JoJo's Bizarre Adventure REVIEW (Part 1): Phantom Blood

jojo's bizarre adventure penned by hirohiko araki is one of the most popular manga on the face of the earth with a ludicrously popular anime to its credit however this story and i have a short but complicated history unlike the blind one piece review series i created in 2020 this review is coming not from a place of enthusiasm but one instead of hopeful curiosity you see way back when this show initially grabbed the world by the scruff of its neck and whispered lovingly into its ear this is my swamp i too along with i assume many of you decided to see what all the hype surrounding this show was about and in my mind i was prepared for a narrative masterpiece rivaled only by few with music and animation the likes of which i had never seen before such were my naive unjustified expectations going into this bizarre adventure needless to say i gave up towards the beginning of part 3 but not before forcing myself to get to that point so why am i giving this series another shot you might be asking hope is now that i have my expectations in check and i know what to expect i'll be able to really get into this series and spoiler alert i think it worked i'm tony not mark and this is my review for one of the most bonkers brash bombastic and bizarre arcs i have ever had the pleasure to read through this is part one to jojo's bizarre adventure phantom blood [Music] dojo over the last week i posted two polls onto my twitter at totally not mark asking my audience how much of jojo's bizarre adventures manga have you read and the other asking the same question regarding the anime the results were interesting with the vast majority of people having seen all parts available in the anime and significantly more not having read the month and i view this as interesting because ever since i mentioned in my last video that i was going to be commencing my jojo series this week i've been inundated with countless tweets ranging from polite suggestions to full-on demands that i watched the anime for the purpose of this review and to that i say politely no firstly as i've mentioned i've already been exposed to the anime for the first two parts of the story and couldn't really get into it secondly as a reviewer a manga is my preferred medium of choice to consume story in this is to help me get as close as possible to the writer's vision of the story without any compromise i want to review araki the writer of jojo and not some studio writer or animator paid to interpret his work besides plenty have already reviewed the anime with few reviewing the manga and let me tell you my experience with the manga of jojo's bizarre adventure was vastly different to my experience with the anime explain yourself despite having technically seen the first two parts in full i couldn't really remember much about them at all beyond the main character's names and some really vague plot points dotted here and there and this part one phantom blood i was particularly fuzzy on as i personally found it to be at first the least interesting and at times boring and i have no idea what i was thinking because boring is not a word i would dare use to describe phantom blood now with that said having only seen it in the anime prior i was quite excited and optimistic to check this out in my format of choice manga wait what the anime only had like eight episodes how is there this much material to get through for part one all right look this looks like a lot but if i'm being honest now having gone through it while it seemed long at first it actually turned out to be specifically from volume 2 onwards surprisingly well paneled and paced in other words phantom blood was surprisingly fun the slowest part being its first volume covering the backstories of the two main characters or at least it was initially however when i understood what i was trying to do in volume 1 i managed to get into it a lot more easily however something i have to say right off the bat regarding the story is that bizarre doesn't even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to describing what this story is the way it's told is honestly baffling not necessarily from a narrative perspective though i have a lot to discuss there too but really more than anything else how these characters behave and command the pages of this comic feel as though they were written and drawn by an alien that thinks it knows how humans talk and what they look like in some cases despite this however even early on in the story there's a clear attention to detail that's present not only with the characters expressions but also some of the backgrounds god these just make me tired to look at sometimes i mentioned the visuals of this manga partially because one of the few aspects that contributed to my negative experience with the anime was how little the characters actually moved i go into an anime to see an animated story i pick up a manga to read through the panels of a story and for me this go around i think the manga did a much better service to the story being told here so let's get to the story the main characters the narrative itself tells the story of the upbringing and ultimate conflict between two characters dio brando the antagonist and jonathan joster the protagonist otherwise known as jojo and something i found really interesting right off the bat was how this story was structured in addition to the choices made by iraqi in telling this story while there are what i would call narrative flubs dotted throughout this otherwise simple story it's worth noting that it's actually a little more unconventional and dare i say sophisticated then first impressions might convince you of it being