APADFTMOM Day 19: JoJo Week Part 1: Phantom Blood

There are some series out there that are so captivating and stand out so much that they seem to transcend their mediums as a whole. This is much more prevalent in anime than in manga with series like Dragon Ball Z, early Naruto, Boku no Hero Academia, and Sailor Moon holding special places in people’s hearts even if those same people otherwise have no interest in anime. Many factors can play into this such as universal praise for the series, nostalgia, getting caught up in the hype, or just experiencing it in the right place at the right time, and all of these are valid. At that point, though, it’s no longer just about consuming media; There’s a personal attachment to something that feels like it’s more than just a piece of media.






This week I’m going to be That Guy who recommends one of those series. We dipped our feet in the That Guy experience when we took a look at One Piece, but starting today we’ll be diving in and completely submerging ourselves in That Guy for the next week as we go over the merits of one of the most popular manga series of all time: JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken, more commonly known as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Today we will be starting with the first part, Phantom Blood, but first let’s establish what exactly we’re getting into.




JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki is one of the titans of the manga industry, having been published since 1987 with one hundred million copies of its over one hundred volumes currently in print. The series is highly regarded as one of the best manga series ever published and boasts multiple anime adaptations, side novels, and even a collaboration with Italian luxury brand Gucci. The storylines are coherent and gripping, the characters are easy to emotionally invest into, the art is one-of-a-kind, and the tones of the series seamlessly blend the dramatic with the comedic.




Despite being published for over thirty years, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has not adhered to the same storyline for its entire run. JoJo’s plot structure has become iconic for establishing a loose series-spanning narrative and using that to thread together different stories with different protagonists told over the span of many years. Each of these stories is referred to as a “part” which consists of the story of a protagonist whose name can be abbreviated as JoJo as they fight evil supernatural forces often stemming from the original conflict at the very beginning of the series.




The structure within each part is very simple with the establishment of the JoJo for that part, the establishment of a villain, and the quest to defeat that villain to stop whatever evil deed they have been performing. For the first three parts, the narrative is very direct in naming its villain early on in the story and then focusing on the journey to beat that villain. The pacing within the first two parts matches that directness by having minimal side stories play out as the JoJo seeks to defeat his villain, but from the third part onward there is a much more relaxed pace as smaller antagonists appear as the focuses of their own little story arcs where the JoJo or one of their friends needs to defeat them in order to help further the plot in one way or another.




Starting with the fourth part, the stories begin to take on more mystery elements as the villains are no longer presented right off the bat and the initial main goal is not to find and defeat them. After introducing its characters, each of these parts gives its JoJo a motivation outside of defeating its villain that the villain eventually ties into. The villain is often established decently early into the series, but only to the audience. The audience is then given periodic glimpses of what the villain is doing and thinking, and from that point on the intrigue comes from watching both sides slowly move towards when their paths finally cross.




Part one of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is titled Phantom Blood and is the simplest story of the series as it sets the groundwork for later parts to build on. The story takes place in 1880s England and follows an aristocratic boy named Jonathan Joestar as his family adopts another boy named Dio Brando, whose father saved the life of Jonathan’s father before falling ill. Dio schemes to seize the Joestar family fortune for himself and eventually comes into the possession of an ancient stone mask that turns people into nearly-immortal vampires. After having his life made a living hell by Dio, Jonathan begins his journey to end Dio’s rampage as both a vampire and a horrible person.




Phantom Blood establishes a very clear divide between its hero and villain. Jonathan is a model citizen who is polite, humble, and well-respected, and he does not exhibit any sort of behavior typically associated with rich people. Jonathan is a bit one-dimensional, especially when compared to later JoJos, but he is meant to be the representation of the side of light and he does very well in that role.




On the flip side of that, Dio is the pinnacle of everything dark and almost delivers too much in that role. Dio is established right off the bat as being a bad person in every respect. Whereas Jonathan is such a good presence that it is difficult to dislike him, Dio is such a bad presence that it is impossible to have sympathy for him. Every action Dio takes is taken with malice, the only people who enjoy Dio’s company are similar scum, and the conflicts Dio builds are all spiteful, selfish, and personally detrimental to Jonathan and the Joestar family as a whole.




While JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure focuses on the Joestar family, there are multiple side characters introduced in Phantom Blood who continue to have ties to the Joestar family for decades to come. One such character is Will Zeppeli, who takes on the role of Jonathan’s mentor on his quest to defeat Dio. Will’s own goal of destroying the stone mask happens to overlap with Jonathan’s goal of defeating Dio so Will takes Jonathan on as an apprentice and solidifies the bond between the Zeppeli and Joestar families for years to come. This bond will be explored further in future parts as the two families continue supporting each other.




Phantom Blood is presented very simply, especially by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure standards, and serves as a humble but solid beginning for the series. The conflict between Jonathan and Dio establishes a frame for the rest of the series where descendants of the Joestar family are constantly at odds with some form of fallout from Dio. Phantom Blood helps that feud influence decades of storytelling by making its origin a textbook battle between good and evil with a lot of deep personal animosity to help illustrate that this is both the history and the fate of the Joestar family.




Phantom Blood is a very short series containing only 44 chapters, all of which are available via the Shonen Jump app for $1.99 a month. That’s less than you could probably find under your bed. The Shonen Jump app also contains every chapter for parts 2 and 3, making it a great deal for getting into JoJo. Tomorrow we’ll be picking up part 2, Battle Tendency, and observing how the series begins to find its feet in presenting dynamic characters.