was conveniently named Romeo.
02. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - No No No [ lyrics ]
03. Le Tigre - Deceptacon [ lyrics ]
Jolyne adjusts to (lesbian) prison life, meeting people such as Hermes and Guess on the way (he started naming people after fashion designers too now. Yep.)
04. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Sick Child [ lyrics ]
Half of this arc is Jolyne working out her father-issues involving Jotaro. He was never there and has been kind of an uncommunicative ass to her, but she still craves his attention and love, which is kind of pathetic to watch. So when he finally shows up to visit her in prison, she's torn between the urge to kick his ass and grovel for his affection.
05. Fugazi - Margin Walker [ lyrics ]
However, an assassination attempt interrupts this charming family drama.
06. Martina Topley-Bird - Too Tough To Die [ lyrics ]
Er...Jotaro's one tough mofo. Really.
07. G. Love & Special Sauce - Cold Beverage [ lyrics ]
By POPULAR DEMAND, here's a song for the female inmate F.F. (Foo Fighters), who is actually plankton in a human form and therefore is always sucking down some kind of drink in an attempt to stay hydrated. I told you, this manga is weird.
08. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist [ lyrics ]
I guess Araki couldn't keep from drawing sexy men for an entire arc, so apparently this female prison has a men's wing, including the charming serial killer Annasui.
09. David Bowie - Cactus [ lyrics ]
Annasui, rather inexplicably, has decided that he loves Jolyne and wants to marry her. (She doesn't get it either; he basically introduces himself that way before using his stand power to rip one of her enemies to pieces. Her reaction is, "wait, who are you again?")
10. The Distillers - Drain the Blood [ lyrics ]
Jolyne and her group of freaky convicts are still searching for the user of Whitesnake, who has Daddy's soul and Star Platinum disks.
11. Queen - Get Down Make Love [ lyrics ]
It's really funny to see Annasui chase after Jolyne proclaiming his love for her, and Jolyne being either confused or totally missing whatever he just said. Serial killers in love! It's hilarious! (Annasui is in jail for rather spectatularly murdering his cheating girlfriend. Errrr...)
12. Fletch - Driving Daddy Home
13. Berlin - The Metro [ lyrics ]
Some psychic nonsense in the middle of the arc allows Jolyne to realize that yes, although Jotaro is an uncommunicative jackass who assumes everyone can read his mind and tell that he cares, well...he does care! (I still DENY that there is ANYTHING UN-KOSHER ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP, DAMN YOU ALL.)
14. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence [ lyrics ]
Of course, they get the disks sent off and Jotaro is able to appear in the nick of time to save Jolyne's life, and all is apparently well in the world again.
15. Eurythmics - Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) [ lyrics ]
It helps if you've seen the video for this song back in the early 80s; it has a perfect housewife just lose it one day and start cold-bloodedly smashing up her model home. Anyways, Jolyne administers a beatdown.
16. Buck-Tick - Kimi ga shin...dara [ lyrics ]
Trust me, the ending of this arc is totally surreal and fits in with the lyrics of this song. O_o;
17. Eels - old shit/new shit [ lyrics ]
o/~I'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin. o/~
[[ ZIP OF PART SIX (66 MB) ]]
PROS:
Hilarious. Seriously, the plot has reached new levels of fun.
And the art's reached new levels of awesome.
Also, since it's an AU, you can play "spot the cameo"!
...there's a stand that can turn people into dinosaurs.
Also, you find out that Dio Brando is a caffiene fiend. GIVE THE MAN SOME COFFEE.
I have never seen such a skanky, attractive Zeppeli before. orz
Apparently Araki thinks that people with disabilities can and should be incredibly skanky and homoerotic too. CONS:
I'm a little afraid for Gyro; Zeppelis usually have the average lifespan of a lemming if a Joestar is involved.
Part 7 (Steel Ball Run) is set in America in 1890. A businessman sponsors a cross- country horse race with a $50 million prize, and thousands of people show up to participate. One of these (the hero???) is a truly strange Italian named Gyro Zeppeli who has a solid gold grill that says "GO! GO! ZEPPELI!" He carries two steel balls in holsters as his weapons, and he seems to be able to make them spin and fly as he wishes (a form of hamon, maybe?) At registration he meets the ex-jockey Johnny Joestar, who had become paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the spine. Johnny is wheelchair-bound, but when he touches Gyro's spinning balls (Jeez, one day I will be able to talk about this series without giggling like a seventh-grader XD) the rotational force somehow propels him out of his wheelchair and into a standing position, something he's never been able to do since his accident. Gyro brushes this event off, but Johnny becomes determined to chase down Gyro during the race and learn the secret of his balls.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay, anyways, this arc, being an AU, has tons of cameos by characters from other arcs, most notably the rogue British jockey Diego "Dio" Brando! There are Stands in this arc too, but they're caused by people having...pieces of a saint's corpse...or...well, Johnny Joestar has the saint's arm hidden inside his own, and it gives him the ability to spin his fingernails and toenails and shoot them at people. (...) This is kind of like a buddy roadtrip story, and it really has two equally interesting protagonists, not a hero and a sidekick.
01. Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive [ lyrics ]
Now we've switched to Ultra Jump, so Araki can draw his weird gay cowboys in peace! Gyro Zeppeli just gets skankier and skankier and skankier. D:
02. David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans [ lyrics ]
Ha, before Johnny became a paraplegic, he was an arrogant asshole. He got shot in the back because he cut in line in front of an unbalanced otaku.
03. Cheap Trick - He's a Whore [ lyrics ]
Diego Brando, freaky genius jockey, came from poor beginnings but became wealthy when he married an 87-year-old heiress who mysteriously died less than a year later. Heh heh.
04. Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong [ lyrics ]
05. Scott H. Biram - Whiskey
06. Soda and His Million Piece Band - Cabbagetown Breakdown
So they're all racing through the Southwest, getting attacked by dinosaurs and stand users and searching for the missing pieces of a saint's corpse (which will give you stand powers). Johnny gets an arm, and Gyro and Dio get an eyeball apiece. Quick, on to the next stage! The race is still on!
