JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken (TV) (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure)

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Alternative Titles

English: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Synonyms: JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken (2012), Battle Tendency

Japanese: ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 26

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 6, 2012 to Apr 6, 2013

Premiered: Fall 2012

Broadcast: Saturdays at 00:30 (JST)

Producers: Yomiko Advertising, Warner Bros. Japan, Kamikaze Douga, KlockWorx, Shueisha

Licensors: VIZ Media, Warner Bros. Pictures

Studios: David Production

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Adventure, Supernatural, Vampire, Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.08¹ (scored by 558,818 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #446²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #76

Members: 936,771

Favorites: 26,030

8.08

Ranked #446Popularity #76Members 936,771

Fall 2012TVDavid Production

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Episodes: /26

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Synopsis

In 1868, Dario Brando saves the life of an English nobleman, George Joestar. By taking in Dario's son Dio when the boy becomes fatherless, George hopes to repay the debt he owes to his savior. However Dio, unsatisfied with his station in life, aspires to seize the Joestar house for his own. Wielding an Aztec stone mask with supernatural properties, he sets out to destroy George and his son, Jonathan "JoJo" Joestar, and triggers a chain of events that will continue to echo through the years to come.

Half a century later, in New York City, Jonathan's grandson Joseph Joestar discovers the legacy his grandfather left for him. When an archeological dig unearths the truth behind the stone mask, he realizes that he is the only one who can defeat the Pillar Men, mystical beings of immeasurable power who inadvertently began everything.

Adapted from the first two arcs of Hirohiko Araki's outlandish manga series, JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken follows the many thrilling expeditions of JoJo and his descendants. Whether it's facing off with the evil Dio, or combatting the sinister Pillar Men, there's always plenty of bizarre adventures in store.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken was announced on July 5, 2012 at a press conference celebrating the 25th anniversary Hirohiko Araki's long-running series. The anime is a full adaptation of the first two parts in the series, Phantom Blood and Sentou Chuuryuu (Battle Tendency). While the animation was produced by David Production, the opening theme animations were produced by the studio Kamikaze Douga (神風動画).

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 1: Phantom Blood, JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 2: Sentou Chuuryuu
Alternative version:	JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Phantom Blood, JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Phantom Blood Pilot
Sequel:	JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Joestar, Joseph

Main

Sugita, Tomokazu
Japanese

Brando, Dio

Main

Koyasu, Takehito
Japanese

Speedwagon, Robert E. O.

Main

Ueda, Youji
Japanese

Joestar, Jonathan

Main

Okitsu, Kazuyuki
Japanese

Zeppeli, Caesar Anthonio

Main

Satou, Takuya
Japanese

Lisa, Lisa

Main

Tanaka, Atsuko
Japanese

Zeppeli, Will A.

Main

Shioya, Yoku
Japanese

von Stroheim, Rudolf

Supporting

Imaruoka, Atsushi
Japanese

Wamuu

Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio
Japanese

Kars

Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Tsuda, Naokatsu

Director, Storyboard

Suzuki, Kenichi

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Iwanami, Yoshikazu

Sound Director

Takamura, Yuuta

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

#1: "JoJo ~Sono Chi no Sadame~ (ジョジョ～その血の運命～)" by Hiroaki TOMMY Tominaga (eps 2-9)
#2: "BLOODY STREAM" by Coda (eps 11-25)

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Ending Theme

#1: "Roundabout" by YES (eps 1-25)
#2: "BLOODY STREAM" by Coda (ep 26)

More reviews

Reviews

Mar 24, 2015

26 of 26 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 6

literaturenerd (All reviews)

1005 people found this review helpful

Overview:

Nearly every review of JoJo 2012 praises it as a MASTERPIECE, because it represents a triumphant return for the macho manly anime of the past. I have a slightly different perspective than most critics on MAL, so unsurprisingly my conclusion was a little different as well. If I was born between 1995 and 2000 and grew up during the "sparkling kawaii desu moe" era of anime where every male protagonist is a whiny pussy, I too would be inclined to give Jojo a 10/10 out of sheer novelty alone. However, I was born in the 1980s and I actually remember the GAR days of manly anime. In the 1990s, you watched anime largely by going to the video store and renting whatever anime was available. Almost ALL of it was cheaply licensed, ultraviolent OVAs from the late 80s and early 90s. Were those anime better? Well believe it or not...no, not really. There were indeed some awesome anime like Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken), but for every Fist of the North Star there was absolute garbage like: Genocyber, Violence Jack, MD Geist, Mad Bull 34, Angel Cop, etc. Simply being macho didn't make an anime good by default back in the 1990s, and that shouldn't be any different today! I am going to look at Jojo from a fair and objective view rather then simply heap praise on it based on principle alone.

Story and Characters: 6/10

(SPOILERS!)

