JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken (TV)

WARNING: MOST WILL NOT AGREE WITH ME. IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE A BABY BECAUSE I DON'T SHARE YOUR OPINION, DON'T READ.

Life occasionally gives you things that you don't understand. Sometimes its people, or school work, and sometimes, its why something is popular. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure was recommended to me by so many people who regarded it as one of the best series ever. Upon watching it, I realized that to enjoy the show, you must turn your brain off and just take it in. As such, I did, yet I still ask the question: WHY THE HELL IS THIS SERIES SO POPULAR!!!????????? That's ... an exaggeration of course, as I do understand the appeal of a show like this, but it certainly does baffle me to know that this show has so many deeply devoted fans who consider it their favorite anime. In my honest opinion, Jojo is one of the worst series I have ever seen so far, and I promise this isn't a troll and I know that I am in a minority. Usually, I am a completionist who must finish every series I watch all the way through. I just couldn't do that with this one, and its the first series I ever dropped. Personally, I found every scenario really stupid, with dumb characters, and surprisingly good music. I'll do my best to explain why I hate this series so much and though I know most will disagree with me, at least try to understand where I am coming from.

Art/Animation- My god does this anime look like shit. I get what they were going for: a very stylized, comic book style art style. I don't have a problem with that, and I feel that it could have added to the story. However, it just looks so unpolished. I give points for the interesting style and occasionally decent animation, but the art makes this anime look like it's from the early 2000's. Hell, I saw footage of the 1993 adaptation of Jojo and at some parts, it barely looks better. I will also say that character designs are very uninspired and I found many of them to look remarkably similar, but with some different colors on them. Overall, the art was pretty bad on this one, and the solid animation doesn't make up for it.

Story- Art style doesn't prevent a story from being good. Like I said, I figured out to watch this show with my critical brain turned off, but here is what I noticed even without it. First, SO MANY PLOT CONVENIENCES!!! Occasionally they are fine, but I found most of the show's scenarios were that there was an item in the exact right place at the exact right time, or that a character was holding something that was never shown or alluded to. One of the worst examples was when fighting a monster weak to sunlight in part 2. Once the monster was lured outside, it just so happened to be exactly noon, and there was a well in the exact spot where the sun was shining brightest, which was used to reflect light to the monster on both sides. Even with no critical mind, I noticed that and it bothered me, and I can name plenty of other similar scenarios. Also, Part 1 was incredibly boring to me. The 7 year time skip from episode 1 to 2 was really stupid and we got no sense of what the characters involved went through. It was jarring. On top of that, scenarios that weren't plot conveniences, which were few and far between, were just too stupid to be entertaining, and too cringy to be funny. I know that they were trying to be "bizarre", but they took it way to far. It wasn't even stupid funny, just stupid. The premise was somewhat interesting with the idea of a multi-generational epic, and there were a few episodes that were actually kind of entertaining, but overall, the story was just really bad in my opinion.

Characters- I wish that the characters helped, but unfortunately, they don't. I'll name most of them. Jonothan Joestar was bland. The seven year time skip changed his personality totally and we got no idea of what happened during that time. He was supposed to be a gentleman, but he did some rather rude things to Dio (though he deserved them). He was supposed to be a weakling who can't win a fight, but he suddenly transformed to a monster who can win with a broken arm. All of that is just stupid, though he was entertaining sometimes. Dio was a decent villain, but only because he was so easy to hate. He had little motive, and was simply an asshole for no good reason. He also went from wanting money, to wanting to take over the world in literally one episode. I just found that jarring. Speedwagon was interesting, but my problem with him is that in less than an episode, he went from fighting Jojo, to becoming his best friend and biggest supporter. Thankfully, I was somewhat interested in his character. Zepelli was by far the most interesting character, but we didn't find out much about him at all. Joseph Joestar was mostly an annoying, arrogant brat whose presence on screen usually made me want to tear my eyes and ears out. Caesar was also annoying as fuck. Finally, Lisa Lisa was intriguing, but not enough for me to want to finish the show for her story. Overall, the characters were along a normal curve, with some being rather good, some being rather bad, and most being meh.

Sound- I will however, give credit where credit is due. The soundtrack for Jojo was actually really nice. It always fit the mood and added to the scenes (as much as it could). It was mostly epic fight songs, but that works for a series like this one. Also, there were some nice atmospheric songs that added to the mystery aspects of the show. Also of note, was the second OP, as it is absolutely fantastic and one of my personal favorites. The ED theme is also great, not only for it being a giant meme, but just for being a great revival of an awesome old song. Finally, I have to admit that sound effects were pretty nice. While none of it blew me away or anything, it was definitely very good. Jojo's sound is by far its best quality.

Enjoyment- As I said, I am usually a completionist, so when I drop a show, that means that I really don't like it. Needless to say, I did not get much enjoyment out of this show at all. Every episode was a drag to watch, and no matter how much I would pray for something to be entertaining, it rarely ever was, even with my brain turned off. It just wasn't interesting or fun enough for me to want to finish it to the end. I honestly can't force myself to watch the next 9 episodes because that would be torture for me. I did get some enjoyment out of certain parts, which is why I can't give a 1 there, but I really don't understand why people love this show so much.

