JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: JoJolion

Introduction
Yesterday the eight part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure came to an end and I have to say that if anything it is a surreal experience. JoJolion was the first manga I ever caught up with and I have been following it monthly for a little over 3 years. It is also a story I've continuously had problems with and argued over as my love for JoJo's gradually diminished. Nevertheless I feel it at least deserves a proper send off in the form of this review.

What I liked: - Until the end of the

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Vitamin C

arc the story was really interesting. Finding out who Josuke is and his exact situation was engaging and culminated in a great way. - it is hard to strictly say which characters count as the main cast but the most proper answer would be only Josuke and Yasuho. Just like part 7 they are a great duo, rather than an ensemble cast, that works perfectly on its own yet can have interesting interactions with other characters. With them Araki created probably the best romantic relationship in all of JoJo's that is at the same time believable and unordinary. Also Yasuho has one of my all time favorite stands. ~~~
- Some of the new stands are extremely creative -

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all of the Higashikata Family stands

- Besides Yasuho the secondary cast has other great characters like - Joubin, Norisuke and even Joshu

What I did not like:

- After the halfway point the story reaches a point where our main conflict is solved. Josuke has acquired what he wanted and a problem arises. The story needs a new direction. Therefore, Josuke is assigned the new task of

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saving Holly

To me this feels like Araki grasping at straws. His original goal is perfectly logical but this new one relies on Josuke being the type to try and save everyone. Supposing this is why he decides to help, it leads me to believe he does it only for the sake of the plot. On a side note, it takes a significant amount of time for his objective to change which leads to a long period of the story wondering in unknown directions just to keep going.
- In JoJo's it is always the protagonist that stays in the limelight. I myself find it very hard to put Josuke on the same level as any of the previous protagonists in terms of how intriguing following his journey was. Though there is a somewhat valid reason why it is the case but he seems to be a bit too tame for a main character. His personality is quite ordinary and can be summed up to simply being a good guy willing to help others. I won't pretend that main JoJos have always been extremely layered, however in his case I found him too boring.
- This part tries to experiment with the antagonistic side and I find the results to be unfavorable. There is no real 'Main villain' per se which is not the problem in itself. What I find problematic would be how forgettable in terms of personality all the antagonists turned out to be. Paired with how I'm not the biggest fan of Josuke, this lead to very unintriguing fights that would obviously be won by the good guys.
- The entire final arc was absurdly dull. It is of greater length than part 1 of JoJo's and I don't see this as justified. It impersonated all of the part's flaws being - needlessly repeating explanations countless times, foreshadowing events/characters that never appear, putting characters on the sideling for way too long (over 50 chapters), being too vague in describing abilities allowing for shenanigans to happen out of nowhere and being unnecessarily similar to previous parts (mostly 4) . The finale itself was too vague and left a lot of unanswered questions.
~~~ Conclusion I certainly won't be missing JoJolion but this is not to say it was not good. After all I still find the first half to be quite entertaining. I hope part 9 solves some of the remaining plot points but most of all, I am glad that Araki is still alive and writes the stories he loves for all of us to see, regardless of my personal enjoyment.