JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Follow the intergenerational feud between the Joestar Family and various forces of evil, the most prominent of which is Dio Brando and his followers.
Vivian's Take
The Hook
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is the anime equivalent of a fashion show staged inside a thunderstorm. Since 2012, this adaptation of the decades-spanning manga has followed the Joestar bloodline across generations — phantom vampires, ancient masks, psychic manifestations called Stands — in a feud with the immortal evil of Dio Brando that refuses to die, much like Dio himself.
Nothing else looks like it, sounds like it, or poses like it. JoJo turned dramatic pointing into a cultural language. It treats every confrontation like opera and every outfit like haute couture. To watch JoJo is to accept that subtlety was never on the menu — and to discover you never wanted it.
The Deep Cut
What works is the generational structure. Each part hands the story to a new Joestar in a new era with a new genre — gothic horror, globe-trotting adventure, murder mystery, prison break — so the series reinvents itself every time it risks getting stale. The Stand battles are the smartest fight choreography in anime: psychic powers with bizarrely specific rules, won by wit rather than power levels. And the style — that impossible, fashion-magazine, color-shifting style — is genuinely fine art wearing a shonen costume.
What doesn't: the on-ramp is brutal. Part one is a slow, melodramatic 19th-century vampire story that looks and moves nothing like what the show becomes, and the series asks you to trust it for a full part before it transforms. Some parts sag in the middle; the fandom's intensity can make the whole thing feel like homework. But the 8.5 rating is the consensus of everyone who made it through — and almost nobody who made it through regrets it.
Who it's for: anyone bored by anime that all looks the same, anyone who thinks style is substance (correct), anyone who wants to understand half the memes on the internet, and anyone ready to have their definition of dramatic permanently recalibrated.
The Story So Far, Part by Part
JoJo's engine is its anthology structure: every part is a new Joestar, a new era, a new genre. Part 1, Phantom Blood, is 1880s England gothic horror — gentleman Jonathan Joestar versus his adoptive brother Dio Brando, who dons an ancient Stone Mask and becomes a vampire. Part 2, Battle Tendency, jumps to the 1930s with Jonathan's grandson Joseph, a trickster who fights the ancient Pillar Men with Hamon, a breathing-powered martial art. Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, is the famous one: 1980s globetrotting adventure as Jotaro Kujo and allies chase the resurrected Dio across Egypt, introducing Stands — psychic manifestations with wildly specific powers that become the franchise's signature. Part 4, Diamond Is Unbreakable, is a small-town murder mystery in the seaside town of Morioh, following Josuke Higashikata's hunt for a serial killer. Part 5, Golden Wind, is a Naples crime saga with Giorno Giovanna infiltrating the gang Passione. Part 6, Stone Ocean, is a Florida prison break starring Jolyne Cujoh — the franchise's first female JoJo — and ends with nothing less than the reset of the universe itself. Each part stands alone, but the bloodline — and the poses — connect them all.
The Cast Across Generations
Because every part recasts, JoJo has one of the deepest voice benches in anime. Takehito Koyasu's Dio Brando is iconic — silk, menace, and immortal theatricality. Daisuke Ono defined Jotaro Kujo's stoic growl; Fairouz Ai made Jolyne Cujoh a star turn for the ages; Kenshō Ono gave Giorno Giovanna his golden dream; Yūki Kaji's Koichi Hirose carried part four's heart. The newest chapter brings a fresh ensemble: Shōgo Sakata as Johnny Joestar and Yōhei Azakami as Gyro Zeppeli lead Steel Ball Run, with Kaito Ishikawa as the menacing Diego Brando and Rie Takahashi as Lucy Steel. Studio david production has animated the saga since 2012 with unusual continuity of care, and both Japanese and English dubs are widely available.
The Anime Run — and Steel Ball Run
The manga, by Hirohiko Araki, has run in Shueisha's magazines since 1987 — one of the longest continuous visions in comics. The david production anime began in October 2012 and adapted Parts 1 through 6 across a decade, with Stone Ocean (2021–2022) released in three batches on Netflix. Then came the announcement fans had waited years for: at the JoJoday event on April 12, 2025, david production confirmed the anime adaptation of Part 7, Steel Ball Run — the fan-favorite arc many consider Araki's masterpiece. It premiered exclusively on Netflix on March 19, 2026, with a 47-minute opening episode, the "1st STAGE," followed by a second stage of weekly episodes beginning September 25, 2026. Set during an 1890 cross-country horse race across America, it follows paraplegic ex-jockey Johnny Joestar and the mysterious Gyro Zeppeli through a conspiracy reaching the White House itself. Beyond it, the manga continues with Part 8, JoJolion (2011–2021), and the ongoing Part 9, The JOJOLands, which began in 2023.
Reception
Critics have treated JoJo as the rare long-running shonen that gets weirder and better. The anime holds an 8.5 audience score on TMDB, and each new part has broadened its reach — Golden Wind was a breakout hit, and Stone Ocean's Netflix run pulled the franchise into the mainstream anime conversation. Reviewers consistently single out the Stand battles as anime's most inventive action writing: fights resolved by lateral thinking and absurdly specific power rules rather than escalating power levels. The series has earned its reputation as a critic-proof oddity that somehow also satisfies critics — style as substance, executed with total commitment.
Cultural Context
JoJo is a cornerstone of internet culture in a way few anime achieve. The poses, the sound effects rendered as text, the sheer quotability — it colonized meme culture years before meme culture was a phrase. "It was me, Dio!" and the freeze-frame "To Be Continued" arrow are ambient internet furniture. High fashion noticed too: Araki's art has been exhibited in the Louvre, and the series' influence on design, music videos, and streetwear hides in plain sight. More deeply, JoJo proved that shonen anime could be avant-garde — that a battle series could also be a decades-long art project about fate, blood, and flamboyance. In a medium that rewards formula, JoJo is the beautiful exception that keeps mutating. Bizarre isn't a warning. It's a promise.