Overall- I'm usually a pretty generous reviewer. The fact that I score anything below a five means its really bad to me. I just can't get myself to finish this show because I can find barely any redeeming factors. With brain on or off, I don't understand how this show could have such a huge following of deeply devoted followers. It honestly baffles me. I've probably pissed off a lot of people right now, so I won't say more because I like my life. All i'll say is that if you are reading this and haven't seen the show and are on the edge, and if you have seen my other reviews and have similar tastes, don't waste your time on this one.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is probably right now one of the most praised titles on this database, but is this actually deserved?

Well, after an era where moe has overtake the industry, with shows trying too hard to be cute that ended up being annoying, plus the overexpose of those titles, it's no wonder a show that pander to old school anime fans, when the anime was good, and was full of GAR male and manly protagonist and not loser and pussies. But nostalgia is one of the best liars, and actually, the old school anime is, most of the times, ultraviolent OVAs without any substance, with ... idiot plot and unidimensional characters that were just wish fullfillment to people wo dreamed to be real men. Real men, according to sexist ideas.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is one of the most well-remenbered Shonen Jump's titles, along with Fist of the North Star, another GAR manga. Those days, studios made animes they'll know are gonna be successful, because making psychological cyberpunk thrillers with deep plot and though-provoking dialog is fine, but it's even finder made an anime that will sell after the bankrupt many studios had suffered. So, JoJo's was a sure value, it was gonna be successful. And it was, but not only in Japan, where is a loved classic, also here in the Western fandom, reaching really unexpected levels, with fanboys praising it, no one to contradict them and memes everywhere. (Who doesn't know the "It was me, Dio"?)

The plot it's more a collection of sagas, with different protagonists, the mangaka improvises to make sure the fans get hooked up. It's always the same, there's a Joestar male family menber who can control a tecnique named Hamon, which it's actually a superpower working according the plot conveniences in every fight, and has to fight evil immortal vampires. The first anime season is based on the two first anime sagas.

The first one is more idiotic, with characters completely undimensional and a story so cliché you wouldn't believe it: our hero has a friend who turned out to be the villain and join the evil forces because he has a serious big ego issues, and after his fiend betrayed him and kill his family, he's now the chosen one to defeat this evil forces learning and training an ancient tecnique (Hamon). But before fight his archnemesis, he must fight tons of evil minions. Oh, and there's a damsel in distress love interest. Everything is as cliched as i told you.

The second one is less cliched, but more narmy. Appears new villains, and some characters from the previous arc suddenly turned into ones despite they didn't showed any signs in the past. It looks like they're gonna have more badass female characters, but at the end of the day that's just a false promise. Female characters are still as passive as always. But what made this second half really awful is the over the top scenes like the killer squirrell, or the way the big bad is defeated. It's not so bad is good. It's so bad it's impossibly stupid.

The characters are pretty frustrating. The hero from the first-half, Jonathan, fits more the traditional hero role, and it's eassier to root from him because he's more sympathetic, but he's so undimensional he becomes bland. The hero from the second-half, his grandson Joseph, he's a less tradiotional hero, and less undimensional, but less sympathetic too, and despite all the chances to develop him, actually he just become stronger, but at the end of the day you don't feel he changed that much.
The secondaries go from idiots for pure plot convenience (Jonathan's father, trusting always people he musn't despite being obviously evil) to just so plain useful you need to pity them (Speedwagon, whose only purpose is commenting the obvious, or Smokey, only there to be The scream by Edvard Munch). But the worst is the first arc's main antagonist, Dio Brando, that' so pure evil, so campy, so succesful in his plans because all the Joestars are so dense, with lots of wasted opportunities to have depth, but no, he just born evil. Just that. And he's obnoxiously egocentric.

The art is pure cringe, defying anathomy and physics. And the so called fabulous posses are just ridiculous, making the sequences laugh-worthy. So, after all the crap i said, you must woonder, why is JoJo's so popular? So acclaimed? My answer is simple. Pandering. It panders to the ones who miss the "good old days", who decide which animes are good or bad. At the end of the day, it's just wish fullfillment, like the harem based on light novels.

ok i dont even know how to start this. Ive been holding on this series... dunno why... but after so much time and the good rating i finaly gave it a try.
Oh boy what a ride it was. It so bad overall, and i dont understand this ratings at all.
For start the art... Its horrible, its like a 80's american cartoon. Does not feel or look like a anime at all. The same with the fights look like old cartoon soo bad. The anotomy its a joke, they make strange poses all the time... and all that talk... simples & stupid talk during fights... but ... not only in fights what they say... its horrible too... something like for lil kids around 8 year old. The story its average at the least. Some nice music here and there... but overall... its most probably the worst anime i watched in my whole life and i am 47 right now.

I am writing this review after dropping anime after just 1 episode. The art style was very good and up to my standards. I had heard great things from friends about this anime especially from a gay boi called James. The plot seemed to be going in the right place and I liked the idea between their rivalry. But. Danny was introduced. Danny the dog. He was kind to Dio and simply wanted to say hi. Dio instantly kicked the dog causing him to cry. I simply thought that Dio was the devil but nothing more. Dio then had the audacity to burn the Dog ... alive. I don't care about the sexual assult BUT HE BURNED A DOG ALIVE. Therefore 1/10.

