Catching up with JoJo's - Part 4 of 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

Where the other parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are massive, exciting adventures - be it Phantom Blood's epic origin story, Battle Tendency's fight against Gods, or Stardust Crusaders' globetrotting odyssey - there's something very small about Diamond is Unbreakable. This speaks to Hirohiko Araki's insane bravery when it comes to his writing. After Stardust Crusaders' massive success, no one would've blamed him if he'd chosen to stay in the same ballpark for his next story. Instead, Diamond is Unbreakable is by far the most unique part of JoJo's so far, straying the farthest from the tone of the previous entries. This part is admirable just for that alone.

Diamond is Unbreakable follows Josuke Higashikata, Joseph Joestar's illegitimate son, as he... doesn't really have a singular goal for a lot of the arc. Where every previous JoJo was very single-minded in their purpose (Both Jonathan and Josuke wanted to fight Dio, and Joseph wanted to fight the Pillar Men), Josuke's motive constantly changes as the circumstances do. It's interesting to see a JoJo that's reactive in their own story, and whilst excessively reactive main characters can be annoying, Josuke's changing motivations feel more like character growth than they do flip-flopping.

Of course, Josuke is more than a ball of motivations: he's got a personality outside of that. We've moved away from Jotaro's badass stoicness towards a more traditional "school punk" character. This is a JoJo that's more reminiscent of Joseph: goofy and good-natured. That said, where Joseph's persona hid a cunning, cold-blooded, strategist, Josuke's hides a mercurial side. This guy's surprisingly easy to anger, and his rage is actually rather terrifying. This is used in battles a couple of times, but is thankfully not overused, as there's a lot less to this gimmick than Joseph's cunning. Still, Josuke's personality when he's not angry is actually very likable: he comes across as a very warm and genuinely caring guy. This puts him second on my list of list of favorite JoJos, above his uncle Jotaro.

The truly special thing about Diamond is Unbreakable, however, is directly linked to the genre-shift from previous arcs. As opposed to the distinctly action-friendly genre of Phantom Blood through Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable is a small-town supernatural mystery set in the peaceful seaside town of Morioh. This means that, in contrast with the small cast of well-defined characters that dominated previous arcs, Diamond is Unbreakable focuses on creating a sense of community in a larger cast of characters.

It's easy to think that this means that each individual character in Diamond is Unbreakable is less well drawn than the characters in previous arcs, but it's not to be underestimated what focus on character will do to a show. After all, previous arcs were mostly about the adventure, and, aside from the major characters, was populated entirely by fairly one-dimensional archetypes (which is fine for those stories), but this arc focuses on character. In Diamond is Unbreakable practically every secondary character is well defined, and we get the feeling that they lead a full and complex life. This is because, though their introduction episode is usually the traditional stand battle, it's focused on them rather than our protagonists. The fight will either arise from a misunderstanding of the opponent's personality, or will end by appealing to or exploiting their character. There's a sensation that you get these side characters in a way that wasn't here in previous arcs.

Not only this, but Diamond is Unbreakable's main cast is far and away the best in the series' history. Because of the majorly recurring nature of some of the side characters it's hard to say where "main" cast ends and "side" characters begin, but both of Josuke's best friends Koichi and Okuyasu go through full, interesting character arcs, and significantly grow as people. Jotaro has also returned, playing the mentor role similarly to Joseph in Stardust Crusaders, but from more of a distance. I like him a lot more here: if it isn't enough that his "quiet badass" role works a lot better as a distant mentor, he's also just got more personality than he ever did in his own arc.

A cast as large as Diamond is Unbreakable calls for cool stand powers to do battle with, and boy do they deliver. Gone are the days of Stardust Crusaders' main cast's boringly vanilla powers. Every member of the cast has unique and interesting stand abilities: Josuke's Crazy Diamond is like Jotaro's Star Platinum in that it punches hard and fast (if not quite as hard and fast), but it's also got the ability to heal anything except Josuke himself and death. Okuyasu's The Hand can scrape away the fabric of time and space, leading to some really interesting shenanigans, and Jotaro's back, with Star Platinum still having the ability it learnt at the very end of Stardust Crusaders. There's plenty more crazy stuff, but I'll stop there to avoid spoilers: after all, half the fun of this is learning what each stand can do.