[[ ZIP OF PART SEVEN (29 MB) ]]
OMAKE:
The Beatles - Get Back [ lyrics ]
Well, this song is where Araki got the name "JoJo" from. Yes, really.
Beauty and the Beast - Gaston
o/~ For there's no one as burly and brawny~ As you see I've got biceps to spare o/~
Barnes & Barnes - Fish Heads [ lyrics ]
This was inspired by a conversation about how Stands were the perfect date for a lonely boy, much like...fish heads.
Atom and his Package - Hats off To Halford [ lyrics ]
o/~ I have yet to see the proof so far that your sexuality determines the way you play guitar~ o/~
Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
Seriously, part 5 is the boyband arc. orz
Raffi - Bananaphone [ lyrics ]
For Vinegar Doppio, the boy who uses toys, frogs, and ice cream cones as phones.
Doppio: Brrrrrrrrrrrring, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring bring~~~
Doppio: Hey, you over there! Why aren't you answering the phone? Gimme that, you dumb bitch!
Girls: EEEEEK!!!
Doppio: Hello hello hello~? Yes, Doppio speaking~
Willie Nelson - Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other) [ lyrics ]
I...I have no excuse. orz
OKAY I'M DONE NOW. *pant, pant* I apologize for the length, but this was one hell of an assignment and I tried to do it justice because I do love the series. If you are INTERESTED IN READING IT, HERE ARE YOUR CHOICES:
1) BUY THE OFFICIAL RELEASE OF PART THREE. There are three volumes out so far, and I've found them all shortly after release in my local Barnes & Noble.
2) If you are interested in the later arcs, which I'm not sure will be released in the US, here are scanslations for parts 4-6 and for parts 1-2. But please, actually buy the official release of Part 3 or they'll never finish it and I WILL HAVE TO CHOKE SOMEONE.
If you download...um...I dunno, just say something so I feel like I didn't do all this in vain. D: Especially if you already like JoJo! Say something, dammit! :D
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a long-running shounen series famous for its hyperkinetic and detailed art, memorably weird characters, and overall cheerfully strange storyline. Araki Hirohiko himself has said something along the lines of that when he made this series, he just wanted people to be able to read it and go, "Man, that was fun!" (instead of gaining a deeper understanding of life from it, which ruins many a fine series). The mangaka loves western pop culture and music, and has named his characters after various bands and foods and movies that he happens to like. JoJo is extremely influential in the manga and gaming world; it has inspired such mangaka as Togushi (Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter) and Watsuki (Rurouni Kenshin); characters in Street Fighter and King of Fighters were based on JoJo characters (such as Guile and Benimaru); and even shoujo mangaka have fallen under its evil sway, such as the well-documented love that CLAMP has for JoJo. (They've written horrifying mpreg doujinshi for JoJo, and have ganked both character designs and plot points from JoJo.) It's intelligent, badass, weird, AND silly at the same time, which means I love it, and I've loved it since I first heard of it about ten years ago.
Unfortunately, the ridiculous saga of the Joestar family has been largely unknown in the US, although it's already been translated into several other languages. But part of the manga has just been released in English so, you know, do me a favor and pick it up, okay? Please?
This FST has a large number of songs, and not because I just threw everything I could think of into a list and pretended it was an FST. >_> This wretched series is 87 volumes and counting - yes, eighty-seven - and even if you break it up into seven arcs, each arc is about as long as your average regular manga series. So I tried to stick with 5-15 songs per arc, and this is what I ended up with. I really do apologize.
I promise that this will not add your tenth copy of "Pretty When You Cry" to your music collections, though.
Yes, I actually have read about 84 out of the 87 volumes, and that's because the series is like junk food for the brain. You can plow through five or six volumes at a go because the action is so fast-paced and ridiculous, and it's so much fun that it doesn't weigh your mind down over-much (unless you stop and try to apply realistic proportions or the laws of physics, which you should NEVER do with shounen!) What I also like about JoJo is that although it is a shounen manga, and there are a lot of fights...
1) None of the fights are ever more than a handful of chapters long. Basically the JoJo du Jour takes a beating for a chapter or two so that he can learn the enemy's style and weakness, and then he'll strike back decisively for a quick win. You will never have a battle that drags on for 20+ chapters. Usually it's 4-5 chapters; the most I've ever seen was 10 chapters and that involved multiple separate fights with different characters.
2) NO TOURNAMENTS. DEAR GOD NO BATTLE TOURNAMENTS.
3) Usually (and I'm saying in the first four arcs at least) the heroes don't win by pulling a new random power out of their asses. They have a very specific, limited set of abilities, and to win, they just have to figure out how to use those abilities in creative ways. They win because of their brains and by using strategy, not because they bust out a secret technique. How cool is that?
4) His female characters never suck. Some may be silly, but they don't SUCK. Araki's idea of a heterosexual relationship (when he can be arsed to put one in, which is rarely) apparently involves one of the two people being a certified nutter. His women are either badass or hilariously psycho or both, which I think makes them fun.
5) The characters come from all different races and backgrounds, as the mangaka has travelled the world and says that he thinks it's boring if everyone in a series is Japanese or American or whatever. There have been Egyptians, Italians, Native Americans, African-Americans, you name it.
Another thing that will strike you while reading JoJo, particularly the later arcs, is the homoeroticism. Shounen manga, with its overabundance of muscular men and manly friendships, is kind of skewed that way anyways, and paired with the mangaka's love of drawing his characters lying all over each other in skanky outfits - well, this series has broken the safety glass on my gaydar more times than I can count. I think the best way to understand this series is to understand that the mangaka's favorite musician is Prince. So he was aiming for Prince - who is fabulously fabulous, badass, and heterosexual as hell - and sort of fudged that last criterion.
