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But any qualms one would have with Phantom Blood should be quelled with Part 2: Battle Tendency. Battle Tendency removes itself from the slow pacing and odd style of writing that makes Phantom Blood a bit weak, and presents us a story that has immediate thrills and intrigue. We follow the story of Joseph Joestar (The best JoJo), a rude New Yorker with the Ripple ability, who uses it more for personal reasons, rather than heroic, like his grandfather, Jonathan. This changes when a new supernatural force of superhumans, called the Pillar Men, begin to plot the resurrection of their leader and take over the world. This part does kinda suck during the set-up phase, but thats pretty damn short, and features just enough ridiculous sequences and vocal delivery to get you through. But once the battles with the Pillar Men begin, it hits a level that Phantom Blood simply couldnt reach. This is where the creativity with the powers and fights begins to hit its stride. My favorite power, off the top of my head, is AC/DC using hi blood vessels to attack. And dont forget about the final battle with Cars, which is seriously some of the best action ever conceived. Reading the manga, Im shocked it made the transition to animation as well, and as improved, as it did.

Stardust Crusaders is where the franchise shifts in style, introducing a new power, called Stands, in order to keep the battle concepts fresh. It works quite well in this regard, too! This follows the story of Jotaro Kujo (The worst JoJo), who is summoned by Joseph to travel across the world in order to stop Dio, who has been revived into a lame villain. So yeah, Im obviously not super into this part. It does some great things, and manages to remain intriguing for the most part, but so much of it just kinda sucks, and heres my theory why. Stardust Crusaders went for a more episodic plot when compared to the previous two. It prides itself on the creation of Stands, and presenting interesting ways to bring them into battle. Each stand represents a tarot arcana, and each power has at least some minor correlation with the arcana. Each of them, beyond the main characters, are villains hired by Dio to kill the Joestars before they can reach him. But heres the thing: They only have 50 days to accomplish this task. So we have a plot that is presented in an episodic manner, but immediately gives the characters a constraint in the form of a time limit. This absolutely ruins the pacing. When it comes down to it, barely any of the battles these characters are involved in truly have plot significance. Theyre merely obstacles on the path to Dio. But because of the time limit constantly in the back of our minds, it has this added layer of pointlessness. The main group doesnt even seem to care too much about the time limit either, as its rarely brought up as they consistently waste time fighting random lackeys. By the end, it feels like the plot involving Jotaros mother may as well not exist, because its taken nearly as many episodes as days in the story to get through. This had no reason to be 48 episodes long. It only adapted 4 more volumes of manga than the 26-episode first series, which had near perfect pacing. Its a shame this major flaw gets in the way of fantastic cinematography, art direction, vocal performances, and some truly creative battles, but I just cant get past how pointless most of the story feels.
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