JoJo's Bizarre Adventure... What a ride it's been from one of the more critically acclaimed underground anime series to one of the most celebrated and well-known; the series started that trend with this anime.

Of course, there's been plenty of adaptions around before this, like the Stardust Crusaders OVA from 1993, or the cancelled Phantom Blood movie which I'm not sure was found, or Heritage to the Future, the Capcom fighting game. But once this came out, they've been adapting the entire series, not just certain moments of the manga that were relevant at the time.

Like... what can I say about JoJo that hasn't already been said? It's one of the most celebrated and influential series in manga and anime. "Is that a JoJo reference?", while often used in jest, is legitimately a real question with a lot of shows. The complete absurdity of some fights and scenes, and how they seemingly WORK not only in terms of logic but for character motivation. It's not your normal shonen anime, and I think that's what got a lot of people hooked.

Now it feels like it's become what it stood out from, with multiple seasons for different parts ever since Part 3, and only getting bigger and bigger in scope. At least the protagonist and location change vastly between parts, but it's a monumental task to watch Parts 3-6, and a task to read through parts 7-9 (ongoing) due to the wacky scheduling and constant breaks. So, it becomes a task to even start the series.

Bottom line, start here. Even if SOME PEOPLE think you should skip parts 1 and 2 because they follow different systems and aren't "as good." Excuse me, Dio puts Jonathan's dog in a furnace just to flex on him, and Joseph pulls a machine gun out of nowhere to blast some dude his grandfather knew. It's plenty amazing. There's a simpler charm that the first two parts have that aren't ever replicated in later parts, and while that could be for the better, I think that charm is still an immense draw to still watch this first.

Anyway, JoJo has had a very deep connection with music, most notably, classic rock. But in terms of actual music composed specifically for the anime, it's absolute gold. The series has always had great music, but the music for this part is nothing short of perfect. The classic Victorian sounds of Phantom Blood, to the absolutely bonkers, loud, jazzy, and experimental score for Battle Tendency, all with the best two opening themes in the series (Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town is a close third), it's amazing. What isn't amazing, is how Warner Music screwed the main composer of the Battle Tendency part of the anime, Taku Iwasaki (who also did the music for Gurren Lagann). Basically, instead of the vocal tracks he composed for the soundtrack, they used the instrumentals in the anime. And then they decided to not release the instrumentals. Aaaand he hasn't worked with JJBA ever since, unfortunately.

Anyway, the second part of the music connection, is in the name of certain characters. Robert E.O. Speedwagon, Dio, Santana, Esidisi, etc., are all names connected to music. In the Sub, this isn't an issue at all. The dub...

...JoJo is one of those weird animes that use engrish on purpose for comedic effect. The dubwork is done very well, but the loss of iconic lines like "Kono Dio Da!" or any of Joseph's funny engrish, isn't present (even if Joseph is voiced by NUMBUH 1 AND 2 FROM KND OF ALL PEOPLE). Another thing, the English names are changed to avoid copyright. Flaccid Pancake is a dogshit name, and I don't think Limp Bizkit will care. I'm not normally a stickler for dub/sub, since the dub is usually done really well, but JoJo is one of those rare anime that its hard to watch dubbed, sorry.

I've fallen out of the series, unfortunately, it feels like it's been appropriated by very annoying sects of people and the later parts never really excited me. But Part 2 is my favorite, and a huge part of that is the excellent job the anime did. It's legit one of my favorites, and an amazing start to the series.