Why Is the JoJo Manga So Good?

Honestly, at first I didn't think JoJo's Bizarre Adventure was a great anime.

My friends pushed it on me hard, and it took me about three or four tries just to finish the first episode.

The reason was simple: early JoJo character designs are mostly musclemen, and from a modern viewer's point of view, that did feel a bit strange.

Later I found out that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a manga that started in 1987, which is a long time ago.

Of the anime and manga I'd watched and read before, the best-known were probably One Piece, serialized from 1997, or Naruto, serialized from 1999. Even the oldest manga I think I've read, Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, started serialization in 1998.

By then, Hirohiko Araki was already working on Part 5 of JoJo. So Araki is without doubt one of the real veterans of the Japanese manga world.

And looking over his career, he's poured nearly all his talent and energy into JoJo. But unlike One Piece or Naruto, Araki didn't make one ultra-long story. He turned "JoJo" from a specific character into an abstract idea, and made one standalone yet connected story after another, part after part.

I got into the JoJo manga through the anime. Yesterday, the anime of Part 7, Steel Ball Run, officially premiered, and I happen to be reading the Steel Ball Run manga right now. Online, it's widely considered the best part of JoJo.

I have to admit, reading Part 7 of the manga, I'd long since forgotten the me who couldn't get through the first episode of the Part 1 anime.

I think the key to JoJo's success is that after finishing Part 6, Araki started Part 7 in a completely different way

Through Part 6, all the JoJo protagonists are linked by blood across generations. Part 2's protagonist, Joseph Joestar, is the grandson of Part 1's protagonist, Jonathan Joestar, and Part 3's protagonist, Jotaro Kujo, is Joseph Joestar's grandson.

All the way to Part 6, where the protagonist, Jolyne Cujoh, is Jotaro Kujo's daughter, every protagonist is related by blood, and the villains are almost all closely tied to Dio Brando, who appears in Part 1.

I think if Araki hadn't chosen to open up a world in Part 7 that has nothing to do with any of the earlier characters, maybe JoJo would have ended with Part 6, or never gone on to achieve what it did.

Why? Because even though Araki explores a different theme in each part, like the shining light of humanity in Part 1, the team adventure in Part 3, and a woman's growth in Part 6, at bottom the core conflict of the first six parts all comes from Part 1's Jonathan Joestar and the villain DIO (Dio Brando).

It's like an epic spanning a whole century. Part 2's villains are the root of how DIO became a vampire. Part 3's villain is DIO himself. Part 4's villain is born out of the investigation into DIO. Part 5's protagonist is DIO's son. Part 6's villain is DIO's closest friend from when he was alive.

So, at the root of it, the first six parts are the multigenerational feud between the Joestars and DIO.

That said, Araki showed incredible skill throughout the first six parts. In Part 6 especially, he created a female protagonist (Jolyne Cujoh) and closed it out in a stunning way that opened up the world of Part 7.

If you think of the first six parts as the original canon, then from Part 7 on, "JoJo" no longer means a descendant of Jonathan Joestar's bloodline. It breaks out of that frame and simply means someone with two "Jo" sounds in their name.

Once he broke out of the first six parts' framework, there was nothing holding back Araki's genius anymore. He could finally leave family destiny behind and take on new themes.

I don't know if it's a coincidence, but Part 7 is about "growth and surpassing yourself." Maybe, in some unseen way, that also hints that Araki surpassed himself as a creator.

OK, enough of the abstract stuff. Let's get specific. Why is the JoJo manga so good?

Art Style

Araki's art style is instantly recognizable. From his outlines to his costume design, he's one of a kind in the entire Japanese manga world.

The muscleman designs in Part 1 were actually a common look in 1980s Japanese manga. But following the trends of the time didn't hide Araki's unique style. By the '90s, as public taste changed, Araki started drawing slimmer characters like Kakyoin, and with the musclemen gone, his distinctive "Michelangelo" style became even more striking.

I love JoJo's art style. Of all the Japanese manga I've read, it's in a league of its own.

Distinct Themes

Araki gives each part of JoJo a distinct theme.

Part 1's theme is courage and inheritance

Part 2's theme is wit

Part 3's theme is friendship and bonds

Part 4's theme is heroism in ordinary life

Part 5's theme is the Golden Spirit of unshakable resolve

Part 6's theme is the fight against fate, and will and freedom that transcend time and space

Part 7's theme is adventure, personal growth, and the redemption of humanity

I haven't read Parts 8 and 9 yet, so I can't speak to them. But judging from the first seven parts, Araki has perfected the craft of blending theme and story. All the way through Part 6, every part's theme blends seamlessly with its plot and its characters' growth, so reading it is stunning and gets your blood pumping.

Bold Colors, Boundless Imagination

Araki's use of color is like the opposite of Zhang Yimou's. If Zhang Yimou's films chase a balanced beauty of color, Araki's colors are as unrestrained as his imagination, full of clashes, completely setting his work apart from almost everything else like it.

He often uses highly saturated, unrealistic colors. You'll see green hair, purple skies, blue houses. Nothing ordinary follows ordinary rules. And yet with all these bold colors, it often feels really harmonious to me.

And Araki's imagination is even more impressive. The concept of "Stand users" he created in JoJo is his imagination made concrete. The idea first grew out of other manga, but Araki without doubt refined it and took it further.

From the first appearance of Stand users in Part 3 through every part after it, countless bizarre Stand users have been designed, and both their art and their abilities constantly make me slap the table in delight.

Take Rohan Kishibe in Part 4. His Stand lets him read people like a book, and write in and edit them.

In Part 6, Jolyne Cujoh's Stand turns her body into string, and Araki combines that power with the Möbius strip, turning an ordinary Stand ability into something extraordinary.

That's something Araki does all the time: put two completely unrelated things together and get an idea nobody saw coming.

In Part 7, Araki brings in the so-called "secret of the Spin," combining spinning with the golden ratio to create the fascinating "Golden Spin," which often adds a layer of philosophy to the whole work.

That's what makes Araki so brilliant. His work appeals to everyone. Read it just as a story and it's incredibly exciting. Take the time to savor it, and his art, costume design, use of color, plotting, themes, and philosophy can all pull you in.

Final Thoughts

I think the best thing about the JoJo manga is that it keeps reinventing itself. I think JoJo's Bizarre Adventure counts as one of the best manga in the world today.