Some Bizarre Hopes for This Mask of JoJo's

~Phantom Blood~
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Part 1
By Hirohiko Araki
Translated By Evan Galloway
Amazon ~ Powell's

Young Jonathan Joestar’s life is forever changed when he meets his new adopted brother, Dio. For some reason, Dio has a smoldering grudge against him and derives pleasure from seeing him suffer. But every man has his limits, as Dio finds out. This is the beginning of a long and hateful relationship!

This month's pick in Maven of the Eventide's (aka Elisa Hansen's) Vampire Book Club was a first for me: my very first official (not fan-translated) Manga ever, and also my first foray into the world of JoJo. Sure, I've seen enough of JoJo here and there to know of him—his style, the references, and what have you—but I'd never actually gone and experienced it for myself. Not even an episode of the anime. So, with an open mind and bated breath, I took the plunge into the bizarre world of JoJo and DIO!

Okay, that was a LOT to process. Where do I even begin?

I guess I can start with our main characters. We're first introduced to Dio Brando, a stuck up kid with a chip on his shoulder and zero respect for his dying father. On his deathbed, his father tells him to seek out a man whose life he saved (allegedly) so that he can be raised in luxury, and that he should become rich himself. Dio accepts this "inheritance" but vows to do so only for himself, not his scumbag of a father. This sets Dio up fairly early as a sympathetic character: a poor upbringing by an alcoholic, lying, scumbag of a father, and orphaned at age 12. He's then sent to live a life of luxury with what he presumes to be a couple blue bloods, and vows to become rich and powerful in spite of his origin by using any means he can.

And then he kicks a dog. Welp, there went that. He also forces a girl to kiss him, further tortures animals, and poisons people. And that's all before becoming a vampire. Yeah, if the dog kicking didn't clue you in, Dio is the villain of our story, and he certainly earns that moniker. While he may evoke a bit of sympathy for his goal of tearing down the elites, his eventual abandonment of this goal, as well as his methods of torture and murder quickly killed any kinship I might have felt with him.

And things only got worse when he became a vampire. In terms of villainy and personality, he became very one note: namely, "I, DIO, am a GOD, and will rule the world!" There's no longer any ambition, or fear, or even disgust, there is only maniacal laughter and praising himself every other sentence. And yeah, sure, he was always arrogant, but he was also clever and careful, and both of those personality traits suddenly disappear when he's a vampire. He's fun and campy and very over-the-top evil, but he's so one-note he's also kinda boring.

Unfortunately JoJo, our titular character, isn't much better. We first meet him also at age 12 as a brash, but good-hearted kid. He gets along with others okay, but has always been a bit of a loner, such that his dog, Danny, is by far his bestest friend. When his new adopted brother, Dio, shows up, he's quick to offer a friendly hand, but finds the new boy alarmingly destructive. Still, he would never badmouth anybody without concrete proof, so keeps his opinions to himself and suffers through the abuse. Years later, he has grown up to be a strong (and somewhat huge) young man with an interest in archeology. This interest has one minor use to the plot and is never spoken of again.

JoJo is a passive character, allowing things to happen around him before he takes any action himself: his father gets sick, he leaves to search for a cure; Dio forces a kiss on a girl, JoJo fights back; a strange man appears on the side of the road, JoJo accepts his offer to train; etc. About the only proactive things he does are study archaeology, which is only used once, and decide to travel at the end of the book (though for all we know, it may have been suggested by his companion). Not that a character shouldn't react to what's happening around him, but when that's all he does for the entirety of the book, it gets old.

It also doesn't help that JoJo doesn't have much personality-wise. He's a pure soul, always assuming the best of people, always sticking up for those in trouble, and always doing his best to help. He's not the smartest kid (though that seems to have improved during the time-skip) but he's tenacious and a quick learner when it comes to physical training, mastering the strange man's techniques in only a week. He's quintessentially good and hardworking, but he's just not as fun as his nemesis, which makes rooting for him kinda hard.

And that's why he has so many hype-men behind him. Zeppeli, or that strange man I've been mentioning, is JoJo's teacher and the all-important exposition-giver of the book. With so many strange and bizarre happenings, it's easy to get confused, so Zeppeli often steps in to give necessary backstory or explanations of techniques. He's joined on the sidelines by Speedwagon, aka the character more useless than an actual child. I swear, this man has one cool moment during his introduction, then spends the rest of the book either bemoaning his uselessness or hyping up his comrades. Though I suppose eye-candy serves its own purpose.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention the art in these. The male characters are all total beefcakes, with muscles for days. JoJo especially looks built like a tank. The women weren't waifish either, though still keeping a more hourglass figure. The action was a bit hard for me to follow at times, but I'm willing to chalk that up to tiredness and unfamiliarity with the medium. But what really impressed me were the horror shots. Sure, I knew there were vampires, but I had no idea about the body horror and graphic gore this book contained. Most of it was stylized enough that I didn't have an issue, but I can see how some scenes wouldn't sit well with others (one part with a carotid artery made book club members sick). I'd definitely be interested in checking out the anime for a comparison, both for the art and the story.

Speaking of which, the story was fine for the most part, but with it lacking compelling characters (for me) I was not as drawn in as I would have liked. I was most engaged during the first volume, which covered the setup of the childhoods of JoJo and Dio, the vampire-making mask of the Aztecs, and the ultimate call-to-action for JoJo. The mask itself was an interesting macguffin, though it seemed to lose its usefulness after the first volume. I think it's mentioned once that it can be used to create vampires from corpses, but since it's never shown again, it seems mostly worthless after Dio's transformation. The first fight scene was also pretty cool, with Dio showing off his new vampire powers and JoJo barely able to fight back.

But then the story devolves into nothing but fight scenes. We get JoJo's training, his first fight using that training, a couple harder fights with more players, and then the major confrontation. I guess I knew this was an action series, so it wasn't really surprising that the second and third volumes were mostly full of fight scenes, but at the same time, that's not what the first volume really set up. I was into the cleverness, the nuance, the experimentation, and the slow-building dread of the first volume, and for all that to be pushed aside for fight after fight after fight, with no plan other than to fight was kinda disappointing.

Still, the book does have its interesting and charming elements. I really liked the idea of the Ripples/Hamon, and their life-giving potential being the equal opposite to the vampire's destructive power. It was cool seeing an "Eastern" technique originate from India (rather than China or Japan), and having that up against vampires originating from Central America, all going head-to-head in Victorian England was wild. Plus there were some genuinely funny, shocking, and awesome moments that helped break up the monotony of punching, usually coming from Dio or one of the other villains:

Overall, I'm glad I took a chance with Phantom Blood. While it suffers a bit from its over-reliance on action over characters (possibly a product of its 80s publication), it still has enough quirkiness to keep it endearing. If you enjoy gothic horror, over-the-top villainy, 80s-inspired musclemen, or other Japanese entertainment (anime/manga) and you haven't checked out JoJo yet, I'd definitely recommend it. And if you're interested, check out the Vampire Book Club's synopsis and discussion, and join us in the future for more fangtastic and bizarre tales.