lord joestar jojo's father takes deo in as his adopted son after his father passes away due to complications with his health in order to repay a debt he owed him immediately it becomes evident that dio has clear and malicious motives to gain control of the joestar fortune in order to prove his worth and he will do absolutely anything to ensure his goals are met in this story he does some truly horrific things from kicking jojo's dog dany to manipulating his friends and family and ruining his relationship with his first love but few instances match up to the utter cruelty in this section that presents itself when deal burns jojo's dog to death it's an horrific scene and one this manga really marinates in there are a number of scenes in this part where the gruesome nature of the story is really on full display with some instances leaning pretty far into the horror side of the genre there's a series of conflicts throughout the years that build and build and build leading to the death of jojo's father and his ultimate life falling into ruin until the final battle between jojo and dio which feels fittingly massive in both scope and consequence and that's more or less the plot but what really interested me early on was how araki ultimately chose to tell this story you see with a manga by the name of jojo's bizarre adventure you'd be forgiven for thinking that this story would very much follow the adventures of jojo and while this is partially true interestingly this story is split right down the middle with the first half focusing on the journey of dio and the second as a result of that first journey jonathan's which makes jonathan in his first half a supporting character to dio i'm a what a supporting character now one issue many might have with this story early on i think quite understandably by the way is that of jonathan's personality and overall character while his opening scene is quite strong in establishing his virtuous good guy persona his dialogue and subsequent scenes thereafter feel less heroic and more so a naive overly dramatic child which he again quite understandably is but normally in these types of stories we begin by following the hero on a journey of self-discovery and struggle in order to achieve his or her goals however in the first half of this story jonathan is 100 reactionary doesn't necessarily have a goal and to be perfectly honest is sort of a goody two-shoes which unless the character has agency over the plot can eventually come off as boring in the first half he doesn't even really feel like a main character to me and in part i think that's because the real main character of the first half is dio brando [Music] there exists a well-known story writing concept called the hero's journey popularized by joseph campbell in his 1949 book entitled the hero with a thousand faces and in this book he describes that narrative pattern as follows a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder fabulous forces are there encountered and decisive victory is won the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men and the degree to which dio fits into this mold is too perfect to be coincidental and what's more is that throughout the course of this first half of the story up to its climax deal the character gives jonathan joestar the titular character jojo the narrative circumstances to not only be the main character of the story but this time to be compelling complete with new motivations and a virtuous agency that guides the plot into finishing its second and third acts and while i'm drawing attention to this second half you'll also notice that during these sections dio's contributions to the story suddenly shift from being the instigator to being more reactionary and losing agency as a result he is no longer the driving force of the plot he's long since completed his hero's journey and now jojo is the main character of the tale leading into the big finish and i love that aspect of the story for me this is what helped the pacing during the midsection that all too often stories get lost in in phantom blood's midsection we have the climax to dio's journey and we also get the beginning of jojo's and i thought that was a really clever idea from the moment the story kicks off we're introduced to the circumstances dio has been living in with his father along with an immediate call to action he accepts the call and in doing so casts himself into a new world unlike anything he's seen before it's very easy to see at least from the surface that araki is trying to portray dio as an outright villain unapologetic in his approach to the world and those around him essentially araki wants no one to like dio in this story i mean he beats and burns a dog to death what more do you need however over the course of these opening chapters we gain a host of interesting and perhaps contradictory insights into the psyche of dio clearly resentful of his father dio is terrified that he will end up like him a scumbag drunk unable to take care of himself or his family and what i found particularly interesting were the moments deal would start to remind himself of his father how much that would disgust him and what that might mean for him going forward in his life he might not be able to escape who he is and this acts as a clear motivator for him to change his circumstances and to at all costs avoid becoming who his father was which just so happened to be accepting the powers of a mask and becoming a vampire overlord what's more is albeit brief there are one or two instances in the story where we really get a glimpse into what the primary reasons behind his father's resentments might be he blames him for his mother's death this was really