The 2012 JoJo anime adapts the first 2 arcs of the manga, so this is the JoJo series you should watch first sequentially! JoJo is about the Joestar family and their epic feats of badassery over the generations. The first generation of Joestar asskicking takes place in Victorian England with Jonathan Joestar, whom I will call Johnny JoJo. The dumbass father of Johnny JoJo decides to adopt the blatantly evil son of a man who "saved his life" when he had a carriage accident. Even though it is later revealed that papa Joestar knew that Brando was a dishonest man and wasn't actually trying to save him, he adopts Dio anyway and continuously believes Dio over his own son despite the fact that Dio may as well have "evil" tattooed on his forehead. Dio is a 1 dimensional bully who exists to make Johnny JoJo miserable, steal his father's affection, and ultimately try steal his inheritance. Dio will perform some act of over the top evil like brutally murder Johnny's dog, and papa Joestar will instantly believe Dio's side of the story, simply to frustrate the viewers. This is like that Spongebob episode where Spongebob adopts an evil lamprey as a pet and keeps blaming the obviously innocent Gary the snail whenever anything goes wrong. The difference is that JoJo isn't a comedy cartoon for small children. It is a Shonen demographic anime that actually expects us to take this seriously! Johnny JoJo discovers that Dio is attempting to poison his father and inherit the fortune, so he goes to find the poison shop where Dio has been purchasing his product. Johnny JoJo proves Dio is guilty, but Dio uses a mystical artifact Johnny has been studying to transform himself into a vampire and start wrecking shit. Dio kills papa Joestar and seemingly gets killed in turn by Johnny, but it turns out Dio survived and wants to create a vampire army to take over the world. Johnny takes some mystical martial arts training to unleash sunlight with punches (just go with it) and goes on a crusade to take out Dio. Unfortunately, that son of a bitch simply won't stay down and eventually Johnny must sacrifice his own life in manly fashion to save his wife and unborn child.

I'm going to come right out and say it, Dio is a SHIT excuse for a villain. There are many things that can make a great villain: complex motivations, based on a historical figure, or even being extremely evil in an interesting fashion that is fun and frightening to watch. Dio is a cliche bully archetype that gets turned into a vampire, then decides to take over the world because he wasn't already cliche enough. In a way, Dio does remind me of the villains from oldschool GAR anime like: the bullies in Genocyber that randomly decide to rape a homeless child, or the bully in Devilman who decides to butcher the class bunnies for no reason. However, those bullies were quickly and brutally dispatched because that kind of character isn't very interesting. They exist to piss off the audience and grant a cathartic revenge fantasy when they get killed. Dio just lingers on and on like a sulfurous fart that won't go away. Johnny JoJo is a gentlemen and a badass, but his character depth never goes beyond that. He doesn't have a strong internal struggle or ambiguous goals or anything that makes complex character. I know that isn't the point of JoJo, but a show aimed at older audiences should probably try to have SOME level of complexity unless the action is so awesome it doesn't matter. However, JoJo isn't a non-step action violence fest like Hellsing Ultimate. JoJo actually does take a LOT of time to focus on plot and characters, which is why it is disappointing that the plot isn't very good and the characters are paper thin archetypes.

After a decent but certainly not masterful arc 1, we get to see the adventures of Johnny JoJo's grandson: Joey JoJo. Joey JoJo must go to Mexico to fight against the evil vampires that created the mystical mask from part 1. He teams up with the grandson of one his grandfather's old allies along with a surprisingly friendly Nazi dude named Rudol Von Stroheim. I guess the writer of JoJo meant to use the name "Rudolph" because "Rudol" isn't even a real German name. Rudol's catchphrase is German (insert whatever) is the best! Characters with goofy catchphrases can work like Korbowitz in Berserk or Armstrong in FMA, but I wasn't really feeling this one. Honestly I just found myself wishing this guy would be replaced with Captain Germany the manly werewolf from Hellsing. This second arc does have some pretty awesome action scenes including Joey JoJo punching the vampire leader into Outer fucking SPACE! However, the plot and characters still come WAY short of being called a masterpiece or anything approaching a masterpiece.

Art: 7/10

The art and animation is heavily stylized and admittedly does a good job creating the look and feel of anime from yesteryear. There are lots of still-shots to recreate the look of cheap animation from the days where anime had extremely limited budgets. There are plenty of "action lines" that the old anime had in abundance especially pre-1990. I think my favorite part of JoJo might actually be the art because it really does recapture and recreate what anime used to look like and now no longer even resembles.

