Anime Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 1

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Season 1 (UK Rating: 15)

This initial chapter in this extensive story opens on a Victorian traffic accident. A gentleman lies mortally wounded, his wife dead and their baby screaming in the wreckage. Scavengers come upon the family and are about to start prying the gold fillings from the bodies when the man comes to. He is George Joestar, a wealthy estate owner who mistakes the man stealing from him as his saviour and promises an eternal debt to the man who he thinks saved his son; this grave-robber now saviour is Dario Brando. It's all rather Les Miserables. Years later, the sons of both have reached their teenage years and have become stark contrasts to each other. George's son, Jonathan, is a bit of a twit, clumsy, and without grace thanks to his gigantic frame, but a true gentleman with a heart of gold, while Dario's son, Dio, is smart and charming, yet dark and twisted inside. When Dario dies from a mysterious illness, Dio moves in with the Joestars, being treated as a second son, a brother to Jojo, and second son to George. This brotherhood is the catalyst of a multi-generational story that transcends life and death.

Jojo meets up with a dapper Italian gent with a pencil moustache and chequered top hat, known as Baron Zeppeli. The Baron has been tracking down the mask for some time since it ruined his life long ago. Zeppeli has mastered the art of Hamon, a natural energy with a human's body that can be controlled by mastering one's breathing. Hamon energy can be used to heal and to destroy; sharing the same type of energy as sunlight, it's a natural weapon against vampires, and so Jojo becomes Zeppeli's pupil, hunting to destroy Dio and the mask that created this monster. This battle between the brothers is the first part of the Jojo story, entitled Phantom Blood and it takes up the first nine episodes of this collection.

The remaining seventeen episodes tell the story of Battle Tendency. Taking place fifty years after the final showdown between Jojo and Dio, now Jojo's grandson, Jojo (Joseph Jostar, again Jojo, this is a pattern that will become rather regular). This new Jojo has recently come over to America with his grandmother, Erina, to visit the dear family friend, Speedwagon, a major character in the first part who has become something of an oil tycoon in the last 50 years, setting up the "Speedwagon Foundation," something that becomes a big part of future seasons, too. In this season, the foundation has been working towards uncovering the origins of the stone mask that caused all of the trouble in Phantom Blood. During an investigation in Mexico, they stumbled upon an ancient temple and, within it, a cave. This is not just where the stone mask was found but also contains more, along with a man encased in stone; a man that seems to be alive, but sleeping.

This stone man is known as a Pillar Man and named Santana. He is the first of four that awaken back into this age and serve as the antagonists of the series. These four are the last of their kind; an ancient race of super-powered humanoids that sleep for generations, and their leader, Kars, was the creator of the stone masks. Now the four are being awakened by Nazis and the only way to stop them is by using the energy system from Phantom Blood, Hamon. Luckily, Jojo has inherited that ability but has never learned how to truly control it, with it bursting out when he gets angry. Jojo finds himself embroiled with the Pillar Men - and some Nazis, for good measure! - so needs to find allies and someone to teach him how to harness his powers.

In a fitting throwback to the original, Jojo meets up with the young Caesar Zeppeli, grandson of the Baron who taught his grandfather. The pair strikes up a classic shonen rivalry as they train together underneath the final Hamon master in the world, the mysterious and beautiful Lisa Lisa. Lisa Lisa and her two disciples train diligently to take on these godlike monsters before they turn the Earth into their feeding ground. There are lots of ridiculously over the top training scenes and montages, combined with the Araki's signature battles that have since become core to Jojo's style. Araki was against the overuse of tournament style shonen battles where each member of the group of good guys face-off against specific appropriate characters in the bad guys for fitting match-ups, relying too much on "power levels" and instead came up with battles that rely on characters strategically and tactically outsmarting each other… while fabulously posing.

The rating this series received in the UK is a 15 thanks to the violence and gore seen throughout. The series makes use of smart camera angles and conveniently placed shadows to avoid showing off the worst of the viscera but there's plenty of blood and guts - eviscerations, decapitations, exsanguinations, and amputations.

Through Battle Tendency, Araki's fabulous original style begins to materialise. The aforementioned colour filters are back and better than ever. Combined with patterned filters that cover the action, Battle Tendency also begins to overlay the kana of the sound effects much more regularly, creating a style perfectly faithful to the source material. The biggest impact of this new season is the introduction of the series' signature fabulous poses. These hulking muscular men suddenly bursting into eccentric positions for all manner of reasons; they could be mid-battle and suddenly shift into vogue, or even just mid-conversation they may strike out as if they were walking the runway in Milan. It takes some getting used to but is a quintessential part of the franchise. The '80s rock references return, too. The Pillar Men are named AC/DC, Wham, Cars, and Santana. There's Suzi Q and Lisa Lisa, among lots more for fans to keep an eye out for.

This release brings both the original Japanese dub and a brand new English dub. The English dub takes the ridiculousness of the original and revels in it, while the original takes everything completely serious. There are some absolutely awful attempts at German, Italian, and English accents, but if anything they enhance the craziness of the experience. For such a fantastic release, this is sadly without any extra bonus features other than the usual perfunctory clean opening and closing, and some trailers.

8/10

Great - Silver Award

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has been running for 30 years now and been getting better and better as Araki has been perfecting his creation, and that the very first series is of this quality just shows how important the franchise is. Many people have not given the series a chance because of the outlandish outfits, the bizarre poses, and the insane characters, but now is the ideal opportunity to see why the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. There's a reason so many other series have drawn inspiration and influence from this historic series and now the UK has a chance to experience the first chapters of this story in the best possible way - a fabulously faithful adaptation that looks gorgeous on Blu-ray.