Despite the main cast having way more interesting powers than before, and the villains they fight having powers just as crazy as in Stardust Crusaders, the stand battles feel just a tad less satisfying here. This is due to the increased focus on character, meaning stand ability interplay is de-emphasized in some battles, and we get to see less Jotaro-style magnificently satisfying and violent conclusions. I want to emphasize again that the drop off in fight quality here isn't massive. I'd also argue that the high points of action sequences in Diamond is Unbreakable are higher than Stardust Crusaders', if less common.

The elephant in the room that I still haven't talked about is Yoshikage Kira, the main villain of the arc, the serial killer hiding in Morioh. He is simply tremendous. There's not the same level of malice and pure evil that we got from Dio. Yoshikage Kira is a surprisingly human villain. He's mostly a normal man, one who enjoys sandwiches in the park, is particular about his schedule, and wants to lead the peaceful life that makes him happy. Where Dio was a kind of theatrical, overwhelming evil, Kira is a very human, insidious, everyday evil. Yes, what he does is inhuman and monstrous, but he's never dehumanized the way most villains are. This isn't some monster, he's just some guy who's demonstrated a capacity for immense evil, and it's the ease with which we can forget how monstrous he truly is that's disturbing about him. Kira really, immensely, hurts Morioh in a way that's a lot more subtle than Dio's vampiric takeover of Wind Knights' Lot in Phantom Blood, but somehow feels more tragic and real.

Whenever I think what to say about Diamond is Unbreakable I come to the same words: "feeling of community", and it's one that everything in the arc works toward. If we weren't focusing so much on making sure every character in the show was so properly defined, we wouldn't really know who the people that make this community are. If Kira wasn't so perfectly characterized, and if his actions' consequences weren't painted as well as they were, there wouldn't be a reason for the community to unite this way. Unlike previous arcs, this isn't really a story about the JoJo of the season battling an evil monster. Diamond is Unbreakable is a story about a town uniting against the evil that plagues it, about the power of community beating Kira's overwhelming intellect and stand power. Phantom Blood introduced us to a Joestar family that was bound to fight against evil alone, Battle Tendency revolutionized the way they did it, Stardust Crusaders' showed us that it needn't always be this way, and Diamond is Unbreakable turned the Joestars from lone heroes to members of a community.

I said earlier that Diamond is Unbreakable would have been admirable even if it wasn't as effective as it is, just because of the boldness of the experiment here. I often say that I'd rather see series try something new and fail than grow old and boring doing the same thing over and over. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure as a whole and Diamond is Unbreakable in particular is the best example I've seen so far of why. If it'd stuck to familiar territory, this would still be the somewhat mediocre story of Jonathan Joestar in his endless battle with Dio Brando. Instead, we got the marvelous Jonathan Joestar, and his scheming ways against the fabulous Pillar Men. We also had Jotaro Kujo, and his stoic badassery, with the constant fighting against all sorts of crazy stand powers. Even through this variation, the series had some sort of repeating structure, with the same "travelling to fight an enemy" formula. But it reinvented itself yet again, and we got the touching tale of community that is Diamond is Unbreakable.

Even with as much as I liked Battle Tendency, Diamond is Unbreakable is my favorite part of JoJo's so far. I'm a sucker for stories about groups of high school kids who control monsters fighting a disturbingly human serial killer, it turns out (coughPersona4cough). There's just something about this arc that's particularly engrossing, watching every character grow and learn, and slowly getting to know the town and becoming attached to its inhabitants. But a story of this caliber would never have existed if Hirohiko Araki wasn't willing to take risks, if he'd stayed within his comfort zone. As glad as I am that Diamond is Unbreakable exists, it makes me a bit sad to imagine how many stories of this quality don't exist by virtue of television shows just doing the same thing for years upon years, when change could invigorate them and make them into something special.

9/10
Diamond is Unbreakable is a great tale about the power of community and human unity. It maintains the craziness and spirit of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but doesn't stagnate in what's successful, and takes the series in a new and exciting direction.

Catching up with JoJo's - Part 3 of 4: Stardust Crusaders

I was a bit daunted going into Stardust Crusaders, seeing as how this is the most popular and iconic arc of one of the most iconic manga out there. It felt like I was in for something special. As much fun as Battle Tendency had been, it wasn't mind blowing, simply a really strong action show. Having now watched all of Stardust Crusaders, I can confidently say...

Really? This is what all the hype was about?

It's not that Stardust Crusaders is bad, far from it. It's very entertaining, if deeply flawed. That said, it didn't blow me away, and in fact felt like a drop in quality from the excellent Battle Tendency arc. Let me explain.