interesting to me as throughout the story dio is painted as one of the most sadistic characters with the only fondness he'd ever project existing for the sole purpose of manipulating others but this and i can't believe i'm saying this about jojo is actually a really good example of subtle storytelling that adds more depth to a character the drawback however if you can call it that to having a villain take up so much of your story specifically early on with almost all of the agency is that they become much more interesting than the hero of unheard while jonathan does improve dramatically in my opinion after the halfway point receiving a fantastic motivation in avenging his father and protecting the world from dio he is from that point on always playing catch up with the do character as a result and with the way dio is framed from the halfway point onward as this demonic vampire zombie overlord jonathan needs to overcome it's really difficult to beat his cool factor also resulting in for me at least deal writing his name all over this part and so while phantomblood spends an equal amount of time with both characters overall establishing and resolving their hero's journeys after the dust settled i found myself thinking of dio and not jonathan when writing about this story in other words jonathan becomes an entertaining result of the world dio created for himself the second half with that said regarding jonathan specifically because his character really blossoms in the second half i'll give my final thoughts on him towards the end because if there's one thing i want to make clear with this video it's that before i gave jojo a second chance i was very wrong about jonathan joestar as a character and i'll explain more clearly in a moment but before that let's discuss the second half in more detail because holy hell does this get really good really fast with my introspective reflection on the material contained in volume 1 and early volume 2 i was able to see and appreciate what araki was trying to do but once the second half of the story came around it's like everything started to fall into place for me whether that was a consequence of the prior build up in volume 1 or the vast improvements in layouts and artwork i felt hookline and sinker for the material contained in this section which is honestly in almost every sense of the word fantastic the second half details the events that unfold after the burning mansion fight between dio and jojo which by the way it was awesome with a capital a this was the very first scene and action sequence that actually grabbed me and said this is my swamp now this clearly isn't perfect by any means with the side characters predominantly letting the side down when it comes to contributing to various sequences most notably jonathan's father who in all honesty is one of the worst realized characters both in anime and manga and maybe even fiction for me he is not a character he is a plot device he has no relationship with his son besides not believing in him for honestly preposterous reasons and we only know that they love each other because we are told that they do this annoys me only because he is the driving force behind jonathan's motivation in this second half after he dies but honestly that's as bad as it gets for me or well it's one of the low points for sure however outside of that the spectacle that is the burning mansion showdown between a newly vampiric demon overlord dio and a highly motivated jonathan is fantastically framed and when placed alongside everything that came before honestly feels fittingly massive in scope and consequence i'm telling you as soon as do chopped off that policeman's head my jaw hit the floor and this is as good a place as any to draw attention to this but the manga version of this story is way more awesome visually in my opinion while the animation for the anime was standard i guess some of these drawings in these second half panels are honestly stunning and not to mention easy to read through without much effort at all and did i mention the gore oh my god the gore remember in the anime when dio burned the dog to death well you actually get to see the dog burned to death in the manga remember when dio makes a mother eat her own child yes that actually happens theo just goes yeah fetus and boom she starts ripping her son apart in the anime it cuts away and all you see is her shadow doing the deed but in the manga in the manga you see this i can't stress this enough but the battles and poses and gruesome antics that take place during this second half are more than worth the price of admission and my god did they suck me into this story in ways the anime never did before so once dear goes bye-bye but not really jonathan then goes on a quest to endio's reign of terror to stop him taking over the world with zombie vampire monsters to avenge his father and to learn breath fighting from jojo's resident wim hof zeppeli a character i am convinced exists at least partially to give jonathan another father figure a real father figure to fight for once he eventually dies spoilers by the way i should also mention at this point because i feel like people will get mad if i don't but speedwagon is here too i guess he's initially a mugger that jonathan beats the jesus out of inspires and then immediately becomes lifelong friends with narratively he serves honestly no other purpose than to facilitate some comedy to act as the official commentator for the entire second half and to remind us of jonathan joestar's exact height and waist down to the centimeter i have no idea why this is important but he makes sure to remind us whenever we need it but this section where zeppeli comes out of nowhere