Welcome to my first review on this website, I am not used to English so I rely on a translator. This review serves as a warning so that you do not waste your time watching one of the most horrible animes that receives praise for superficial reasons by mediocre audiences whose minds do not use them to think but are carried away by their guilty pleasure. It is divided into positive and negative aspects.

Positive aspects:
- Use of bullets at specific moments creating a sensation similar to reading the manga.
- Classical music is used to add it to the soundtrack even if it is used less ... than necessary.

Negative aspects:
The rest.

The story is simple, rough and without any depth in the situations that are presented. All the sagas are the same, hitting for generic reasons (defending yourself from someone who wants to kill you) and revenge, the latter for ridiculous reasons. It doesn't matter where in the world each saga is ordered (England, Italy, USA, at Joester's home, on a ship...). There is no time to get to know that country, there is no time to get to the hotel or unpack, the enemy magically knows where Jojo is, he appears on the road to break his face, once Jojo has won, he travels to the next country where the next enemy awaits him, like this continuously. It does not matter if they are at home, the US or Greenland, the same thing always happens, repetitions. The general plot of the mask and the vampires is one of the most simple and empty of shonen.

Argument: 0

The characters are one-dimensional without any development throughout the work, their personality is the same as wild gorillas. His goals in life more than killing each other between humans and vampires, all of this begins with a ridiculous revenge for a boy named Dio Brando, envious and enraged by Jonathan Joester without him having done anything, simply because Dio had a shitty childhood and he wants others to be as miserable as him, lashing out with his rage as a mediocre crybaby, committing stupid childish acts, despising animal life, not caring about murdering an innocent dog and assassination attempts made by the one who has given him a home Jonathan's father. One of the worst characters and worst villains I've seen in my life without a hint of charisma. Dio he's a cliché thug as much or more generic than the Joesters.
Child characters are irrelevant, masters are generic, Jojo's power system is generic.

Characters: 0

The character art/design consists of the same repeated design of closet-like beefy men with muscular arms bigger than their heads, exaggerated clothing resembling clowns. It's not funny or nice to watch.
The animation is not remarkable with the time it belongs to, the first decade of the 21st century.
The good use of bullet points previously mentioned that gives it novelty and an interesting touch, giving it its own style.

Art/design: 4.

Fights, this section only scores downwards, from 0 to -10, never upwards, it stays at 0 if there is some kind of strategy, because in Jojo they have no notion of what that word means.
I consider the fights what separates human behavior from an animal whose decrepitude when seeing so simplicity that concentration is not needed to follow them nor a neuron to understand them, boredom is a constant in something so rude and childish, Jojo's surpass everything known, uttering screams with which he forces us to lower the volume of the audio, the contorted face and the terrible attacks created using fire, wind and other elements are nothing compared to the ridiculous Mudamudamuda offering the worst fights of that terrible activity so prehistoric and devoid of emotion greater than any other action series makes it quite an achievement as the worst of the worst.

Fights: -10

Here I add the poses, another nonsensical ridiculous moment that happens when someone is talking and the other is "paralyzed" doing a pose in that group of characters, remaining like an idiot or in the middle of a battle while his rival waits for him to finish the pose, leaving both as imbeciles. It's not funny. From this nonsense come the "jojoreferences" where any gesture or movement of characters from other animes are believed to be based on Jojo, a sick obsession that makes everything that appears and moves look similar that pose so vulgar, which any serious work and this culture does not allow giving free rein to that stupidity.

Enjoyment/entertainment: none, I fell asleep several times with the volume of the screams lowered, although this is a subjective data. My subjective of fun score is 0.
Objectively adding everything mentioned, I consider this anime deficient that does, not contribute anything to the nekketsu except to create more mediocrity as we have seen in subsequent years with others nekketsus.

Pretentious? It doesn't even deserve to be called that, this is just meant to be disgusting.
A total waste of time without any originality, it´s copy bad of Hokuto no Ken, no effort on the part of the author except the effort to cause deep regret by representing human beings as retarded. This work contributes nothing in Japanese audiovisual culture except for the positive aspects that I mentioned at the beginning. If you want something complex or elaborate, I advise against this anime. If you like rough, thug, childish and mediocre, Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken is for you.

I was told that this show was good, but I personally thought it sounded like a very bad show and I only gave a few episodes a shot because it had a vampire tag. Even though it was only 5 episodes, I regret giving this show anytime after episode 1. I kind of like the story with the mask, the incredible strength that Dio gets, and the super powers involved;unfortunately, none of these aspects seem to be executed in a good way. The mask is cool and I like the supernatural powers it has, but there doesn't seem to be any major ... explanation concerning it and it only appears to cause trouble; I know 5 episodes out of 26 isn't much, but I wish they gave hints that there was going to be some cool information about the mask. Even the super powers are boring. It's good that a show is showing a strong protagonist rather than a wimp for a change, but the powers just aren't fun to watch and the way they're shown make it seem like the character is more overpowered than certain well-known over-powered characters in other animes, like Kirito, Saitama, etc.