Stardust Crusaders stars the first JoJo not to be a Joestar by name: The Japanese Jotaro Kujo. Jotaro is by far the most iconic of all the JoJos: his character design is the only one I was familiar with before watching the show, and he tends to top (or nearly top) "best JoJo" lists everywhere.

He's alright.

Like a lot about Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro feels like a step down from Battle Tendency. Battle Tendency gave us the magnificently goofy genius that was Joseph Joestar. I went on in my review of that arc about how entertaining it was to watch him fight: every battle Joseph was in was both a performance piece and a battle of wits. Joseph put up his goofy persona to hide his strategic genius, didn't play fair, and would tell us his plan in the style of a Holmesian reveal. Usually, his opponent would then reveal he was one step ahead, and then Joseph would reveal he was one step ahead of that and so on. Jotaro, on the other hand is a quiet, harsh "tough punk" type. He'll be stoic, take a beating for a bit, then counter with one single calculated move that'll usually win the battle straight away. It's not as much a battle of wits, as a matter of waiting for Jotaro to figure out the one winning move, which is satisfying but not as much fun to watch as Joseph's constant back-and-forth with his enemies.

Don't get me wrong, Jotaro is badass as all hell, and a cool protagonist. The problem is that he's just not as entertaining to watch as his immediate predecessor. This isn't limited to battles either: his stoicism in the more mundane scenes means he's not often got much to do. Whilst this does mean that when he does show emotion it's all the more touching, he simply can't compete with Joseph's constantly entertaining shenanigans.

Speaking of Joseph, he's back as one of many main characters, aged about fifty years. I really like the way he's brought back: he's no longer the loud-mouthed brash asshole of Battle Tendency. Instead he acts as the group's battle-wisened leader and Jotaro's mentor figure. He doesn't get to fight much, but he's still recognizably the same Joseph from before, battling more through trickery and mindgames than physical might, if with less of a cocky attitude and more of a "cool old man" spin on it.

The main cast as a whole is hands down the best the show has had so far. Not only is Joseph here, but Jotaro is also joined by the cold and calculating Kakyoin, the wise and stoic Avdol, the brash dumbass Polnareff and an asshole dog named Iggy. These characters vary wildly in quality: Avdol is about as boring as you get, Kakyoin is fine, Iggy is great for a dog character, and Polnareff is brilliant, easily the best character in the arc. In fact, a problem of mine is that, if Jotaro's stoicism didn't make him blend into the background with such a large main cast, Polnareff most certainly does. Not only does Polnareff have by far the most complex arc in the season, he also seems to get in more fights than Jotaro does, and he's certainly given more screen time, both in his role as comic relief and as an actual character. Between Polnareff and Iggy's arcs, Jotaro being badass, Joseph being a rad grandpa, and both Kakyoin and Avdol being quite likeable, if not very interesting, it's hard not to grow attached to this group of characters.

Possibly the biggest change in Stardust Crusaders is the new power mechanic to replace Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency's Hamon: Stands. These are spirit monsters created from people's life energy, and most of the fighting in this season takes place as stand battles. They're basically Personas before Persona was a thing. Each stand is unique and with a very specific set of powers, which leads to some very interesting interplay. It's a great concept that freshens up the battles, which is good, since there wasn't much else left to do with Hamon. There is a bit of a flub in execution, though: whilst almost every enemy stand is indeed inventive, forcing very specific battles to be fought, our main cast has very similar and generic stands. Jotaro's punches hard, fast, and is precise. Polnareff's stabs things hard, fast, and is precise. Avdol's shoots fire, Kakyoin's shoots gemstones. Iggy's is kind of cool in that it's made of sand, but we barely see him use it: as far as I can remember it only really sees proper use in three episodes.

The one exception is Joseph, who is given what is on a couple occasions described as the weakest stand of them all: purple vines that he can use as a grappling hook, as well as having the ability to take "spirit photos" under specific circumstances. This is presumably to make him have to take a back seat in combat scenarios, preventing him from taking Jotaro's thunder, but it results in what little combat Joseph does end up being in by far the most interesting, due to him having to come up with creative ways of using his very limited and specific set of abilities. I'm willing to bet that how well this turned out is part of what lead the author to also give the next JoJo's (Diamond is Unbreakable's Josuke's) stand a very specific ability on top of being able to punch hard.

