JoJo's Bizarre Blog

Part 1

Artstyle:

When I say that the anime carried part 1's artstyle I mean it was holding Araki by his hands and feet. Phantom Blood is by far the least visually appealing of the manga. Don;t get me wrong, I still think it's very cool, but Araki's sense of anatomy was...questionable. Lot's of the time people had muscles that didn't even exist! It's still charming in it's own way of course, for one I really enjoyed the bold, flowy shading.

Story:

The story is quite interesting, sometimes exciting and intense, sometimes a little boring, and sometimes there were moments where I wondered if Araki had a plothole he *desperatly* needed to fill. The leaf glider bit was something that caught me off gaurd when i first watched the anime, it made enough sense for JoJo's though. I guess those spontaniouse twists are part of the series main appeal so I'm not exactly dissapointed. I also appreciate a good evil dude vs good dude conflict where the bad guy technically wins, granted I was sobbing when Jonathan was holding Dio's head in such a kind manner. Jonathan, he's killed multitudes of people and YOU why're you still being so nice to him?

Characters:

My favourite aspect has got to be the characters, especially the dynamic between Jonathan and Dio, they're absolute foils to eachother. Dio being selfish, cowardly, and possesing a god complex really references how Araki intended him to represent the opposite of humanity. This also makes Jonathans otherwise mildly boring character that more interesting. We've all read about a perfect protagonist, and in most cases that's reallyyyyy boring, but Jonathan is meant to serve as the representation of the good of humanity, or justice embodied. His whole bloodline carries that with them as they face (mostly Dio's) evil. I'm also very for the idea of a villian who's literally just evil, Dio may have had a terrible childhood but I don't think that exactly plays into why he acts the way he does. He easily exploited Jonathans good nature just so he could see him suffer, probably to make himself feel superior. A lot of what Dio does is for power over others.

Of course we cannot forget of the best girl: Robert EO Speedwagon! Dude, I love Speedwagon! He's so cool and the wealth he uses to help the JoJo's is far beyond generational, his relationship with Jonathan carries down in that way. Where the JoJo's inheretid Jonathans will they also inherited Speedwagons friendship. I think he's the last Jobro to not have powers too which explais why he's not very prevelent in fights. I also enjoy how he acts as the narrator although I wish he would have had a little more action, he wasn't really able to do anything much except use his super hot abs to thaw Baron Zeppeli's arm, have a cool razor hat, and was able to tell just how rotten Dio was from a glance. I'm also severely dissapointed at how the anime cut the conversation between him and Baron Zeppelli 'bout how he wanted to use hamon, that part was so funny and also gave us more context about how he really wanted to help. I don't think the effect of conversation where he's folded in pain cuz Zeppeli jabbed him w/his finger wrong really has the same effect as if we had heard the converation prior. Him and Jonathan should've gotten married instead tbh </3.

I'm not a big fan of Erina's character , maybe it's cuz Araki used to kinda suck at writing women. She was sweet enough but she had 0 personality :( the only stuff we get on her is she loves Jonathan deeply, which is fair (we all do), and she's sensitive. She's not a bad character I just wish we got more.

Themes:

According to Araki Phantom Blood's themes are "why humanity is wonderful" and "being alive" which is ironic to a degree because Jonathan dies at the end. Maybe it's his will that lives on? Araki also really likes the theme of fate and I think that's also why Jonathans bloodline is tormented by Dio until the end. It was JoJo's fate to face Dio and it was his ancestors who had to carry on his fate until Dio's influence was completely wiped of the earth. This also helps explain why Jolyne's soul was renamed Irene, cuz a JoJo wasn't needed anymore.

Chapter by chapter and episode by episode:

Coming...someday.

Part 2

Part 3

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Part 4

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Part 5

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Part 6

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Part 7

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Part 8

Chapter by chapter and episode by episode:

This is where all the chapter by chapter reviews will go since the site is lagging a little bit, I'll spare you the accidental nuke by redirecting you to a different, more pleasent accidental nuke!

Part 9

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