As soon as they meet, Dio tries to take everything away from Jojo, in his quest to show to the world what someone of poor heritage can do compared to one who has it all but has no ambition for something greater. The one is Jojo, a kind-hearted and aloof noble who grew up pampered in a rich noble family, the other is Dio, an intelligent and ruthless peasant who was forced to grew up in a very rough environment. Part 1 (episodes 1-9) It begins with the childhood lives of two boys with very different backgrounds during 19th century England. But this is not a show you will be watching just for the action it is the coolness of its characters that mostly does the trick.
They have their problems though the choppy animation is making them somewhat hard to understand what is going on, plus there is partial censorship. The fighting scenes are very fun to watch, as they are over the top with all sorts of weird weapons and fighting patterns. Basically, you get various generations of the same family and each one of them has different adventures and styles. I mean ok, the protagonist is always someone called Jojo but he is not the same person. SCRIPT & CAST The story is separated into many arcs, and not all of them have the same characters. It’s not like the newer stuff are better in fact they feel childish and simple if you consider how much more detailed are the character figures and the backgrounds in Jojo. It’s definitely very rare to encounter today and hard to get used to if you are accustomed to artworks of the likes of Naruto or Clannad. So it’s like reading a cheesy action comic book that will feel awkward to those not accustomed to the style. The characters for example are drawn WAY too muscular and talk in over the top macho ways. There are many weird stuff in this show, so it’s not something everybody can easily appreciate. Also, no squeaky voices and shitty jpop thank God. There are countless mames you can create out of the cheesy blood-boiling dialogues, and you can have the opening themes replaying 10 times in a row without ever becoming boring.
Voice acting and music themes are also very close to what the feeling of the series is all about. It’s not something bad it makes it look uncommon and saves budget. The animation is choppy and uses a comic book style of static images where the sound effects are shown on screen. Still not as GAR as Hokuto no Ken but close enough to get a similar excitement. In this particular case, they did a fine job, sticking close to the original manga style of manly bodies with rather bishonen faces. They are not bad in terms of production values but they never made something significant in terms of plots or directing. PRODUCTION VALUES The series is animated by a minor studio called David Productions.
Starting in 2012, it got a more proper version that will hopefully last enough to get to the juicer parts later on. It received a partial adaptation in a set of 90’s OVAs which were decent but also very slow and dull.
It is the second most GAR action title after Hokuto no Ken, full of martial arts, superpowers, gore, and other mindless fun stuff. Notice: Consider this a review of the first 3 arcs.Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a very long 80s shonen manga, still on-going even after all these years.