and acts as jano's yoda mentor is actually pretty fun it's a standard training arc that introduces us to this universe's magic system known as hammond and he punches a frog which funnily enough is actually a really important aspect to the story i like this system but i think the best place to talk about it is during the fight scenes that present themselves as jojo speedwagon and zeppeli make their way to confront dio the fight scenes this pirate honestly has some brilliant fight choreography and it's here araki's writing and creativity come to life in a way that's more proficient than i honestly was expecting though i did have moments where i was left scratching my head or a little disappointed however i will say that for the vast majority of these instances not only do these fight scenes hold up after 30 years but they really capture a unique tone in this shonen unlike any i've seen there's a level of gruesome agony to a lot of his work in addition to moments of classic hero vs villain stuff but more often than not araki likes to make you expect something for you to anticipate a plotline to go one way and then completely subvert your expectations before then leaning into a more traditional conclusion that feels earned while also creating a nice contrast with what came before but enough blustering let's tackle these fights jojo versus jack the ripper while a conventional coming-of-age training fight zepply and jonathan's outing against literally a zombie vampire version of jack the ripper was very enjoyable it's a great training scene that exposes to us the viewer a lot of new idiosyncrasies for the hammond power system we were initially introduced to earlier in the story and jack explodes out of a horse too if i think back to my very first time watching this series in the anime one aspect of the show that i distinctly remember disliking or finding boring was that of the hammond power system and while i still recognize a number of clear examples that i disliked regarding said system for the most part i think my initial perception of hammond was ill-founded disconnecting your own bones to reach further walking on water and punching through objects are just a small number of the abilities you stand to gain when you harness this breathing technique it's all pretty insane to look at and from a visual medium that's exactly what you want from a technique however despite my initial impression of hammond being misguided i'm still not sure if i actually like hammond or not within phantom blood on one hand i like magic or power systems in these sorts of stories that have a particular focus on battles or fight scenes usually these systems offer a lot in the way of variety suspense and visual spectacle but in one moment i will really like what a rocky has chosen to do here in foreshadowing possibilities with the technique and on the other hand surprisingly thank glider let's talk about jericho's and blue for his fight jonathan joestar and speedwagon versus tarkus and bluefort it's around this time you should start thinking about these fights as dungeons before the big boss that is dio at the very end again it's a simple concept and araki makes full use of these characters to communicate their personas even more i've already discussed the familial cannibalism but there's also this section where dio resurrects some undead knights to fight on his behalf tarukus and bluefort with the clear highlight for me being jojo's altercation with bluford while zeppeli is out of commission jonathan is forced to act on his own against easily his biggest obstacle yet now there are aspects of storytelling that i love and over the years i've gotten pretty decent at picking up the literary breadcrumbs to see what the writer is thinking and where the story might be going i mentioned liking zeppelin punching the frog demonstrating pretty succinctly to jojo what haman was capable of i liked this because it acted as a subtle piece of foreshadowing much later in the story as jojo takes out jack the ripper with that exact same principle catching i assume some of us off guard because since we've been exposed to that ability at the very beginning with zeppoli we've seen and learned so much more about hammond and as a result that might not have come to our mind or the forefront of our minds despite it technically being a known option or mechanic within the technique and it's that narrative sleight of hand i'm personally a big fan of explaining how something works and then implementing those rules in interesting and compelling ways the best example i can think of for the sleight of hand within the series can be seen in jojo's battle with bluford when he falls into the water fighting him at this point in the story hammond is a fundamental part of how battles work and pretty much everything revolves around it but as he's fighting underwater he realizes that he can't use his hammond why because he can't breathe underwater it's a breathing technique and that makes complete sense again it's a really nice narrative demonstration of araki's chops especially so early in the series taking something once thought to be completely understood and then through creativity outwits the audience watching by doing something seldom thought of but still feasible however ironically this fight after jojo liberates blueford from the spell of dio also has an example of him breaking the hammond power system in two nothing and i mean nothing we know about hammond suggests that this was possible this was the instance for me where hammond crossed the threshold from power system to plot device in this moment araki needed a way for the crew to escape out of this dire situation he's created against tarukus