I hope that this mix is fun, because honestly, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure can barely take ITSELF seriously - so why should you?
This is about as heterosexual it's gonna get. (And even THEN it's pretty wrong, Giorno x Jolyne.) (New image drawn in like an hour by nemissa, holy shit, used with permission)
PROS
You meet the Joestars, the Zeppelis, Speedwagon, and, most importantly, DIO BRANDO, the baby-killing, puppy-kicking bastard. ♥
Backstory is always good.
This is the arc in which the most screaming of WRYYYYYY, UREYYYYYY, URYYYYYY, KUAAAA, GYAAAA, etc goes on. For those of you with RIDICULOUS SOUND-EFFECT fetishes, or /b/tards. >D
Sets the bar for ridiculous violence.
The baby scene. Oh my god. I have yet to meet someone who could read the baby scene and not LOVE DIO BRANDO. >D CONS
The anatomy's kinda horrible, and the art's really oldschool shounen.
The mangaka doesn't quite seem to realize that his manga is ridiculous. Still seems to be taking it somewhat seriously at this point.
Seems to have inspired CLAMP as well as many other mangaka. Some of CLAMP's jojo-related fan-nonsense and plot ripoffs hurt me so much. XD This may be a plus to some of you.
A little more boring than the later arcs, but it HAS TO BE READ FIRST to get to the rest
Part 1 is set in the 1880s, and is the saga of the young lord Jonathan Joestar and his adopted brother/arch-nemesis Dio Brando. Jonathan's father, Lord Joestar, adopted Dio out of a mistaken sense of gratitude towards Dio's father, a thief who had 'saved' the lord's life. Dio turns out to be the sort of guy who's perfect on the outside and completely rotten on the inside; he's made it his personal mission to ruin Jonathan's life out of envy. So he steals Jonathan's girlfriend, shows him up in academics and sports, kisses up to Jonathan's father, burns his dog alive, you know, the usual stuff. But when Jonathan finds out that Dio is planning to kill Lord Joestar, he declares that this is NOT ON and hurries to find a way to thwart Dio's evil plans. But since Dio is so charming and popular, he can't openly attack or denounce Dio.
At this point the story is very Fist of the Northstar-ish, with huge muscular men posing and being manly and noble and yelling out battle cries. But then the story takes a sharp turn into the 'bizarre' and never looks back.
Jonathan's an archaeologist-in-training and has been studying a family heirloom for his thesis. This heirloom, a stone Aztec mask, has some kind of strange power to "unlock the hidden potential of the human mind," but Jonathan's not sure what the hell this means; as far as he can tell the mask needs some kind of blood sacrifice to unlock its power. Dio, however, decides to use himself as the first test subject, and kills Lord Joestar to provide the necessary blood. When Dio wears the mask, it plunges tentacles into his brain and turns him into a vampire. And you know what vampires say?
WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
(Or UREYYYY, or URYYYY; he's not particularly picky about it.) Now Jonathan is locked in a battle to the death with the newly-vampiric Dio Brando and his vampire crew, including Jack the Ripper. Although JoJo is ENORMOUS AND BURLY, his muscles alone can't harm Dio. He has to learn a SPECIAL TECHNIQUE called hamon (ripple) which uses some weirdo combo of sunlight and vibration to destroy the undead. He learns this from the Italian hamon master Will A. Zeppeli, who had learned it from the famed Tibetan monk Tom Petty and his two disciples, Dire and Straits.
Don't look at ME, I'm just reporting it.
After many battles, Jonathan succeeds in cutting Dio's head off, but this apparently isn't enough. When Jonathan goes on his honeymoon cruise some weeks later, the severed head of Dio sneaks aboard and attacks him, sinking the ship and killing Jonathan. But Jonathan, in his dying moments, is able to clutch Dio's head to his chest and take Dio to the bottom of the ocean with him.
Forever Love, dude. Forever Dream.
01. Gomez - Machismo [ lyrics ]
Kind of self-explanatory.
02. Big Black - Bad Penny [ lyrics ]
Well, it's obviously about the sort of guy who is a total asshole but seems to get away with it, no matter how badly he behaves.
03. Ruby - Bud [ lyrics ]
More songs for Dio! Everyone loves him!
04. Ludes - Your Dog Don't Bark
This one's for poor Jonathan, whose life is ruined by Dio. Also because Dio burns his dog to death, making the very end of the song almost hilarious in a way. (I'm cruel orz)
05. The Doors - End of the Night [ lyrics ]
Well, this song's based on the Blake poem 'Auguries of Innocence,' and in particular the lines about how some people are born to sweet delight, and others are born to endless night. As Jonathan and Dio say they're like two sides of the same coin, one good and one bad, well...
06. Dio - Rainbow in the Dark [ lyrics ]
Oh, come on! >3
07. Voltaire - The Headless Waltz [ lyrics ]
Kinda obvious.
08. Gavin Friday - Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves [ lyrics ]
Hahaha, this is sort of a joke, but at the same time, I do think Jonathan and Dio are fond of each other in a "too bad you must die" way.
[[ ZIP FOR PART ONE (31 MB) ]]
PROS:
Joseph Joestar, possibly the most awesome of all the Joestars. He has twice the personality of all the others combined, and I REALLY LIKE the other Joestars.
Possibly the funniest of all the arcs. See above.
CYBORG NAZIS VS. AZTEC VAMPIRES.
The really crazy posing begins.
Also, it's the retarded adventures of a young man in leather with a motorcycle.
Demonstrates how it's possible to be both heroic and sentimental and also hilariously pragmatic and badass.
The introduction of the Joestar motto: RUN AWAYYYYY!!!
The introduction of slightly questionable PASSIONATE MALE FRIENDSHIP between young men with high ideals. We will return to this concept again. Oh yes.
The start of LOTS AND LOTS OF MAN-BLING (which will continue throughout the rest of the series) CONS:
Joseph gets OLD in the later arcs! That's not right! ;_;
...okay, so that ending was a little deus ex machina. But how ELSE do you beat an ultimate life form?