Besides being over-powered, both Dio, Jonathan,a and Jonathan's dad just seem to stupid. I refuse to believe that someone rich like Jonathan's dad would mistake what was obviously a man stealing his watch or whatever for a man trying to make sure he was alive. Jonathan wasn't any better since he actually thought someone who kicked his dog so forcefully for no good reason after stepping onto their property, actually became friends with him over 7 years. Dio just seems to act without thinking things through, but unlike other characters with that type of rash behavior, his just doesn't seem justified and he's purely driven by money and power, but doesn't even seem to have as much fun with it as others do.. I don't understand why these characters are so well liked unless it's just because they act manly.

The opening and ending themes aren't even good; they just sound awful and they're very off putting for me; they sound like extremely poorly written cartoon hero show songs. Overall, I'm giving this a 3/10 just because it had more than 1 small thing that was interesting to me, but at the end of the day, it's just another macho-man show and it seems like a boring old time cursed item movie just with better graphics.

I see a lot of posts what praise this like: "OMG Jojo best anime big man yes" while in reality, it is a boring anime that is as repetitive as it gets. Many people like it because it brings back the 'macho' character back like the old style of anime and movies. I have seen a few of these and let me tell you this is so poorly done. I stuck at this because I got told it gets better but each episode is the exact same, the only saving grace is the music.

Each episode has the DBZ problem it's either, I will ... crush these people with my nipples or, my nipples aren't strong enough let me just train my nipples. Let's go down to the overall review though...

Story 1/10:
Like I stated above, nothing impressive, very basic shitty story. They need to hire better writers.

Art 7/10:
While nothing majorly spectacular the art is pretty good, not much to say here. It's not bad, its not amazing its just kind of there in a way.

Sound 9/10:
Sound is good, it has a really good soundtrack, that's the only thing I can realise consider great in this anime.

Character 3/10:
Refer to nipple problem... The characters are all the EXACT same, some are better than others however so I suppose not the EXACT but you get the idea. Not really much to go on but it all boils down too, IM BIG, I HAVE JO IN MY NAME, I DONT LIKE YOU, etc.

Enjoyment 1/10:
Personal enjoyment is low, this is really not my thing but many people seem to like it so hey, don't listen to the review go and get your own opinion.

Overall 3/10:
I don't like it, I think it's terrible but, I know many people who like it. In my opinion, it is very very overrated. I feel like that's why I dislike it, I feel that if I was introduced to it without the high expectation of it being amazing I may have liked it - but instead I got a bunch of people telling me it is the best anime in existence which made me HATE it because I constantly hear about this god awful anime. I think its trash, you may like it, why are you reading this try it.

English is not my first language

Jojo is a tough anime to review, mostly because of what it represents to the community landscape rather than the anime itself. Being hailed as the "return of macho", the fan base that circumvents Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is no short of loving and caring for the show. Now, despite all that, the anime had very clear flaws in its formula, that aren't considered nor talked about on discussions.

First of all, lets talk about part one. Even between long-time fans, it is regarded as the worst part in Jojo's history, for a reason.
Jonathan is by far one of the blandest protagonists ... ever in fiction, while Dio is one of the blandest villains. They act cartoonishly - if that's even a word - with no motivation for their actions, surface-level development, dumb sense of justice and cringy "macho" dialog. The story is very generic shounen, and even childish and dumb at times. Animation is on point but that's about it. Sound is not very noticeable.

Part two is a lot better in many ways, although still very average in the story department. Characters feel a lot more charismatic, and choices have some motivation to a certain extent, though the main conflict comes out of nowhere and is still dumb.

Now, both parts suffer from the same problems. First of all, a lot of exposition. Every single explanation is through expository dialog, which can be very boring at times, even at battle scenes, which totally hurts the atmosphere of the scene. The animation, although very flashy and creative, is still very conservative, dragging out every panel as long as possible.
Also, it is guilty of developing characters right before killing them for increased emotional value.

The real reason to watch this show is for the fights. The powers are very over the top, the fights are very creative and overall very unpredictable. Overall it was more just a montage of fights rather than a full-fledged anime, as those are the only memorable part of the show.

1/10 - Part 1
6/10 - Part 2
3.5/10 - Overall

well, my first review, and its not a very positive one.

before i carry on, remember that this is my personal opinion and you are free to disagree with anything i say.

Phantom Blood-

To describe it in one word-disaster. absolutely sucked, and i was tempted to stop right at episode 3. but i carried on, and it only got worse from there. the characters were bland and boring as all hell. i don't get why Dio gets so much praise, he just murders a dog because "haha look at me do the evil". i liked his goal at the beginning being that he wanted the Joestar ... fortune, because it makes sense once we see the conditions he lives in with his abusive father. but it quickly stops being that, and he just regresses into a big bad for the sake of being a big bad, which undermines his initial coldness and skills of manipulation and make him into a loud, spoiled brat. Then there's Speedwagon. I get that he's only talked about for the memes, but can we be real here, what has this fucker done in this part apart from giving a play-by-play of every single action taken? the other characters are so boring and one dimensional, they don't even deserve a mention, especially Jonathan's dad, whose death was so drawn out, it made it seem more hilarious than impactful and sad.

And then there's Jonathan Joestar. Words don't describe how much i hated his character, and he is the definition of Mary Sue. He's not funny or badass, or clever, he's got no personality at all, his relationship with Erina felt rushed and forced, and his lack of any negative emotions (remember, he still forgives Dio in the end like the Mary Sue he is) made him more shallow than he already is.

