What do you get when you have a Japanese who's a fan of Western horror movies and pop music and who's been involved in – and come to despise – the fashion industry?
No, no, not Kill La Kill, although there's certainly aspects of commonality.
What you get is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. A manga by Hirohiko Araki which began its run waaaay back in 1987, it had a few sporadic one-off OVA/movie animations many years later, but only in 2012 did it begin its run as an anime (which is primarily what I know it from; I've seen pieces of the manga).
As of this writing, the anime has covered the stories "Phantom Blood", "Battle Tendency", and "Stardust Crusaders", with "Diamond is Unbreakable" starting this year.
All of the stories center around a member of the Joestar family whose first name also begins with the "jo" sound(Jonathan, Joseph, Jotaro, Josephine, etc.) who is drawn, sooner or later, into conflict with supernatural powers. Each major story arc features a different central character, although sometimes prior characters recur (for instance, in "Stardust Crusaders" the main character is Jotaro, but his grandfather Joseph is still present and active as a major player).
Each story arc also derives from, and plays with the tropes of, a subgenre of horror. "Phantom Blood" is a classic Gothic horror, with a "bad seed" named Dio being adopted into the wealthy Joestar family; all of the classic supernatural tropes are played with emphatically, with the "bad seed" at first convincing everyone of his goodness and causing trouble for Joseph, and then eventually Dio choosing to take a risk for supernatural power.
On the surface, this could make for a rather pedestrian retelling of any number of old stories. Typically for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, however, this is all done in a ridiculously overblown fashion. There is never any drama so small that it cannot be turned to melodrama, never any pose so casual that it cannot be exaggerated to the point of parody. When Dio and Joseph finally confront each other and the truth comes out, there are absolutely epic-levels of Large Ham for both.
Each major story has a slightly different dramatic approach. "Phantom Blood" is a Gothic Hammer Film, complete with a bittersweet ending. "Battle Tendency" is more Indiana Jones. "Stardust Crusaders" is a shonen "race against time" sequence of challenges and battles.
Araki's dislike of the fashion industry shows by his deliberate use of the more ridiculous poses and imagery of the industry – which he turns into combat styles that manage to be both ridiculous and oddly cool at the same time by using incredibly muscled men instead of women (his female characters often use less of these over-dynamic poses than the men do). This echoes the recent "Hawkeye Initiative", except that Araki was doing this twenty-five years ago.
His love of pop music manifests even more overtly: characters throughout the series have names of pop bands, so much so that the American translations had to change them in order to prevent possible lawsuits. For instance, one of the allies Joseph Joestar acquires is named R. E. O Speedwagon. In addition, he envisioned the openings for the anime to fit to particular songs – and managed to get both Yes and the Bangles to re-record versions of their songs to fit these openings (Yes' "Roundabout" synchronizes with the combined openings for "Phantom Blood" and "Battle Tendency", while the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" synchs with both seasons of "Stardust Crusaders".)
None of this would work at all if Araki did not have a talent for storytelling, but he does. He plots out his stories meticulously, so that amid the parody and sometimes out-and-out comedy there are serious dramas, as well as melodramas, being played out. In particular he has a gift for true horror that even the oddities of JoJo's universe cannot blunt. The Stone Mask that can transform a human into a nearly-indestructible vampire is a creepy creation indeed… and the even more monstrous Pillarmen are quite honestly terrifying, beings of stone and unnaturally tenacious life that could literally threaten the world.
Against these monsters, the Joestar family wield various powers, whose advantages and limitations Araki has clearly thought out in detail. The first is Hamon, literally translating to "Ripple", a technique which allows a user to control their own spiritual energy and use it for a variety of effects (most importantly, they can generate an exact equivalent of sunlight, which will destroy vampires and their creations); the second, showing up first in "Stardust Crusaders", is called a Stand. Stands are individual supernatural manifestations from the souls of their users, undetectable by non-Stand users but quite capable of real-world effects. Stands can be awesome, frightening, creepy, or sometimes ridiculous, but all of them can pose significant danger to others, and some are exceedingly powerful.
I enjoy the hell out of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure; it works as a melodramatic shonen series, but has its own addition of, well, bizarre features that take it from a simple horror adventure series to a strangely impressive artform. Currently, I am about halfway through "Stardust Crusaders".
If you're looking for something a little different in your anime viewing, I highly recommend JoJo's Bizarre Adventure!
Your comments or questions welcomed!
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