Joseph, did you just marry Suzi Q because she was THERE?
How come Caesar ditched the Zeppeli PimpHat?! Don't you like looking like a ringmaster?
Part 2 picks up 40 years later with Jonathan's 18-year-old grandson, Joseph Joestar, who is ALSO an improbably huge 6'5" British man with green eyes. This JoJo has the most STYLE out of all the JoJos, I think; he deflects laser eyebeams with shotglasses and would quite happily kick someone in the nuts and run away if he needed time to think of a better plan. This arc of the story is so much fun to read, simply because Joseph's very clever and quick-witted - but he's also a goddamn idiot that will have you slapping your forehead and groaning at the terribleness of it all.
Also, if you think part 1's story was weird, well, in this arc Joseph battles cyborg Nazis and a quartet of Aztec vampire gods named Santana, Wham!, AC/DC, and Cars. His allies in these battles are the MILFy hamon mistress Lisa Lisa and an Italian boy his own age, Caesar Zeppeli (the grandson of Will A. Zeppeli from part 1.) This arc is set in NYC, Mexico, Austria, and Rome; one of the best parts about the JoJo manga is that the author loves to travel and the locations are always (sort of) accurately described. Well, except for the parts about horse-racing half-naked Aztec gods in the Colosseum.
01. Mindless Self Indulgence - Stupid MF [ lyrics ]
Joseph, as nice a guy as he is, is a delightfully arrogant and jackassy hero who doesn't hesitate to punch people in the face if they annoy him. This song is pretty much his attitude towards the world. ;;^^
02. Machine Gun Fellatio - Muthafukka on a Motorcycle [ lyrics ]
Joseph roadtrips through Mexico on his motorcycle in search of his missing "Uncle Speedwagon," kicking Nazi ass on the way.
03. Spike Jokes - Der Führer's Face [ lyrics ]
I got this from angrybabble, which is a satirical song from a real Disney short called "Donald in Nutziland" in which I think Donald Duck becomes a Nazi and everyone mocks him. At any rate, this is for Stroheim and all his weirdo Nazi crew.
04. Cafe Tacuba - El Aparato [ lyrics ]
My understanding is this is a song about Mexican peasants who got abducted by aliens. This'un's for the quartet of Aztec vampire gods, Cars, Wham, AC/DC, and Santana.
05. Ween - Voodoo Lady [ lyrics ]
Joseph gets trained in the ways of hamon by the mysterious hamon-user Lisa Lisa, who has no qualms about letting him die if he can't climb up the mysterious oil-covered phallic tower to the platform on top.
06. Depeche Mode - Now This Is Fun [ lyrics ]
Joseph and Caesar undergo the world's fastest hamon training, and by the end of the month can walk on water and stop knives with a fingertip. Exploding vampires shouldn't be a problem!
07. Simple Minds - Big Sleep [ lyrics ]
Oh noes, emo woes!
08. Coil - Slur [ lyrics ]
Joseph has to meet the remaining vampire gods in the Colosseum at sunset for a demonic horse race right out of Ben Hur.
09. Genesis - Dance on a Volcano [ lyrics ]
Prog rock for the end of the arc.
[[ ZIP FOR PART TWO (34 MB) ]]
PROS:
The best place to start if you had to just start anywhere in the middle, which is why they picked up the manga for US release starting here
Really cool if you like travelogues
You actually get a sense of what it's like to be on a long roadtrip with these morons
Introduces Stands and Jotaro (who's gonna be around for a while so you might as well get acquainted)
ROAD ROLLER!!!!111 (this is the arc in which Dio dumps a steam roller on Jotaro) CONS:
The most formulaic of the arcs (as in they fight a bunch of people as they travel through Eurasia, and then they fight Dio at the end)
May upset people who expect all the heroes in their series to live happily every after (or just live, period >3)
Part 3 is the most famous and popular arc, and has had the most merchandising tied to it (two video games, ovas, garage kits, you name it). THIS is the arc that is being translated and released in the US, and I strongly encourage you to pick it up! (Besides, the hero of this arc makes at least a cameo on the next three arcs.) This arc is set in 1987 in Japan.
The hero this time is Joseph's 17-year-old grandson, Kujo Jotaro, a half-Japanese kid who's still 6'5" with 'greenish' eyes. Jotaro is more serious and, well, 'badass' than Joseph; he's sort of got a 'gang leader' look to him, but being a Joestar, he's actually very nice and full of righteousness and so on. When you meet Jotaro, he's gotten thrown in jail for being involved in a massive brawl in which he was miraculously unharmed. He wasn't actually at fault so the police released him from custody, but when his mother came to pick him up, he absolutely refused to leave the jail cell, saying that he's been 'possessed' by an evil spirit. He thinks he's a menace to society and won't leave the jail until he's figured out what the hell is going on. To prove his point, he snatches a gun from a cop without moving from the spot and then shoots himself in the head, only to have the bullet stop in midair, held by an invisible hand. Jotaro's mom panics and calls her father, and Joseph flies over from NYC to deal with his punk-ass grandson. After much posing and some tough love (i.e. a beatdown), Joseph explains to Jotaro that this isn't possession; Jotaro has a Stand and so does Joseph.
In this arc, the mangaka got rid of the idea of 'hamon power' and replaced it with 'Stands,' that is, physical manifestations of psychic powers that will "stand by me". Stands look like gods or demons or plants or animals or robots hovering invisibly by their user, and only other Stand-users can see them. (If you've played any of the Persona games, Persona are pretty much Stands. JoJo-references strike again!) Each Stand has a different set of powers and abilities, and to damage a Stand will injure the user, and vice versa. The Stands in this arc are named after tarot cards, like Jotaro's Star Platinum or Joseph's Hermit Purple, but when the mangaka ran out of those he started naming them after songs and bands, as usual. (You can see how this influenced many series to come.)