Battle Tendancy-

It's a shame that I'm forced to lump this is with Phantom Blood, because this part actually does things better than part 1, probably because it mostly just expands concepts we are already familiar with. The main reason I hate this part the least of them all is because of Joseph. He is funny as hell and does the "I usually act like an idiot but I'm actually smart" cliche well, even if it sometimes comes off as an asspull. Everyone else isn't awful, but aren't outstanding either. Cesear was an alright rival, didn't like Lisa Lisa that much, Smokey is an average comic relief who doesn't add that much. I will say though, Speedwagon was treated better in this part as he doesn't just do some useless narrating, as well as coming off as a father figure to Joseph.

As for this part's villains, they're mediocre at best. Wamuu was the only one I liked, Eisidisi was just...there... and Kars was nothing special, just your good old run-of-the-mill god complex baddie.

I only made it through 5-6 episodes. Pretty generic monster fighting anime where the characters use the tired trope of yelling out which mystical power fighting move they're using before they use it. The characters and story are boring. They fall back on the tropes of destined hero who quickly learns to tap into a mystical power and becomes proficient at it way too quickly. Within a day of learning of its existence Jojo is already using many different Harmon techniques. And the villain has no motivation beyond "I'm evil and I'm going to be evil to everyone." So of course without any sort of ... real emotion between hero and villain the story has to fall back on "Look at this cool technique!" It could all be replaced with Naruto jutsus and nothing would feel any different.

The setting is a bit novel, and art is decent enough, but it's no where near enough to save this. It's not terrible, but being terrible would almost make it better, because at least it would be campy or ridiculous or something. As it stands, this doesn't stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way.

edit Nov 2019: I tried watching this again and it's hot garbage. Why does anyone like this shit? The characters suck, the writing is wooden, and the story is boring. This is one of the worst shows I've ever seen.

This review is about jojo bizarre adventure season 1

im not a fan of retro jojo, just a guy that see the anime and never read a jojo manga before, i have no pre-judgement and im going to be honest and objetive overall.

Story 2: i give 2 points instead of 1 just for the fight (no mention for spoiler) the story have a lot of unrational situations, people acting so dumb and stuff just appearing for art of magic, all this stuff in decisive and important moments, without explanation, having lack of creativity ruining everything 7in the show specially enjoinment, all this occurs in the ... series again and again.

Art 7: i really like the character design is very good, the landscapes are pretty standard and the combats are low profile, nothing remarkable

Sound 10: this is the carry of the series, im in love with the second OP Bloody and the firts one is good taking in count jojo is retro, the OST is pure art when they are discovering new lands (second track in OST youtube) and is so epic the track titled "burning colisseum", also when they reveal new techniques or do a play more powerful and masterpiece OST are revealed, awesome job in sound, including the Seiyus of the villains.

Characters 3: Main Characters and Dio just dont have any purpose, second antagonist have purposes, the personalities are just ok, i hate how they force to look stupid some characters like firts Ceasar

enjoyment 3: just poor with bad story and key stuff appearing without explanation and logic, hearing secondary characters with ridiculous voice.

Overall 4: For the Art and the masterpiece sountrack.

My review : #01

I never tried to write a review. But after watching this show, I think I just should make some noise so that many idiots take note of their idiotic fan wars.

I have seen many war between jojo fans and other anime fans and jojo fans are always saying how cool this anime is. FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!

THIS ANIME IS SIMPLY TRASH.

No hint of character improvement, no enjoyment of comedic moments (every so called comedic moments seems like forced), no likeable characters and of course NO FUCKING STORY at all.

... How TRASH an anime can be?

I have always rated every anime more than they deserve, cause I know how hard work they put to give us just only 1 episode. Yet I couldn't bring give jojo 1/10 because of how really bad it is.

Some bad notes after watching jojo-

- Most of the episodes consists still pictures

- No likeable characters

- No sense of reality at all

- Story seems to like drag and drag

- Why so MACHO man - this kind of junk don't work nowadays


So at the end I just couldn't bring me to love after watching (or wasting) 26 Ep worth time. I paused watching KYOU KARA ORE WA to finish Jojo, but I am now regretting. Man that 90's piece is epic after watching only 2 Ep compared to Jojo.

Jojo Suck.

Story : 1/10

Character : 1/10

Music : 1/10

Art : 2/10


Overall : 1/10

So, everyone knows the meme and the whole "is that a JoJo reference?!"

Yeah, I guess I wanted to get the references, too. I understood going in that meme culture frequently oversimplifies and removes the nuance to make things more shareable. This isn't always the case, but I've seen it happen. Understanding that JoJo was likely reduced to just one or two jokes, but that the subject matter that spawned it was massively popular, I suppose I was expecting a bit more substance. This series just ended up reinforcing that sometimes memes should just stay memes.

Story (2/10): I initially watched because, despite the characters being relatively ... bland, the opening was strong and intriguing. It was to the point that I accepted that the series committed itself to being more adventure and plot-oriented than character-oriented, which was fine. You can only share so much in two helpings of 13 episodes, especially if you're trying to share two separate stories.

The problem was that, ultimately, the writers had dragged themselves too thin and it left very little in terms of substance. Plot conveniences, predictable elements, and stereotypes were the storytelling tools that they used to constantly shoehorn one event into the next. They were trying to be quick and shorthand as much of it as possible and I had at least one moment in the series where I felt like I missed something because of how much they were rushing.