and couldn't think of anything so whoop surprisingly thank glider but who cares kid crawls in a hole turrucas crushes two men into soup with his bare hands and zeppeli dies it's pretty sad okay jokes aside i call this jonathan's real father's death scene because unlike lord joestar we as an audience actually get to see jonathan form a relationship with this character fostering new talent and go through hardships with him and in a blaze of glory zeppeli gives up his life to inspire jonathan and to infuse all of his life force and hammond into jonathan's body making jonathan super buff and shirtless now anyways now filled with genuine purpose and a new posse of randos for some reason well okay they're not technically randos but they definitely came out of nowhere with all of this now filling the sales of jonathan joester he finally starts to feel like the hero of the story and one that rivals the level of his adopted brother and now lord of the underworld dio deo brando vs jonathan joster this fight in theory has two sections that honestly ends on one emotional note the likes of which i knew was coming but had no idea would hit me or affect me as much as it did leading up to and during this fight that takes place in dio's castle the panel work and overall art direction is spectacular from top to bottom i've heard a lot of people say that this manga has aged poorly but for the life of me i can't see it as someone that has made a lot of videos discussing and criticizing the panel work of other mangakas that are equally if not more prolific i can say without an ounce of uncertainty that i have enjoyed the paneling in jojo's bizarre adventure more than quite a lot of extremely popular manga out there sporting a fantastic vintage aesthetic while also delivering upon some visually stunning spreads and action sequences that rival some stuff from dragon ball's manga which i consider to be of extremely high standard now i liked the fight between dio and jonathan but it honestly goes by faster than i thought it would with deal losing his head and the fight coming to an end quickly thereafter now this isn't to say that i thought it was bad or anything far from it i actually really liked it but compared to the fight against the two nights prior i was expecting something more and boy did we get more out of the wreckage of this fight the weird creepy follower of dio that i totally forgot to tell you guys about picks up his head and runs off into the night time passes and we see jojo get married to his childhood sweetheart and on this ship they travel and we get some truly touching layouts and exchanges between the two characters recalling when they first met all those years ago and for a character we barely see in this arc this is a really nice and sweet scene that all things considered should have landed pretty flat but it didn't and then boom deo head and creepy guy come out of the shadows with dio finally revealing that he truly respects jonathan now which is honestly a really nice moment not only for dio's character but their relationship as a whole because of this dio now wants jonathan's body to be his own he won't accept anyone else's destruction ensues and in the chaos jonathan is forced to sacrifice himself to save his newborn daughter and his wife and that aspect of the story is what took me by surprise i've spoken at length about the traditional nature of this story and how at times it does quite well subvert in order to bring on a surprise but to kill off your main character at the end of this arc is honestly an incredible move that had i not seen the anime i would never have seen this one coming the closing moments of this arc as the two lovers share and exchange pleasantries with each other for the last time are honestly touching and thus is the conclusion to phantom blood now that i finished all three volumes of phantom blood i must say that while lacking in subtlety within many plot points despite having a bad experience through the anime all those years ago i can't say i didn't thoroughly enjoy myself this time around compared to my experience day one this arc that gets a lot of criticism from the public that i totally thought i would join in with by the way has honestly surprised me with the level of polish and clear passion has gone into making it now it's certainly not without its problems many of which i've shared with you today they all exist but my experience at least with the manga of jojo's bizarre adventure has shown me a beautifully paneled subtly sophisticated and exciting story that oozes with love style and personality that only a mangaka like araki could ever hope to realize on the page there are so many things about this story that are wrong that really when all added together shouldn't work but somehow jojo's bizarre adventure manages to pull it out of the bag and not only delivers but delivers in an emphatic and unapologetically quirky bizarre way and i loved it however if you thought this video of phantom blood was entertaining or enlightening part two battle tendency is a complete and total [Music] thank you guys for watching the first episode of my revisit into the wild and surprisingly enjoyable world of jojo's bizarre adventure when i did watch this series years back joseph was a highlight for me then so i can only imagine how much i'm going to enjoy him this time around wish me luck and i'll see you all next week when i tackle jojo's bizarre adventure part two battle tendency as always i've been totally not mark and thank you so much for watching the museum

Channel: Totally Not Mark

Views: 470,447

Keywords:

Id: OTvpWRhrqVo

Length: 26min 32sec (1592 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021