The 'explanation' for Stands is that a recent shipwreck salvaging expedition discovered a British ship that had sunk a century ago, and one of the items they found was a coffin with the word 'Dio' on it. Of course, that salvage ship was later found completely empty and lifeless (shades of Bram Stoker). Joseph says that through his Stand's psychic photography he discovered that the coffin contained their family's arch-nemesis Dio Brando, who had survived the centuries by attaching his own severed head to Jonathan Joestar's body.
No, really.
Dio has a Stand ("The World"), and therefore anyone with Joestar blood also developed Stands through their psychic connection with their ancestor's stolen body. (They can tell that it's their ancestor's body because all Joestars have a star-shaped birthmark on the back of their necks, and...okay, it IS stupid. Just accept it.) However, only people with a strong fighting spirit can control Stands, and Jotaro's mom isn't a brawny Joestar man like her father and son. Her stand starts eating her alive and puts her into a coma, and Joseph and Jotaro, at a loss how to save her, basically decide, 'what the hell, let's go kill Dio and see if that helps.' So they head off on a massive roadtrip with a merry bunch of weirdoes across the entire continent of Asia to reach Egypt, where they think Dio is. So, this is the most like a "tournament" arc of the story, but really, this arc is where the author's travel experiences add a lot to the manga; the characters eat local food and see local sights and there are all sorts of those little details. It's like a roadtrip story, with asskicking on the side.
01. Brian Eno - The Jezebel Sprit [ lyrics ]
Obviously, a song about an exorcism. Er...Jotaro thinks he's possessed at the start of the series. Yeah.
02. The Strokes - Hard to Explain [ lyrics ]
It's hard to pick a song for Jotaro, since he's so goddamn stoic. The mangaka says he was aiming for someone who was calmer and more laid-back than the spazzy Joseph, but it's hard to convey someone who's quiet in a manga without making them come across as stone-faced. Well, this is the best I could do.
03. Daft Punk - The Brainwasher
Dio LIIIIIIIIIIVES! And he's described as a "weirdly sexy" man who comes up to young men at night and takes over their minds.
04. Brian Eno - Burning Airlines Give You So Much More [ lyrics ]
So our party starts their journey west! But they don't seem to realize that if you get into a supernatural fight on a plane, THE PLANE WILL CRASH.
05. Ladytron - International Dateline [ lyrics ]
So they keep going west, by boat and camel and jeep and train, and battle more stupid villains along the way.
06. Duran Duran - Tel Aviv
07. Hot Hot Heat - In Cairo [ lyrics ]
They finally reach Cairo, where Dio is sleeping in the darkness somewhere. Gotta find him. Yup.
08. White Zombie - Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks, and Cannibal Girls [ lyrics ]
Did I mention that the villains are weird?
09. The The - Giant [ lyrics ]
OH NOES, EMO WOES
10. Coil - Are You Shivering? [ lyrics ]
Dio's power (which you may know already) is one hell of a creepy one, if used right. He uses it to kill people right in front of Jotaro, and neither can move to defend themselves.
11. Tenacious D - Dio [ lyrics ]
Dio has rocked for a long long time~ o/~
12. Pixies - Where Is My Mind? [ lyrics ]
This song is apparently about snorkeling, stoned, in the Caribbean. Jotaro becomes a marine biologist of some sort after this is all over, possibly because fishes don't require conversation. You know this is what he spent all his time doing, as an independently wealthy young man!
[[ ZIP OF PART THREE (75 MB) ]]
PROS:
Really has the most "everyday life" feel of all the arcs (for whatever THAT'S worth in this weird universe)
An experimental arc, both in terms of art and structure
Hilarious characters, including the BEST MARTY STU EVER (a 20-year-old male model/mangaka who is a complete weirdo and who gets his ass kicked by Josuke before becoming 'good')
A younger, more open, less mysteriously badass JoJo
The beginning of the mangaka's obsession with drawing naked serial killers for PAGES AND PAGES AND PAGES, WHAT GIVES, MAN CONS:
The episodic nature of this arc can be frustrating to some people
The art can fluctuate wildly (but is starting to get better)
You get the impression that the series was supposed to have ended with Arc 3, and he's basically drawing whatever the fuck comes to mind
A few (very few) hanging plot threads
Dammit, Joseph! Knocking up random women isn't right! How could you?
Part 4 is set back in Japan in the fictional town of Morio-cho in the year 1999. The Joestars have discovered that the now-quite-elderly Joseph has been a little indiscreet in the past; he had a fling with a Japanese woman in the mid-1980s and apparently sired a son who is now in his teens. After everyone slapped Joseph upside the head for his nonsense, Jotaro reluctantly travelled to Morio-cho to meet his new uncle, who would be something like 15 years his junior) and offer him a chance to join the family and get in on Joseph's inheritance. He meets Higashikata Josuke, a high schooler who looks like an old-fashioned Yankee, regent hairstyle and all. Of course, everyone makes fun of his silly hair, and when they do, the normally sweet-natured Josuke goes nuts and administers a beatdown, often without actually touching them. Jotaro realizes that this is Josuke's Stand, Crazy Diamond, and he decides to hang around a while to figure out what's going on. There's dozens of high schoolers running about with Stands who need to be contained. (Come on, if you had psychic powers as a high schooler, wouldn't you use them to get your way?) So Araki wastes a lot of time on these self-contained stories, and then remembers that he needs a proper plot and introduces Yoshikage Kira, a serial killer who explodes women with his bomb-making stand, Killer Queen, and then takes home their severed hands to be his "girlfriend" (with all that entails, use your imagination) until they get too smelly and he has to "break up with them" and kill again.
(For the record, the -suke in Josuke can also be read as -jo.)
01. Nina Simone - Summertime [ lyrics ]
This is my favorite cover of this song ever, mostly because of the unsettling, creepy vibe she puts into it. After all, Morio-cho is a town where a dozen young girls have been raped and murdered in the past decade, and nobody seems to notice!