It's so bad that fights that are seemingly important are interrupted with grandstanding gloats, monologues, and exposition that they really should've placed better. (I actually find it ironic that this is a major complaint about RWBY with people's attitude being "shut up and fight already", but you think anyone says the same thing about JoJo? LOL.)

It gets worse because everything ultimately feels like it amounts to very little or nothing in the end, which felt inexcusable with how they set it up.

Character (1/10): A problem I've frequently had with other shows is when new main characters are introduced and they end up being annoying and unlikable. That's exactly what happened here.

With 26 episodes to tell your story divided between two main protagonists, you're stuck trying to either force character development or leave your characters 1-dimensional. The time skips in this series actively interrupt or erase all potential meaningful character development and they end up as husks.

What you have are Jonathan (your 1-dimensional hero), Speedwagon (street thug they decided to shoehorn into the adventure despite it ultimately turning him into a flower on the wall during almost every fight for the rest of forever), Zeppeli (magical hype man), Erina (love interest), and Dio (antagonist).

Unfortunately, I had settled in to accept the fact that they were just flat, but not actively annoying despite the amount of unnecessary screaming. I say "unfortunately" because if they had been actively annoying, then I might've been able to talk myself out of giving the series a chance to get better.

Enter Joseph Joestar. If I could get a refund for the time I put into the series, this is right about where I would've asked for it. JoJo goes from being an adventure piece with themes of inner strength, loyalty, love, and honour to being about an edgelord brat with a chronic attitude problem.

I know that people will try to argue that Joseph developed, but he really didn't. He was selfish when he was first introduced and he was still selfish right at the end. The way he regarded actual Nazis was about the same way he regarded his best friend, who himself justified working with Nazis because they were allies of Italy at the time. Both of these men were just selfish brats who didn't use their powers to protect anyone but themselves and maybe one other person in their life. (Protecting anyone outside of their circle ended up being entirely incidental or unintentional.)

To note, a character doesn't necessarily need to be selfless to be likable, but when the only likable aspect of his predecessor (who also failed to develop any further after the first few episodes) was that he was selfless, then he's followed by a brat with zero likable qualities, you can't really be surprised when the one meager expectation is some semblance of humanity.

Instead, you get Joseph who ended up valuing strength and honour more than humanity and substance. He also ended up extolling all of the toxic aspects of what it means to be a man. This wouldn't be an issue, but you think anyone ever called him on it and tried to help him be a better person? No.

Does Joseph ever even imply that he wants to be a better person for other reasons? Not really.

The other characters from the second half ended up only serving as plot point props, so I don't feel inclined to mention them.

Art (6/10): I know that some people aren't a fan of the style of the series, but I actually didn't hate it. While the style and animation aren't anything to write home about, there weren't any issues where those things were concerned. Of course, this series could've had the greatest art and animation under the sun and that still wouldn't have saved it from its awful storytelling and characters.

Sound (7/10): Again, no complaints. If I had to point to the one truly enjoyable aspect of this series, it would've been the background music, but the background music can be enjoyed just as well without the series attached. The voice acting had no complaints from me either.

I would recommend skipping this one because I can confirm that it doesn't get better in the next season either. If anything, it gets worse.

JoJo might be a popular thing in modern-day anime circles but much like Childish Gambino or Billie Eilish, being popular doesn't actually mean that it reaches the criteria for at the very least being decent. Hirohiko Araki is a deeply unfunny man with an awful sense for comedy, drama, dialogue etc.

Recommendation instead of JoJo: anything, really. JoJo is bottom of the barrel stuff (the japanese readership finally catched onto that with part 6). In fact, just watch Fist of the North Star instead. Araki outright stole some artistic sensibilities from that series (art style and focus on fighting). What he missed out on was ... taking inspiration from that series handling of characterization, story and themes among many, many other things.

So i finally tried to watch this.
I managed to get to episode 10 when it was clear to me that this is one of the most overrated shows of all time and no one can convice me otherwise.

Humor:
u have to 12 to think this is funny.

Characters:
bland, badly written and obnoxius.

Plot:
... basic and forgettabel. To be fair the show doesnt even take the plot seriusly, but not not in a genius way like konosuba.

Story:
not much of it.

Final verdict:
this show made me feel like i was watching a cliche that people who never watched anime came up with.
2/10 - Horrible

HOLY MOLEY does this show ever reinforce the stereotype of long winded internal dialogues. Every character either outright says exactly how they are feeling and what their motivations are, or they over explain exactly what is going on. Treat the audience like idiots who need everything pointed out to them; thats how this show works. Not only does it take away from the show, but its dreadfully boring aswell.I don't need Jojo to explain that his father died and he has a goal to accomplish...blah...blah...blah... for the fifth times. Its as bad as Yughi for Yughioh explaining his strategy every time a new move is ... made. I HATE IT!! SHOW, DON'T TELL! That's the rule with visual story telling. This show throws that rule out the window, goes the exact opposite direction of the rule and then injects steroids.