That said, what the main cast lacks in creative stands, their enemies more than makes up for. The fights here aren't quite as enjoyable as Battle Tendency, but they are certainly close. Every foe the Stardust Crusaders face has a stand with a very specific ability that's incredibly powerful in the right situation, which the enemy inevitably lures the Crusaders into before attacking. This means that every battle is a sort of puzzle: they're not going to beat the enemy head on, so our heroes have to figure out a way around their disadvantage, be it by tricking their opponent, beating them at their own game, or turning their abilities against them. The show does a brilliant job of setting up their enemies as powerful on their own turf. I was honestly surprised at how many times I caught myself thinking "there's absolutely no way that they make it out of this one. This must be where one of them dies". This makes the fact that their miraculous turnarounds only feel like an ass-pull in two or three of the battles all the more impressive.

That said, the battles are both Stardust Crusaders' biggest strength and weakness. With a couple exceptions here and there, every individual battle is great, but there's just too damn many of them. We get three or four episodes of set up for the plot at the very start of the arc: Joseph's daughter/Jotaro's mother is ill because Dio is back (now inexplicably called DIO and hiding in Egypt), and off go the Crusaders on their journey to beat him up. From this point, practically every single episode follows the same exact structure: The Crusaders arrive at some milestone in their journey, get attacked by some Stand user, fight them off, and move on. There's no plot progression beyond "hey, we got a bit closer to Egypt". Every episode is either a fight, or part of a multi-episode fight.

It frankly gets exhausting, and I really wish there'd been a couple episodes where something different was happening. Both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency were very focused on their central plots, but they had distractions: Phantom Blood spent almost half of its running time just setting up the rivalry between Jonathan and Dio, and Battle Tendency had episodes dedicated to just introducing new characters, or having Joseph train his Hamon. These are both arcs that lasted less than half the time that Stardust Crusaders did, but still gave us a break from all the fighting to spend time exclusively on developing its characters, which resulted in there being a clear sense of momentum. Stardust Crusaders ends up feeling like it's a 40 episode long tournament arc: just have our heroes fight a variety of bad guys until they can finally get to the big bad guy in the finals.

The big bad guy himself is DIO (In all caps because he's spent 100 years under the sea, I guess). I got really excited to see him again, which made it disappointing when he spent most of the arc not being in the show. Until the last five or so episodes, we only ever get to see DIO every few episodes, brooding in his mansion. He'll spend the last couple minutes of an episode telling the next big stand user (that we can spend two episodes instead of one on because we set him up, right?) to go kill the Crusaders, rinse, repeat. Once the Crusaders find him, he still's still as overwhelmingly powerful as ever (and provides us with a fantastic battle) but he no longer feels as malevolent and terrifying as he did in Phantom Blood, despite being even more fucked up than he used to be. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that he no longer has the personal connection with the protagonist that he did with Jonathan, but it's sad that he's not as terrifying nonetheless.

Possibly the most disappointing aspect of Stardust Crusaders, however, is how mundane it feels. Don't get me wrong, this is still JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where nothing makes sense and everything is over the top and deliciously silly, but Stardust Crusaders doesn't feel unique in the same way that the previous and (from what I've seen) future arcs do. Phantom Blood was a very interesting take on gothic horror, Battle Tendency drew on the pulpy globe-trotting adventure feel that inspired things like Indiana Jones (with just a smidge of martial arts drama mixed in), and the next arc, Diamond is Unbreakable, is much smaller in scope and grounded in its location than any of the others, using elements of a small town murder mystery. Stardust Crusaders, travelling gimmick aside (which doesn't add much more than different terrain for the characters to fight on, something that Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency did fine with providing), just doesn't have a strong identity. It's just constant fighting. There's no interesting texture to it.

I've ragged a lot on Stardust Crusaders here, but I did genuinely like this arc. As I've mentioned, the stand battles are thoroughly enjoyable, and the larger cast is the best one that JoJo's has had to date. I simply feel like it's a step down from Battle Tendency, and am disappointed that this very beloved piece of entertainment wasn't as big of an improvement from Battle Tendency as Battle Tendency was from Phantom Blood. Stardust Crusaders is a really solid, perfectly enjoyable piece of action fun, and JoJo's unique brand of crazy made sure it stayed unique throughout, but it's deeply flawed, and doesn't stand up to Battle Tendency.

7/10
Stardust Crusaders has numerous deep flaws, and is a slight disappointment when compared to its predecessor, but its fantastic style and great battle sequences elevate it into being a very solid experience.

