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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Vol 1-5
Jan. 2nd, 2008 12:14 amAh, days where I mostly read sane manga, where have you gone?
Currently somewhere around 100 volumes in Japan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure isn't actually one series, but several series under one title, split into arcs that cover different generations of the Joestar family, and the name of the lead of each story can be read as JoJo. The first 5 volumes(well, the end of Vol 5 starts a new story) are a gothic vampire story featuring Jonathan Joestar, a dim but well meaning young man. Ok, frankly, Jonathan is an extreme version of the Luke Skywalker/Will Turner kind of character: he gets by mostly on meaning well, determination, luck, and latching onto smarter people with better survival skills than he has. Except you'd need about 30 Jonathans to get close to Luke or Will's intelligence.
When Jonathan was an infant, his family's carriage was wrecked, killing his mother and injuring his father. A man named Dario Brando was in the middle of robbing the wreck when Jorge came to and mistakenly thought Dario was helping him, and swore to repay Dario one day. When he died, Dario told his son, Dio, about the Joestars, and wrote Jorge a letter asking him to take care of Dio. Dio went to the Joestars, planning to destroy them and take the money for himself. He wins Jorge's affections with manners an ettiquette, while secretly destroying Jonathan's life, making him look bad if front of Jorge, stealing the first kiss of (and almost doing more) Jonathan's girlfriend, Erina, brutally murdering his dog, and manipluating all of Jonathan's friends into hating him. Seven years later, Jonathan learns Dio has been poisoning Jorge and orders the household to keep Dio away from Jorge, and goes to London to find out where Dio got the poison so he can get an antidote. In London, Jonathan meets D.E.O. Speedwagon, who initially fights Jonathan, but becomes his sidekick because...ok, frankly, he fell in love with Jonathan. There is, honestly, no other way to explain it, and he was blatantly smitten the rest of the arc. I couldn't deny the slash if I wanted to. Didn't make him any less of a manly man, though. Unfortunately for him, Jonathan was completely oblivious to the prospect of anyone but Erina as a romantic interest.
Meanwhile, Dio was still back at the Very Gothic country estate(did I mention yet that this story is set in 1880s England? I think I forgot...) investigating a stone mask Jonathan had been investigating, and learned that it could turn its wearer into a vampire, and give him godlike powers, including the ability to turn others into vampires. Insert a few volumes of endless, insane action and gothic horror, Speedwagon mooning over Jonathan, Jonathan mooning over Erina, and a Mystic Mentor I won't even try to explain who probably wanted to "Educate" them all. And, of course, Dio being smarter than everyone else combined.
I honestly don't know how to properly explain the series. Though insane, it was easy to follow while reading, but I can't begin to think of a way to explain most of it. it's incredibly violent and often gory, yet there's always an intelligence to the violence and a lot of thinking put into the fights, even by Jonathan. And the art is...I swear, Rob Liefeld learned to draw tracing this stuff, then added a few bulges, a bunch of lines to make faces all pinched and scowlly, and took out the feet. The anatomy is insane...there is no way Jonathan, Dio, or several others could support their weight without crushing their ankles, arm muscles are bigger than heads, when a kid is kicked, the foot that kicked him is bigger than he is, arms and legs seem to have no bones during fights, and some of the poses defy belief. And yet, somehow, it works.
Somehow, I like it and want to read more, though I can only handle a few chapters at a time. The tail end of volume 5 is about Jonathan's grandson. I have caught his name, but he's essentially Jonathan's polar opposite, being nothing resembling a gentleman and having no manners, being about 500 times smarter, and being 102% a grandma's boy.
Currently somewhere around 100 volumes in Japan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure isn't actually one series, but several series under one title, split into arcs that cover different generations of the Joestar family, and the name of the lead of each story can be read as JoJo. The first 5 volumes(well, the end of Vol 5 starts a new story) are a gothic vampire story featuring Jonathan Joestar, a dim but well meaning young man. Ok, frankly, Jonathan is an extreme version of the Luke Skywalker/Will Turner kind of character: he gets by mostly on meaning well, determination, luck, and latching onto smarter people with better survival skills than he has. Except you'd need about 30 Jonathans to get close to Luke or Will's intelligence.
When Jonathan was an infant, his family's carriage was wrecked, killing his mother and injuring his father. A man named Dario Brando was in the middle of robbing the wreck when Jorge came to and mistakenly thought Dario was helping him, and swore to repay Dario one day. When he died, Dario told his son, Dio, about the Joestars, and wrote Jorge a letter asking him to take care of Dio. Dio went to the Joestars, planning to destroy them and take the money for himself. He wins Jorge's affections with manners an ettiquette, while secretly destroying Jonathan's life, making him look bad if front of Jorge, stealing the first kiss of (and almost doing more) Jonathan's girlfriend, Erina, brutally murdering his dog, and manipluating all of Jonathan's friends into hating him. Seven years later, Jonathan learns Dio has been poisoning Jorge and orders the household to keep Dio away from Jorge, and goes to London to find out where Dio got the poison so he can get an antidote. In London, Jonathan meets D.E.O. Speedwagon, who initially fights Jonathan, but becomes his sidekick because...ok, frankly, he fell in love with Jonathan. There is, honestly, no other way to explain it, and he was blatantly smitten the rest of the arc. I couldn't deny the slash if I wanted to. Didn't make him any less of a manly man, though. Unfortunately for him, Jonathan was completely oblivious to the prospect of anyone but Erina as a romantic interest.
Meanwhile, Dio was still back at the Very Gothic country estate(did I mention yet that this story is set in 1880s England? I think I forgot...) investigating a stone mask Jonathan had been investigating, and learned that it could turn its wearer into a vampire, and give him godlike powers, including the ability to turn others into vampires. Insert a few volumes of endless, insane action and gothic horror, Speedwagon mooning over Jonathan, Jonathan mooning over Erina, and a Mystic Mentor I won't even try to explain who probably wanted to "Educate" them all. And, of course, Dio being smarter than everyone else combined.
I honestly don't know how to properly explain the series. Though insane, it was easy to follow while reading, but I can't begin to think of a way to explain most of it. it's incredibly violent and often gory, yet there's always an intelligence to the violence and a lot of thinking put into the fights, even by Jonathan. And the art is...I swear, Rob Liefeld learned to draw tracing this stuff, then added a few bulges, a bunch of lines to make faces all pinched and scowlly, and took out the feet. The anatomy is insane...there is no way Jonathan, Dio, or several others could support their weight without crushing their ankles, arm muscles are bigger than heads, when a kid is kicked, the foot that kicked him is bigger than he is, arms and legs seem to have no bones during fights, and some of the poses defy belief. And yet, somehow, it works.
Somehow, I like it and want to read more, though I can only handle a few chapters at a time. The tail end of volume 5 is about Jonathan's grandson. I have caught his name, but he's essentially Jonathan's polar opposite, being nothing resembling a gentleman and having no manners, being about 500 times smarter, and being 102% a grandma's boy.