(TLDR at the end) Part 1: I first should clarify what i count as part 1. In season 1 of jojos, there are 2 stories told, that of Jonathan and Joseph. I dont consider this whole season as part 1. I consider part 1 when Jonathan was the lead, and part 2 is when Joseph was the lead..

Now that we got that clear, lets get into my thoughts about part 1: I really hate that power system Hamon. It was kinda fun and interesting at the beginning, but it got boring really fast.
Lets talk about the mc for a bit now... The main ... character, Jonathan is a very bland character. Horrible writting. Jonathan is one of those characters that is too perfect that is always in the right, which kinda ruins a characters writing. He is a gentlemen that respects women, he is a kind man, willing to forgive his best friend for every crime he has commited. I just wish he did something immoral/wrong so that we could get good character writing.

i'll talk about the villain now. Dio, one of the most iconic villains in all of anime. He is the reason why I didnt just drop the anime. This character is pure evil. He has recieved alot of kindness from others, but he never cared to repay it. In fact, he turned his back to the people that were horrible to him. I really love villains that are pure evil. They tend to be very well written. He is very consistent in his "Villainessness". There isnt a moment where a single kindness is shown from him. These types of characters are really rare. Usually, most pure evil villains in anime are inconsictent, but Dio is one of the exceptions.

You know, the dynamics between Jonathan and Dio had alot of potential, since you know, Dio is like the personification of evil, and Jonathan is the personification of good, and the contrast is amazing, but the dynamics were very poorly executed. I dont remember much about the anime, so i cant go into more detail about side characters and stuff. What i remember is Speedwagon tho. I believe he made his appearance in the first part. Speedwagon is such a good support character, and i absolutely love him. This might be a weird comparison but he is kinda like Alfred from "Batman". He is like the mentor and a useful person to all of the jojos. To sum up, the anime did a lot of right things, but the good is overshadowed by the horrendous power system and the mc, so thats why i didnt like it. Overall, this part is quite disappointing.

TLDR of part 1: Part 1 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure introduces Jonathan Joestar as the main character and Dio Brando as the iconic villain. While the dynamic between Jonathan and Dio has potential, it falls short due to Jonathan's bland characterization and the poorly executed power system of Hamon. Despite the introduction of memorable supporting characters like Speedwagon, the flaws in the main aspects of the story overshadow its strengths, making it bad overall.

(TLDR at the end.) Part 2: My favorite Joestar, Joseph Joestar! He is also one of my favorite characters. Joseph wasnt very well written, im gonna admit that, but at least he wasnt perfect like Jonathan from part 1. You know, this is like one of the characters that are so enjoyable that they make me forget about their writing, and that doesnt happen that often. Joseph is a really smart character, my favorite feature in any anime character. Joseph isnt affraid to fight dirty. In fact, that is his main thing in this part, fighting dirty. He is willing to risk his life to save others tho, which is commandable.

But you know, for me having an mc perfect like that could be really damaging for an anime. The mc can be soo good that you basically forget the side- cast. This is exactly what happened for me in part 2. Every single character was overshadowed by Josephs superiority in enjoyability. Also, we dont have Dio anymore as the main villain. Instead, we get Kars. I mean, kars is a fairly decent and underrated villain, but yeah, he is nothing compared to Dio. See, this is what im talking about. Kars is a good villain, but since we had Dio in part 1, im ofc going to be dissapointed when the villain is no where near as good as Dio. That is very subjective tho. Also, we still have Hamon in this part, and its even more unbearable in here, since the more it is used, the more tiring it gets. Overall, this part is rather lacking.

TLDR of part 2: Part 2 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure features Joseph Joestar as the main character, known for his wit and willingness to fight dirty. While Joseph is enjoyable, his overshadowing of the side characters and the lack of a compelling villain like Dio detract from the overall experience. The continued use of the Hamon power system also becomes more tiresome in this part, contributing to its overall disappointment.

Somebody once told me that if I kept my expectations low, I would never be disappointed. Jojo managed to break this rule, somehow. The side characters are insignificant compared to the main characters each time, and actually the main characters are extremely dull too... Big, righteous, simple Jonathan surely doesn't add anything new to the table, and the realization that I spent 8.6 hours watching this steaming pile of garbage is equivalent to being stung by a Japanese hornet. Yes, if you are a person who enjoys utilizing their brains and "feeling like they're in the moment" when you watch a movie or read manga, ... you would certainly have the intellectual challenge of your life watching this unfinished storyboard -- It may be possible for the greater portion of humanity (over 50%) to predict the entire plot or nature of Dio and Jonathan within the first episode, very easily(I did it).. Anybody who considers themselves a "film enthusiast" of some sort that prides themselves on paying careful detail to an intricate storyline will have the rug pulled under them for using their brain while watching this board: have you ever watched a show and thought to yourself "I wonder if this guy is the killer" or "There's no way that's going to happen, that's too cliche"? Well don't bother asking yourself anything at all. Don't bother thinking anything.

I can distinctly remember that I was better with coursework the spring prior -- I have the hypothesis that watchng 40 episodes of Jojo had hindered my ability to critically think.

What I learned from watching Jojo is that no matter how bad you might think something in life might be, there's always something worse.