Catching up with JoJo's - Part 2 of 4: Battle Tendency

The second arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure might be the most impressed I've ever been with a show. There's a tonne to admire here. The most obvious is just how brave this is. Not only do we get rid of our iconic protagonist, Jonathan, but we shift to a completely different style of show. Where Phantom Blood was a goofy gothic horror adventure, Battle Tendency is an Indiana Jones style globetrotting adventure, with a bit of martial arts drama thrown in, travelling all around the world chasing mystical artifacts and trying to stop ancient forces whilst honing your skills.

This makes Battle Tendency feel like a completely new show: Phantom Blood had an immediately identifiable style and atmosphere that Battle Tendency completely departs from. It's amazing, as such, that Battle Tendency still feels very much like a continuation of Phantom Blood. This adventure is, if anything, even more bizarre than the previous one, but the show's internal logic hasn't changed. There's long stretches of time where nothing on screen really makes sense, but the show's so deeply and unashamedly ingrained in its moon logic that you don't really question it until after you've not been watching for a while.

It's incredibly impressive: making a shift this big you really risk alienating your audience, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure not only manages to not do this, but it also manages to keep its tone consistent by being so unabashedly different and strange.

I mentioned there's a lot to admire about Battle Tendency, and the other thing that I admire is simply how darn good it is. After feeling rather unimpressed with Phantom Blood, I didn't really expect much out of Battle Tendency. I'd probably have a decent enough time with it, but it wasn't going to blow me away. I'm glad to report that Battle Tendency is actually awesome, and much of it has to do with its protagonist.

Joseph Joestar, Jonathan's grandson, is our new JoJo. He's designed similarly, but he's a very different character from Jonathan. Jonathan is a classic goody two-shoes character: noble and straightforward, overcoming his opponents honorably simply by being stronger and better than them. Joseph's not this. He's brash and loud, and he fights dirty. He'll attack his opponents without warning, and most of his battles consist of him covertly laying traps for his foes to fall into, and manipulating them with mindgames. While Joseph can throw a punch, it's not his physical prowess that wins him fights, it's his ability to outsmart his opponents.

This means battle scenes in Battle Tendency are a lot more enjoyable than Phantom Blood. Joseph's opponents are also smart, meaning fights turn into a series of mindgames, won not on who punches better but on who knows what their opponent is doing. This allows for a lot more situations where it seems like Joseph has no way out, before revealing that he's been secretly in control all along, resulting in a satisfying feeling reminscent of the moment where Sherlock Holmes unravels the mystery for us at the end of his stories. He's also allow to fail and come across as a goof every now and again. His particularly enjoyable style of battling, as well as his more charismatic and relatable personality, makes him by far my favorite of the first three JoJos.

JoJo's enemies this time are the Pillar Men, who are allegedly stronger than Dio. This is the one aspect that I'm not particularly fond of. I really like the Pillar Men as opponents: They're physically overpowering, resulting in Joseph's battle style really shining, but they're also smart. They're also the ones with a sense of warrior's honor this time around, which is an interesting reversal of positions where it's actually the dishonorable rogue who's decidedly the good guy for once, as Joseph does take advantage of their sense of honor several times. However, they're positioned as this sort of precursor Gods, who've made the masks that turn people into vampires. This sort of makes them seem more powerful than Dio by default.

Unfortunately, they're simply not as threatening. Whilst demonstrated to be physically poweful, they don't exude the malice that Dio did, and Wammu and Esidisi are actually portrayed as semi-sympathetic. We're told that them accomplishing their goals would be apocalyptic, but we never get a taste of this. By the end of Phantom Blood, Dio had made a whole town into a hellhole full of flesheating zombies bound to his command, and was planning to march on the rest of the country the next night. By the end of Battle Tendency, each of the Pillar Men has killed one or two people, usually minor side characters. There's simply no menace there, and it not only results in the Pillar Men being worse villains than Dio, but it reflects poorly on Jonathan and the future Jotaro that they have so much trouble beating Dio when Joseph not only kills several vampires with ease but also disptaches three much more powerful creatures. This may be a case of the stakes having been set too high and not pulled off effectively.

There's very little else to criticize in Battle Tendency. Joining Joseph is the best cast of side characters from the three arcs I've finished. When I say this, I mainly mean Caesar Zeppeli, whose changing relationship with JoJo is one of the best depictions of male friendship in anime. It starts of troubled, but they slowly gain a respect for each other that can only be earned when you don't initially get along. Caesar is much more of his own character than anyone in Phantom Blood whose name wasn't Jonathan or Dio. There's things that define him other than his relationship with JoJo, but through their friendship he learns to look at them in a different light. Caesar is complex and nuanced, and it takes most of the entire arc to completely understand him.