Overall: 6/10

Does JoJo do a decent job capturing what old school anime used to look and feel like? Yeah, and that is why it isn't a bad show. Does being retro make it a masterpiece by default? Absolutely not. The story may not suffer from pointless "tournament arcs" like so many shonen anime, but the plot isn't honestly very good. Like the characters, the plot is very simplistic and doesn't exactly carry JoJo into the realms of truly great anime. The male characters are actually manly and don't resemble either Keitaro Urashima from Love Hina or Shinji Ikari from NGE, the 2 characters that basically convinced anime executives that Otaku identify more with Beta males and completely neutered anime. However, JoJo's mediocre action and old school animation doesn't quite make up for its simplistic and overall lackluster story and characters. At the end of the day, JoJo 2012 is a good anime, but is JUST a good anime. It doesn't nearly deserve the ratings it has received on MAL, or the praise it receives on 4chan. I WOULD recommend it to younger viewers who want to see what old anime was like, but I caution against the kind of blind praise that has already made this anime absurdly overrated.

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Apr 7, 2013

26 of 26 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 9

gaptoothsailor (All reviews)

555 people found this review helpful

This is my favorite series ever, and it finally got a real weekly anime adaptation after 25 years—the ‘94 and ‘00 OVAs and the Phantom Blood movie, which never saw DVD/home video release do not count—there is definitely some bias in this review. That said, there’s a reason I still didn’t give it a perfect score, and it’s because I’m still trying to keep a hint of objectivity in here.

Art - 8/10

I suppose I’ll start off with how it adapted the source material. Unlike the OVAs and Phantom Blood movie, there were no cuts in content, and it actually adapted parts 1 and 2 of read more

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Jul 28, 2019

26 of 26 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 5

Jesswem (All reviews)

129 people found this review helpful

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is quite possibly the most popular anime on the internet right now, what was once a weird niche show in the west has essentially become the new Naruto, which is ironic seeing as it predates it. Now what do I mean by that? Well tell me if you've heard this one before, a mediocre shounen anime that's mostly popular with teenage boys, that has also infested meme culture, and has become almost impossible to criticize, not because it's a flawless masterpiece with absolutely no flaws that has changed society for the better (though the fans would want you read more

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Jun 17, 2015

26 of 26 episodes seen

Overall Rating: 7

Rage-The-Dragoon (All reviews)

264 people found this review helpful

The keyword "Bizarre" in it's title is more then appropriate.

And considering the many details the show has it's difficult to find a point to start talking about it to explain everything, but I'm going to give an attempt.

The First thing to address is probably the story and the storytelling of JoJo.
where it basically does everything wrong in such a way that it becomes hysterical to watch and not to mention the big layer of 80's cheese that covers it all.

JoJo tells it's story through the worst way possible "exposition". and not just a little bit. The characters will explain literally EVERYTHING that is happening in front of you, and it's not just done in your typical anime fashion. No, Every Character will explain things as if they are pooping out the biggest turd of their life that was been clogging their bowels for weeks. making it hysterical to hear them do so. Jojo's story itself is very simplistic in each arc. protagonist faces an evil that is bent on world domination. and that's about it. however This is the first series I've ever seen that has multiple shifting protagonists. without spoiling to much, I can say that each story arc headlines the offspring of the previous protagonist. which keeps the show very fresh, because of the shift in characters.

Moving on the the art and animation.
One of the things I absolutely loathe is talking during battle scene's.
(Looking at you Bleach!)
because it kills the pacing and tension of the combat. As I explained above Jojo likes to explain A LOT but they manage to keep the pace up despite lengthy dialogues and maintain intense visuals to keep you on your toes during the fights. The visuals are very clean, sharp, and use some very unique color pallets to address dire situations. suddenly placing characters in a complete green pallet against a dark/pink background.
The animation to be fair is very limited and makes use of clever tricks to make a "less is more" kind of effect. flashy backgrounds, shaky cam, etc. which works very well for shows like this to maintain the high detail of characters, yet it makes the fights less dynamic.

The Music is phenomenal, very catchy and colorful, which matches the overall feel for the show. and a lot of different styles come to play, jazz, rock, even dub step. And choosing Roundabout by Yes as a title track!? is to me a strange choice but it works.

To be fair the Characters in the show come across rather weak.
As I mentioned earlier, because of the shifting protagonists we're also time skipping every arc. which only allows 1 or 2 characters from the previous arc to reappear. this makes it very hard to latch on to a character because the time spent with them is so limited. and the expositional nature of the series also pushes you away from a character. we are not allowed to get under their skin and get a chance to feel like they feel. because they will address their emotions the moment they bother them.
This is probably why the protagonist of the sequel, (Stardust Crusaders) Jotaro is one of the most popular protagonists of this series. because he hardly talks at all, he's mysterious, silent, you don't know everything about him and that is what makes you curious about a character.

However, in overall the show was still an enjoyable ride, the combat scene's are every enjoyable and varied, the character designs are incredibly flamboyant and unique. it's all around 80's cheesy fun. that deserves a decent 7.

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