*This might contain some minor spoilers, though we are talking about Jojo here, so there really isn't a story to spoil.*
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The first part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood:

Depending on how you want to look at it, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood is either the worst or the best part of the entire series. Let me explain:
Judging it from a critical perspective Part 1 is almost definitely Jojo’s worst part in all aspects. The art is of course the worst out of the entire series as it is Araki’s first work (in the Jojo series). Likewise, ... the Story is equally crude and nonsensical (a theme that, as will become apparent as you continue watching/reading, carries through all parts). On the other hand, it has one advantage over almost every other part: its length. In other words, if you don’t like Jojo, this part isn’t going to change that, but it is a way better experience than having to watch the agonizingly long part 3. As I personally didn’t really enjoy any Jojo parts except parts 4 and 7, I found this to be surprisingly watchable compared to most other parts. It is also hugely carried by expectations as almost everyone is going to tell you that this is just something you have to get through to get to the good stuff.

The problems really arise if you look at it as an indivual story, which it is. This is just from beginning to end a very crude and poorly developed story, and even the overall quite good production by David Production can’t correct that. Araki is undeniably a great artist but from the very beginning, he had huge problems writing more than individual fight scenes, something that carries through almost every following part. Due to its poor writing, I can’t really recommend this, though that kind of goes for all of Jojo. But even then, it is undeniable that, while I didn’t enjoy Jojo’s bizarre adventure, a lot of people did. So, while I, in all honesty, don’t believe that the series is good and even worth your time the rest of the community clearly disagrees with my sentiment and who am I to tell them that they are wrong in enjoying what they do.

Even if I can’t really recommend it, just by looking at the overall reaction, your chances are quite high that you are going to enjoy this, so go ahead and give it a try if you want. Though if you do, so I think you should skip this and maybe the following two parts along with it. I know that I just made a lot of people angry, but I can 100% promise you that you can start by watching/reading part 4 without having missed anything. There are going to be two characters that appeared before that you will not recognize, but I don’t think that anyone with more than 2 brain cells can’t recognize that and is going to seriously be confused. So as long as you are aware of the fact that you skipped parts, there really isn’t any problem with it, as the structure of Jojo was designed to allow readers to pick it up as it was airing.

In conclusion: This is a terrible story with its length being its only returning quality. I would recommend skipping it but if you really want to watch it, it is at least short enough to not take away all your time.
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The second part of this review is solely about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency marks the first cross-country adventure in the series, though with little insight into the cultures of those countries with the exception of Nazi-Germany, which they don’t even visit. In the end, the locations visited can only really be distinguished by the weather which is a real shame as at least for me that is one of Jojo’s biggest strengths. This is also something Araki hugely improves on in part three, though I have no clue how accurate the depiction of different cultures really is. But apart from kick-starting the whole adventure aspect and turning “Jojo’s Bizarre Time Dio made Jack the Ripper jump out of a Horse” into the titular “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” it is also just as terribly written as part 1.

I know I just made a few people angry with that statement so let me clarify a bit:
Part 2 is definitely more enjoyable than Part 1, but that is not due to the writing, which stayed equally terrible. The improvement over Part 1 can pretty much solely be attributed to Joseph Joester, our new protagonist. He is a lot more fun and creative than Jonathan, he is also a lot goofier but in a good way. Apart from that, we have a new mentor figure and a new sidekick, but they are just as bland as in part 1, so nothing really changed there. The new big evil is an even bigger evil that really makes you question why they spent 48 episodes in part 3 hunting and killing a vampire, something that Joseph does in literally one episode (though to be fair the vampire comes to him, and he doesn’t need to hunt him down as they do in part 3 which takes up around 90% of the show’s runtime, so it isn’t really a fair comparison, but it’s still kinda true).

Sadly Joseph doesn’t solve all the problems the show still has and while a lot of people are able to look over them, I just couldn’t so here are most of my problems:
The antagonists are far from an improvement over the already bland Dio Brando from part 1 and just making them stronger really doesn’t work. The fights while sometimes quite funny (especially the fight against a vampire that shows up at the beginning of the part) can’t impress with their animation, which for me at least was actually their smallest problem. They are not bad fights on their own, but they are way too ludicrous thus removing any sort of strategic element, even if the show is trying to convince you that it was all just strategy (this is one of Jojo’s largest problems and something Araki was never able to fix). I personally find strategy to be the most important element of any fight together with stakes, something Jojo most of the time fails spectacularly with the exception of one fight (you will know when you watch it). Sadly, with fights being Jojo’s central element there really isn’t anything to keep me watching apart from anticipation of how good the next parts are going to be, which is kind of sad as I think a good fight can elevate MOST stories to a whole new level if they are done well enough. For example, just look at what is in my opinion the best fight ever put to film, even if it’s more a battle than a fight, the Shiganshina-arc in the second part of Attack on Titans’ third season. I honestly think it’s hard to find a person with a critical perspective to not agree that this is power escalation done in the best way possible. I’m not going into too much detail as this is still a Jojo review, but no matter how much you like this show you can’t convince me that it presents even a single fight that uses stakes as well as strategy in a way that is intense, believable and actually strategic.

In conclusion, I would say that Battle Tendency is overall enjoyable but has little substance and if you aren’t a fan of Shounen and are in any way interested in actually good story and character writing this show/manga offers little to you, also, don’t even start watching/reading Jojo it really doesn’t offer anything to you apart from some truly amazing art.