We also have the enigmatic Lisa Lisa. She's not a very interesting character per say, but she is basically a perfect badass. Her purpose isn't to exercise the audience's brainmuscles as much as it is to be cool as fuck, and she accomplishes her purpose perfectly. I don't mean to sound dismissive here: a great badass is much harder to write than it's given credit for, and I have nothing but respect in just how well it's pulled off here. Lisa Lisa never comes across as the author desperately trying to please their audience: she just appears to be a naturally badass human being, and that's all she needs to be.

The more minor characters are also handled considerably better than in Phantom Blood. Speedwagon is back, but we get more of a sense of his interiority. He's not entirely defined by his relationship to JoJo anymore: you get the feeling that he feels a debt to Jonathan and is trying his best to uphold that, as well as caring deeply for Erina and Joseph for his own personal reasons. Erina also makes a return, with much more personality and a deeply entertaining relationship with her grandson. She's dry and sharp, not afraid of scolding Joseph when he deserves it, but with a rather odd (and surprisingly logical) sense of what's appropriate and not. We're also introduced to Smokey, who is barely in the show, and Stroheim who is a likeable nazi. Let me repeat that: Stroheim is a genuinely likeable nazi. If that ain't some impressive writing, I don't know what is.

Overall, Battle Tendency is an incredible improvement from Phantom Blood. Not only is it incredibly bold in just how much it changes, it also round out the edges on Phantom Blood's storytelling. The best thing about this arc is the battles. As you'd expect from a shonen battle manga adaptation, most of what happens is people fighting other people, but these are battles so mindgamesy and over the top, with a protagonist so likeable, that it stands separate from the crowd. Whilst far from flawless as a whole, Battle Tendency's battles are some of the most enjoyable in all of anime, and that makes this worth a watch in and of itself.

8/10
Whilst its numerous flaws hold it back somewhat, Battle Tendency's absolutely fantastic battles make it stand out.

Catching up with JoJo's - Part 1 of 4: Phantom Blood

Quite possibly the most interesting thing to me about the long running and very popular Doctor Who is what is sometimes misconstrued as being the core concept of the series - the idea of the protagonist ocasionally changing, whilst being roughly the same character with the same trappings. It's a brilliant idea for a long series, allowing you to vary up your protagonist. The way Doctor Who uses the concept is somewhat limited though. Rather than allowing the series to be dictated by its protagonist, it simply throws its protagonist into whatever kind of adventure they want to write at the time - be it the more historical fiction of William Hartnell's era, Colin Baker's darker and edgier sci fi, or the more grounded (literaly and figuratively) adventures of Jon Pertwee's Doctor.

This isn't to take away from Doctor Who's use of changing Doctors. Each individual Doctor is different enough to give the show a new jolt of energy whenever a change happens, and the different focus in each era has consistently kept the show fresh. What I mean by saying its use of the concept being limited is that the show doesn't completely reinvent itself with each Doctor. It's more the flow of time and changing societal attitudes (especially when it comes to what kind of fiction is popular) that dictated the show's spirit. The Doctor at each time was one that fit into these stories, rather than one that shaped what kind of stories he would be in.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure puts this dynamic on its head. Every time a new JoJo is introduced, the style of story the show is telling is dramatically changed. Jonathan's straight-forward good guy attitude is better fitted to the very personal gothic horror tale of its first arc. His succesor, the trickster rogue Joseph can not only take on less dislikeable opponents, but can move into far more ridiculous and over-the-top action sequences without feeling out of place, whilst no-nonsense tough guy Jotaro fits in what is essentially a tournament arc disguised as a journey. This results in a show that changes much more radically and much faster than Doctor Who. Whilst it makes JoJo's Bizarre Adventure feel slightly schizophrenic, it also turns it into a show that's uniquely varied for a running story.

After that excessively overlong prologue, let's move on to reviewing the first part of the series, Phantom Blood. I feels it's important to mention that I've not read the manga, and have no intention to. All of the below is based entirely on the anime. I'm about halfway through the first season of Stardust Crusaders at the time of writing.

