Background / My personal experience with JoJo
I've been familiar with JoJo for some time now. In 2015/2016 I was not much into anime, but this show was so incredibly popular that it drew my attention. Said that, I didn't want to watch it, but a friend of mine convinced me to do so in early 2017.
At first it was an odd experience. Just like everyone else, I was surprised by the more bizarre and unusual aspects of the show, but overall, I didn't like it a lot. I came close to dropping it, but watched the whole thing as my previously mentioned friend insisted for me to do so.
I recently rewatched the whole thing a came to a more mature and thoughtful opinion of the first 2 parts. Though I still don't consider it to be an excellent anime, I have to say that I liked it more this time around.
This review contain spoilers and it's mainly intended for people who've already watched the show.
Part 1 - Phantom Blood
Phantom Blood is easily of one the Jojo parts that I disliked the most. The show starts with a basic introduction of the characters and the world that the whole series take place in. It introduces things that would become staples throughout the franchise: Jojo being the main protagonist, Dio Brando, Hamon, the stone masks, vampires, the Zeppeli family and Speedwagon (Foundation).
All the aspects are pretty basic, and that's because of the time period that the manga it was written in (1987–1988). There's a lot of clichés and not a lot of innovations.
It starts slow, with the introduction of the hero Jonathan Joestar, the generic nice guy, and Dio Brando, the nefarious villain. Jonathan is good and Dio is bad, that's the basis of the whole story.
The middle pack of episodes are average to say the least. There aren't any particularly good fights, the standout being the Bruford/Tarkus sequence. Dio becoming a vampire is something that enables Jonathan to get a power as well. The Hamon is nothing innovative but serves its purpose of being the ideal counter to vampiric powers. I just get a little bothered with the fact that Jonathan becomes a master of Hamon in like half an episode.
The end is just as everyone watching expects, with Jonathan, the good, guy defeating Dio, the bad guy, in a really boring fight and stopping his villainous plans to dominate the world.
We thankfully get U-turn in the last episode, with Dio showing up in the epilogue and managing to beat Jonathan and stealing his body, but ending up inside a coffin in a sinking ship stranded in the middle of the ocean.
There are not a lot of good or memorable characters in this part. Speedwagon and Bruford are the ones I liked the most. Jonathan, the protagonist, is a beacon of goodness and is the purest and most righteous guy in the earth. I don't like him, but I can understand him being made like that, because Dio, the antagonist, is the incarnation of evil and has no other motivation aside from just being evil. There's a clear dichotomy and the anime just goes from there with little to no character development. Zeppeli is the one I feel like had the most potential but lacks a good motivation and seems like is there to just be a stepping stone for the protagonist.
Visuals and Design
This is the section that surprised the most. I absolutely love the visuals of this season (both parts 1 and 2). The show looks gorgeous and is pretty well animated, all the fighting scenes looks very good and considering that the source material is not that good and it's kinda dated, so we can see that the studio (David Production) did a magnificent job.
Part 2 - Battle Tendency
Battle Tendency contrasts a with Phantom Blood in a lot of ways. I like it a because didn't fell in the same clichés as part 1. The protagonist is a hotheaded, impulsive and overall unethical guy, the perfect kind to be the hero of the story. The main villains are also not plain evil, as they are just following their nature. The second part extends a lot of things there were brought up in the first part and introduces a thrilling and exciting conflict.
The story itself is the main step-up if compared to the 1st part. The protagonist, Joseph Joestar, is not in a righteous crusade against evil, he just ends up wrapped in a conflict he had nothing to do with: the resurgence of the Pillar Men.
There are more episodes in this part, and because of that I will not dive too far into the story, but the overall feeling for me is that everything is more fleshed out, the characters, their motivations, the elements of the world and the narrative in a general aspect.
We have a whole arc of Joseph maturing and learning Hamon through sheer effort and hard work. Some really good fights against Santana, Esidisi and Wammu and some funny and quirky moments.
Because of the longer duration, the villains are shown having complex backgrounds and motivations that justify the majority of their acts. The finale is actually pretty clever and entertaining, but nothing special, with Joseph defeating the ultimate life form with the use of constant trickery and fishy tactics.
I really love Joseph as a protagonist, we get to see some astute techniques, mostly in combat but not limited to it, that resembles very well his personality, and being explosive and stubborn, makes him a really believable and relatable protagonist that doesn't fall too much on that cliché of the protagonist being the most virtuous person alive. Caesar contrasts a lot with Joseph, in a very good way, as he is a perfectionist and honorable gentleman. At the same time, he is an idealist motivated by the fate of his ancestors and will never give up on his duty. Lisa Lisa, Stroheim and Straizo are also very likeable characters, and the Pillar Men are good in their own way. Kars who serves as the main antagonist is okay for the most part, as he is just following his natural path of entropic evolution, and that means fighting Joseph and his allies in order to get the Red Stone of Aja and become the ultimate life form.
Conclusion
It's easy for me to just say that Phantom Blood is mediocre and Battle Tendency is good, but there is a bit more than that. I have an emotional attachment to the first part and I do think it has some positive things. Unfortunately, the clichés are a hugely present, and even if it had the same length as part 2, I don't think it would be as good.
Phantom Blood is, as I stated earlier, one of my favorite parts and an overall good anime, which has some flaws but it's very entertaining.
In the end, watching Jojo is a great experience, the show is really unique in some aspects and has some good things that cannot be discounted even if I don't particularly like its beginning.