02. Kishidan - Kira Kira [ lyrics ]
Kishidan is a genuine YANKEE BAND. You owe it to yourself to watch the video for this, at the very least, to see why it's just right for Part 4. XD
03. The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket
04. The Delltones - Pretty Vacant [ lyrics ]
More songs for the young tardlings of Part 4.
05. Tommy February6 - ChOOse mE or Die [ lyrics ]
The token girl in this arc is a young lady named Yukako, who becomes infatuated with one of the heroes and kidnaps him to prove her love for him (and to improve his grades). When he tries to escape, she tries to strangle him with her hair stand, Love Deluxe. She really does love him, though, and this is probably the cutest pairing in the entire series!
06. The Golden Palominos - Victim [ lyrics ]
The heroes meet the ghost of a murdered girl, who is doomed to haunt the town until her killer is found. (Araki ganked her story from the "Humans can Lick Too" horror story I remember well from my childhood)
07. Greenskeepers - Lotion [ lyrics ]
Aha, and here's Yoshikage Kira, our psychopathic killer! :D (Seriously, get this song, it's HILARIOUS.)
08. Penpals - Here Comes Your Man [ lyrics ]
There's a prolonged battle between Kira and Jotaro (aided by Koichi), and Kira escapes into the body of another man.
09. Black Heart Procession - Fingerprints [ lyrics ]
But he can't escape forever...
10. Sweet - Ballroom Blitz [ lyrics ]
And there's ANOTHER badass final battle, with kind of a hilarious conclusion.
11. Adam Ant - Scorpio Rising [ lyrics ]
And life in Morio-cho returns to normal...sort of...
[[ ZIP OF PART FOUR (42 MB) ]]
PROS:
The start of the detailed, gorgeous art
Accurate information about slumming in Italy
Men who always shoot their guns braced with both hands, not one-handed gangsta-style (this cover image notwithstanding)
Makes its own gay jokes (it'll have chapters of innuendo leading up to a gay joke that's like something you'd read in a fic)
Will innure you to skanky man-fashions (possibly a con?! I was able to watch Zoolander after reading this arc and not find any of the clothes WEIRD.)
The fights are still awesome!
More crazy mofos, like Vinegar Doppio
Also, it will make you so hungry for Italian food after reading this ("Mmmm...Risotto ...Formaggio...")
The lone girl isn't whiny or annoying; you almost feel sorry for her to be stuck in a crowd of teenage boys who are completely uninterested in her feminine charms. CONS:
Dude, I still don't understand exactly how King Crimson's power works.
And hello, Araki, you can't just end an arc by entering the Konami code. Really. LAME.
Part 5 was set in Italy in 2001, and was the twistiest and most homoerotic arc yet. If you look at these characters, who are all extremely slim and long-lashed and pouty- mouthed and beautiful and FABULOUSLY FABULOUS, you'd barely believe that this was the same artist and same series as the enormous men of parts 1 and 2. The prettyboys of Part 5 spend all their time wearing ridiculous skanky costumes and lying all over each other (I call this particular picture "the manpile" - note the lone neglected girl at the top left, who isn't squished at all.) (Or look at this, which is supposedly a HOSTAGE SITUATION.)
The hero of part 5 is Giorno Giovanna, the half-Japanese son of....Dio. Yes, apparently Dio got around in the time of part 3 and somehow impregnated women without killing them (even the author's like, 'I don't know HOW that could happen, so please just pretend it did.' But if you think about it, the body in question is actually Jonathan Joestar's, so GioGio is sort of the mpreg baby of Jonathan and Dio. Yep.) This arc basically chronicles Giorno (GioGio) and his quest to become the most powerful gangster in Italy - a Gang Star, if you will. *groan* He's aided by four other fabulously-dressed guys with Stands, all named after Italian foods. Actually, in this arc, they're all named after food, like the villains Risotto Nero and Ciocolatta. And so there's about a dozen volumes of fighting enemy Stand-using gangsters while finding a way to the boss of their syndicate. In theory, the plot is about protecting the boss's daughter from all the people trying to kill her.
But still? Ridiculous. The young idiots waste their time arguing over things like vegetarianism and teaching each other basic math, and sometimes they're just plain bizarre, such as when they're torturing information out of an enemy stand user. One of them zips the enemy's head right off his body with a Stand, and they turn his disembodied head towards the sun, prop open his eyelids, and put on his glasses to magnify the sunlight into his eyes. Then they turn on the boombox and start breakdancing around him until he breaks and spills the information.
Also, this arc is most likely to spawn late-night discussions as to which Backstreet Boy each character corresponds to.
01. Metro - Criminal World [ lyrics ]
Illegal activities and homosexuality! That's this arc in a nutshell! :D
02. T Rex - Telegram Sam [ lyrics ]
03. Gary Glitter - Do You Wanna Touch Me [ lyrics ]
04. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant [ lyrics ]
05. The Ramones - Pinhead [ lyrics ]
06. Gorillaz - Dirty Harry [ lyrics ]
All of these are songs for the skanky young men of the "Passione" gang: Bruno Buccellati, Giorno Giovanna, Guido Mista, Narancia Ghirga, Fugo Pannacotta, and Leone Abbacchio.
07. Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a 17-year-old Girl [ lyrics ]
Poor Trish Una! Surrounded by all these hot boys dedicated to protecting her...and NONE OF THEM WANT TO DO HER!
08. The Cure - 10:15 Saturday Night [ lyrics ]
The Passione gang's job is to safely transport Trish to her father, the reclusive leader of their syndicate. All you see of him is a shape huddled under a coat by a phone, muttering about Trish. (I had fun misinterpreting the lyrics to this song, hee hee)
09. Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal [ lyrics ]
But Trish does get attacked and almost killed! Oh noes!
10. Butthole Surfers - Shame of Life [ lyrics ]
The Passione gang decides to betray their syndicate and go on the run, mostly because they love their leader Bruno SO MUCH.