There's a certain mythical, epic feel to Phantom Blood. It's hard to tell how much of this is due to the series' eventual monumental popularity and influence, but I believe much of it is in the story itself. It's easy to notice that, compared to both Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders, Phantom Blood takes a lot longer to get started. The first episode is a fairly regular (and extremely well told!) story about Dio appearing in Jonathan's life as his adoptive brother and making it a living hell, only to eventually be pushed back by Jonathan's pluck and courage. It takes a couple episodes of mundane house politics and evolving of relationships between the two until we arrive at the series' trademark weird and over-the-top action.

This feels like the beginning of a saga, Dio's appearence thrusting Jonathan out of his comfort zone and into a spiral of strange shit. We can contrast this to Joseph and Jotaro at the start of their arcs: Joseph starts his arc with a good grasp on Hamon and knowledge of vampire lore, whereas Jotaro begins having already taken control of his Stand, with the antagonist revealed basically as soon as the first episode starts.

The same can be said for the setting of Phantom Blood. It opts for a dark, gothic horror aesthetic, with small tinges of cosmic horror. Dio's powers put him somewhere between Dracula (through his charisma and the obvious vampire influence) and an incomprehensibly powerful Lovecraftian Old God (though this emanates more from the mask than Dio himself). The following arcs are all much lighter and less moody in their atmospheres, even when dealing with the much more powerful and dangerous Pillar Men in Battle Tendency. This gives Phantom Blood the feeling of a dark origin story: the battle of an ancient and legendary hero against an overwhelming darkness. The jump between the atmospheres of Phantom Blood and future arcs makes us feel like Jonathan's sacrifice banished this darkness, and, though greater threats than Dio eventually arise, nothing ever feels as apocalyptically unstoppable as Dio's takeover of Wind Knights' Lot.

This is why Jonathan is the perfect hero for Phantom Blood. As much as it was meant to tell its own self-contained story, Phantom Blood sets up the stage for the future JoJo's adventures. Jonathan may not be the most entertaining or likeable JoJo, but he is undeniably the most admirable. There's a feeling that he is far from as powerful as future JoJos. Joseph dispatches vampires with much more ease than Jonathan's desperate struggle against Dio, and future JoJos have Stands, which provide them with much more battle prowess than Jonathan and Joseph's Hamon.

Despite this, Jonathan is consistently the most honorable and steadfast of the JoJos. He only ever gets in fair fights and is straightforward in his battlestyle. The combination of his very gentlemanly "goody two shoes" attitude and how much weaker he seems to be than the other JoJos makes him a truly heroic figure. Of course, a truly heroic figure is exactly the kind of person you want at the basis of your family burdened with the duty of protecting the earth against all kinds of supernatural bullshit. The descendants of the noble knight having to grudgingly pick up his sword and fight his fight is a classic trope, and for good reason. It allows you to use characters that don't seem to fit the mold in the role, which leads to plenty of interesting growth. This is part of what makes future JoJos so interesting.

The other elements that make up Phantom Blood's quality are fairly uninteresting to talk about. Dio is a fantastic villain, one who can bounce between utterly hateable, magnificently entertaining, and completely terrifying with surprising ease. The story itself feels somewhat rushed, and is over surprisingly quickly. Despite that, it's satisfying, and though Jonathan is a bit bland, he works largely due to his fascinating relationship with Dio. The fights are very entertaining, even if the battle against Tarkus and Blueford takes up way too much of the arc. Unfortunately, they don't have nearly as many ridiculously silly moments as Battle Tendency, but there's a fair share of entertaining stupid in there anyway. Most of the supporting cast is forgettable with the exception of Speedwagon, who is more memorable for how ridiculous a role he plays (ie explaining every move in every fight) than his actual character. The arc is very unique and decently enjoyable, but not really all that special outside of being the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.


6/10

It really is its connection to the rest of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that makes Phantom Blood interesting. Taken on its own, it's a unique enough piece of fun, silly action anime, but as the first chapter of this insane saga it's great: the foundation it builds for the rest of JoJo's to stand on is about as solid as it gets. Unfortunately, you won't really know that watching it, thinking that you're simply getting a slightly above average bit of silly fun.

Until Battle Tendency rolls around, anyway.

Kanamemo - Pleasant Enough

As the short post-exam period of rest was about to end, I decided to do something unprecedented: hit random on Crunchyroll until I got a 13 episode show, and marathoned it. This show was Kanamemo, and, as expected from randomly picking a show from the largest library of anime I'm legally allowed to watch, it was a fairly mediocre one.

Kanamemo is a slice of life following Kana, a girl whose grandmother recently passed away, leaving her without a guardian. She finds herself working for the Fuhshin Gazette, a small local newspaper, as a delivery girl in exchange for room and board, along with a surprisingly large number of colorful characters.

The Fuhshin Gazette and its surrroundings' denizens are both the show's greatest weakness and strength. On the one hand, some of these characters are really good, and the large number of them means there's a lot of variety in their interactions. On the other hand, there's entirely too many: five workers at the gazette, not counting Kana, as well as a worker for a rival gazette, and four minor recurring characters. This means that some of the good characters, like the supremely likeable Hinata, end up struggling to have the screentime they deserve.

There's two exceptional mentions on both ends of the spectrum. The only downright bad character in this show is Haruka, the resident comedy lesbian lolicon. We all know how this character is: they've got the one joke, namely that they think the young girls around them are cute, and try to touch them, which makes them feel uncomfortable and hahahaha isn't that funny except it almost never actually is. Not only is Haruka a very unoriginal take on this concept, she's one of the characters to get the most screentime, constantly doing the same goddamn joke over and over again. She also happens to be, counter to tradition, a lot older than the (underage!) girls she pervs out on, so it's actually incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Some of the shit this woman says is genuinely messed up, and it really doesn't work as comic relief. The fact that she's a woman doesn't make it any less messed up. I would dare say that Haruka is the single biggest blot on Kanamemo's quality.

On the other hand, you have Yume and Yuuki. Yume's your typical energetic and cheerful "genki girl" character who runs loops around everyone else, and is individually the most likeable character in the show. Yuuki is also a very standard character: the quiet girl who's kind and gentle. The big thing that makes these two unique is that they're in a established, happy relationship from the first to the last episode of the show. If having two anime characters be in a  pre-established, continued, relationship instead of dragging the start (or end) of the relationship out for ages, be it for comedy or drama, isn't impressive enough, the fact that this is a show with a happy gay couple in it that's not made a big deal is impressive enough. There's unfortunately still not enough of this stuff out there, and I feel like I need to commend Kanamemo for getting it so right.

The fact that these two are incredibly cute together, to the point where I let out a massive "awwww" at almost every romantic interaction they had, is also something I want to commend. Yume and Yuuki are definitely the best thing in Kanamemo by far. Unfortunately, we don't get to see the two interact all that much, focusing on Kana, Saki and shivers Haruka a lot more. It's a shame, as Kanamemo gets better the more it allows those two to interact on screen.

As for the rest of the characters, they range from bland to good. Kana is a typical protagonist for a 13 year old girl. Her unique trait is that her overactive imagination often leads to her overreacting to things. Whilst amusing (and, personally for me, very relatable), it's not really enough to separate her from the pack. The outwardly strict but secretly kind and sensitive chief Saki is likeable, but I'd argue she has too much screentime for what's a character without much substance. I'm also not sure that making her inexplicably an elementary schooler makes any sense or adds anything whatsoever. As mentioned previously Hinata, the tomboyish girl who keeps failing to get into college, is also likeable, but suffers from the problem of barely getting any screentime, being by far the least developed out of all the main characters.

The final character is Mika, the delivery girl for a rival newspaper and Kana's classmate and eventual friend. She's pretty much a straight up tsundere who seems to be here to provide Kana with someone her own age to interact with from time to time. There's signs that she was meant to be a much bigger part of the show, but is kind of underutilized. Despite having a prominent name card in the OP, she plays a very small part in most episodes, only really acting as a main character in one or two episodes.

There's very little else to say about Kanamemo. There's an outstandingly good couple, an outstandingly awful and annoying comic relief character, and a bunch of characters in the middle. Pretty much everything else is standard slice of life comedy fare, though with a somewhat wackier sense of humor than the average show in the genre. If the reader knows slice of life comedies, they know what they're in for, and otherwise I don't think I can really explain it properly. This is one of the least interesting shows I've ever seen, in the sense that there's very little unique about it. Yume and Yuuki push it just out of perfectly average territory, but not by much. Kanamemo is nice enough to watch, and was a good way to kill a day. I can't muster the enthusiasm to recommend it, but it's definitely not bad. I'm sure you can find a better slice of life comedy if that's what you're looking for, but this isn't a bad one.

6/10
Kanamemo is only pushed out of mediocrity by virtue of having one of the most adorable couples ever on screen.