11. Green Day - She [ lyrics ]
Trish decides that she's tired of her man-harem protecting her and starts kicking ass with her own newly-discovered Stand. They still are completely uninterested in her feminine charms, though.
12. REM - Crazy [ lyrics ]
Ah, Vinegar Doppio! The syndicate boss, Diavolo, sends his advisor Doppio after Passione. Doppio is several crayons short of a full box, let's just say.
13. Roots Manuva - Chin High [ lyrics ]
14. The Rolling Stones - Jig-saw Puzzle [ lyrics ]
There's a lot of introspective nonsense in the middle about loyalties and what their priorities in life are and their morals and stuff.
15. Subtle - Long Voice (remixed by Mike Patton) [ the lyrics of the original, non-remixed song ]
Diavolo's stand, King Crimson, is another hella cool stand (if only its powers made logical sense). Fighting it is completely surreal, and even more so in the final battle.
16. Nino Rota - Speak To Me Only With Thine Eyes (The Godfather Theme)
Well, I don't think it's a spoiler that GioGio really does become a Gang Star, eh?
[[ ZIP OF PART FIVE (63 MB) ]]
PROS:
Set in America! With a female JoJo!
Lots of women, for once, but of course they're all gay for the current JoJo, which makes this kind of like one of those lesbian prison movies.
Araki's idea of a straight man is a crossdressing serial killer who is in love with Jolyne and wants to marry her. It's sort of hilarious.
It's still homoerotic, even with only about three men around.
Everyone's wearing lipstick now, men and women alike! (Possibly a con?)
The return of the PimpHat! This time it's a furry one with horns, worn by Weather Report.
Jotaro evidently has a wrinkled, hideous portrait hanging in his attic somewhere. Look at him! (What, I like Jotaro, I think that's a plus orz) CONS:
God, Jotaro, you asshat! What a terrible father you are! XD No wonder she wants to punch you!
Oh my god, so Dio pretty much canonically had sex with a teenage altar boy. That's not quite right. (They were lying about a hotel room and Dio's half-naked and his pants are falling off. Also said altar boy can knot cherry stems with his tongue, AND DEMONSTRATES.)
The ending is KIND of random (again, pulling superpowered Stands out of his ass when he gets bored with the powers of the current ones)
Part 6 (Stone Ocean) is set in 2011 on an island prison off the coast of Florida. Jotaro's (slightly-delinquent) 18-year-old daughter, Jolyne Kujo, was framed for a murder by her boyfriend and sent to the island prison Stone Ocean for 15 years. Jotaro apparently has been a shitty father and always dashing around the world to take care of one thing or another, and he doesn't even show up for this. But he sends a strange pendant to his daughter in prison, and when she accidentally scratches her finger on its sharp edge, she develops the power to summon a Stand, Stone Free.
When Jotaro FINALLY shows up to rescue her (and is perplexed that his daughter isn't jumping for joy to see him, the dumbass) he gets attacked by the stand Whitesnake on the way out of the prison, which can extract both a person's soul and their Stand power out of their head in the form of CDs. Jotaro is able to get Jolyne out of the prison before going into a coma, but Jolyne, who is now sorry that she'd been mad at her father (although she's quite justified) voluntarily lets herself be re-captured so that she can hunt down Whitesnake and get daddy's soul and stand back.
Part 6's art continues along the trend of "twisty, detailed, and kind of homoerotic," and even Jotaro, who is supposedly 41 or 42 years old, looks younger and prettier than he did in part 3, when he was 18. (Snakeskin pants?!) This arc involves fighting enemy Stand users in prison and, well, the ending sort of opens up the way to part 7, where the mangaka just said, "fuck it, I want to do an AU of part 1!"
01. Basement Jaxx - Romeo [ lyrics ]
Besides being a fun song about a chick who isn't going to put up with nonsense, the boyfriend who framed Jolyne was conveniently named Romeo.
02. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - No No No [ lyrics ]
03. Le Tigre - Deceptacon [ lyrics ]
Jolyne adjusts to (lesbian) prison life, meeting people such as Hermes and Guess on the way (he started naming people after fashion designers too now. Yep.)
04. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Sick Child [ lyrics ]
Half of this arc is Jolyne working out her father-issues involving Jotaro. He was never there and has been kind of an uncommunicative ass to her, but she still craves his attention and love, which is kind of pathetic to watch. So when he finally shows up to visit her in prison, she's torn between the urge to kick his ass and grovel for his affection.
05. Fugazi - Margin Walker [ lyrics ]
However, an assassination attempt interrupts this charming family drama.
06. Martina Topley-Bird - Too Tough To Die [ lyrics ]
Er...Jotaro's one tough mofo. Really.
07. G. Love & Special Sauce - Cold Beverage [ lyrics ]
By POPULAR DEMAND, here's a song for the female inmate F.F. (Foo Fighters), who is actually plankton in a human form and therefore is always sucking down some kind of drink in an attempt to stay hydrated. I told you, this manga is weird.
08. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist [ lyrics ]
I guess Araki couldn't keep from drawing sexy men for an entire arc, so apparently this female prison has a men's wing, including the charming serial killer Annasui.
09. David Bowie - Cactus [ lyrics ]
Annasui, rather inexplicably, has decided that he loves Jolyne and wants to marry her. (She doesn't get it either; he basically introduces himself that way before using his stand power to rip one of her enemies to pieces. Her reaction is, "wait, who are you again?")
10. The Distillers - Drain the Blood [ lyrics ]
Jolyne and her group of freaky convicts are still searching for the user of Whitesnake, who has Daddy's soul and Star Platinum disks.
11. Queen - Get Down Make Love [ lyrics ]
It's really funny to see Annasui chase after Jolyne proclaiming his love for her, and Jolyne being either confused or totally missing whatever he just said. Serial killers in love! It's hilarious! (Annasui is in jail for rather spectatularly murdering his cheating girlfriend. Errrr...)
12. Fletch - Driving Daddy Home
13. Berlin - The Metro [ lyrics ]
Some psychic nonsense in the middle of the arc allows Jolyne to realize that yes, although Jotaro is an uncommunicative jackass who assumes everyone can read his mind and tell that he cares, well...he does care! (I still DENY that there is ANYTHING UN-KOSHER ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP, DAMN YOU ALL.)
14. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence [ lyrics ]
Of course, they get the disks sent off and Jotaro is able to appear in the nick of time to save Jolyne's life, and all is apparently well in the world again.
15. Eurythmics - Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) [ lyrics ]
It helps if you've seen the video for this song back in the early 80s; it has a perfect housewife just lose it one day and start cold-bloodedly smashing up her model home. Anyways, Jolyne administers a beatdown.
16. Buck-Tick - Kimi ga shin...dara [ lyrics ]
Trust me, the ending of this arc is totally surreal and fits in with the lyrics of this song. O_o;
17. Eels - old shit/new shit [ lyrics ]
o/~I'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin. o/~
[[ ZIP OF PART SIX (66 MB) ]]
PROS:
Hilarious. Seriously, the plot has reached new levels of fun.
And the art's reached new levels of awesome.
Also, since it's an AU, you can play "spot the cameo"!
...there's a stand that can turn people into dinosaurs.
Also, you find out that Dio Brando is a caffiene fiend. GIVE THE MAN SOME COFFEE.
I have never seen such a skanky, attractive Zeppeli before. orz
Apparently Araki thinks that people with disabilities can and should be incredibly skanky and homoerotic too. CONS:
I'm a little afraid for Gyro; Zeppelis usually have the average lifespan of a lemming if a Joestar is involved.
Part 7 (Steel Ball Run) is set in America in 1890. A businessman sponsors a cross- country horse race with a $50 million prize, and thousands of people show up to participate. One of these (the hero???) is a truly strange Italian named Gyro Zeppeli who has a solid gold grill that says "GO! GO! ZEPPELI!" He carries two steel balls in holsters as his weapons, and he seems to be able to make them spin and fly as he wishes (a form of hamon, maybe?) At registration he meets the ex-jockey Johnny Joestar, who had become paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the spine. Johnny is wheelchair-bound, but when he touches Gyro's spinning balls (Jeez, one day I will be able to talk about this series without giggling like a seventh-grader XD) the rotational force somehow propels him out of his wheelchair and into a standing position, something he's never been able to do since his accident. Gyro brushes this event off, but Johnny becomes determined to chase down Gyro during the race and learn the secret of his balls.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Okay, anyways, this arc, being an AU, has tons of cameos by characters from other arcs, most notably the rogue British jockey Diego "Dio" Brando! There are Stands in this arc too, but they're caused by people having...pieces of a saint's corpse...or...well, Johnny Joestar has the saint's arm hidden inside his own, and it gives him the ability to spin his fingernails and toenails and shoot them at people. (...) This is kind of like a buddy roadtrip story, and it really has two equally interesting protagonists, not a hero and a sidekick.
01. Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive [ lyrics ]
Now we've switched to Ultra Jump, so Araki can draw his weird gay cowboys in peace! Gyro Zeppeli just gets skankier and skankier and skankier. D:
02. David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans [ lyrics ]
Ha, before Johnny became a paraplegic, he was an arrogant asshole. He got shot in the back because he cut in line in front of an unbalanced otaku.
03. Cheap Trick - He's a Whore [ lyrics ]
Diego Brando, freaky genius jockey, came from poor beginnings but became wealthy when he married an 87-year-old heiress who mysteriously died less than a year later. Heh heh.
04. Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong [ lyrics ]
05. Scott H. Biram - Whiskey
06. Soda and His Million Piece Band - Cabbagetown Breakdown
So they're all racing through the Southwest, getting attacked by dinosaurs and stand users and searching for the missing pieces of a saint's corpse (which will give you stand powers). Johnny gets an arm, and Gyro and Dio get an eyeball apiece. Quick, on to the next stage! The race is still on!
[[ ZIP OF PART SEVEN (29 MB) ]]
OMAKE:
The Beatles - Get Back [ lyrics ]
Well, this song is where Araki got the name "JoJo" from. Yes, really.
Beauty and the Beast - Gaston
o/~ For there's no one as burly and brawny~ As you see I've got biceps to spare o/~
Barnes & Barnes - Fish Heads [ lyrics ]
This was inspired by a conversation about how Stands were the perfect date for a lonely boy, much like...fish heads.
Atom and his Package - Hats off To Halford [ lyrics ]
o/~ I have yet to see the proof so far that your sexuality determines the way you play guitar~ o/~
Backstreet Boys - Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
Seriously, part 5 is the boyband arc. orz
Raffi - Bananaphone [ lyrics ]
For Vinegar Doppio, the boy who uses toys, frogs, and ice cream cones as phones.
Doppio: Brrrrrrrrrrrring, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring bring~~~
Doppio: Hey, you over there! Why aren't you answering the phone? Gimme that, you dumb bitch!
Girls: EEEEEK!!!
Doppio: Hello hello hello~? Yes, Doppio speaking~
Willie Nelson - Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other) [ lyrics ]
I...I have no excuse. orz
OKAY I'M DONE NOW. *pant, pant* I apologize for the length, but this was one hell of an assignment and I tried to do it justice because I do love the series. If you are INTERESTED IN READING IT, HERE ARE YOUR CHOICES:
1) BUY THE OFFICIAL RELEASE OF PART THREE. There are three volumes out so far, and I've found them all shortly after release in my local Barnes & Noble.
2) If you are interested in the later arcs, which I'm not sure will be released in the US, here are scanslations for parts 4-6 and for parts 1-2. But please, actually buy the official release of Part 3 or they'll never finish it and I WILL HAVE TO CHOKE SOMEONE.
If you download...um...I dunno, just say something so I feel like I didn't do all this in vain. D: Especially if you already like JoJo! Say something, dammit! :D