Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 1

[sub_divided]

falxumbra, you'd like this. Cheese! Cheese everywhere! Gratuitous eye-gougings! Traumatic backstories! Emotionally retarded men with bulging muscles!

I told worldserpent I couldn't read this series, but what I actually meant was that I tried it in one of those weird "skimming" moods -- you know, the kind where you can't concentrate long enough to do anything productive -- and since I'd heard the first two arcs were sketchy, I started with the third. There was a lot of dialog (which I skimmed), and there were all these suddenly-introduced characters who were not particularly likable. The Stand powers were boring and I concluded that whatever the appeal of the series was, it was beyond my ability to appreciate. Strangely, the one thing I have heard turns most people off -- the art -- wasn't an issue.

But if canis_m can read it, so can I! After all, she is not even a shounen fan! This time I started at the beginning and...OMG, how could I have been so dumb?! This series is gr8. Dio's father won me over. He's this classic dirty thieving abusive drunk. The first arc isn't just set in 19th century England, it's filled with 19th century English characters. I bet he robs graves too. Dio is so evil. The part where he is best friends/secret worst enemies with Jonathan gets a little repetitive, but it is saved by the way he achieves ever higher levels of diabolical evil. The first final showdown was awesome. The scene where Dio stops to adjust the two halves of his face! : ))

After this...Baron Zapelli is a strange man with a creepy mustache. The story jumps around a lot, and suddenly shifts from cheesy Victorian psycho-drama to cheesy kung-fu/comedic horror with no warning. It's still fun but I was a little disoriented by the change. For instance, right after a sequence where Zapelli instructs Jojo in the mystical art of Hamon (ripple), Jojo and company are attacked by zombie henchmen on the way to Dio's secret vampire base. Also, the ripple powers in this section are not very exciting, in the way that color-coded attacks named for whatever medium they are supposed to be traveling through are not exciting. The highlight of this section was Poco (specifically, the way he innocently admires Jojo's bulging muscles ahaha), but I also enjoyed the secret training ground for British knights and Mary Stewart's knight who fought with his hair. SO RANDOM.

Master Wu Fa was the best part of the next section. (Why is helping Dio? Because he's evil! Why is he evil? Because he's an Evil Oriental! ...Araki doesn't just set his stories in a time and place, he also adopts the genre conventions of that time and place XD.) All in all, though, this section was not very strong. I'd already been spoiled for the ending to this arc; I was glad to finally get there.

Next arc, Joseph is awesome. OF COURSE. I didn't like him at first but he grows on you really fast, like within three chapters of his appearance. Shallow as this may sound, the floppy hats and goggles had a lot to do with this. There's just something about a large, physically intimidating man in a goofy hat -- especially in combination with sulky teenager expressions to remind you that he is really only 20! XDXD. Joseph definitely has a trademark style and I appreciated the way he immediately cut through every situation with a practical suggestion. Immortal Aztec vampire has just been brought back to life by Nazis? Talk to him! He may be friendly. His Aztec buddies are after the red gemstone around your neck? Break it! Then even if we can't beat them they won't get what they want. This kind of common sense isn't typical shounen behavior; Araki even goes so far as to make an issue of this, and point out how it does not preclude acts of heroism (just acts of stupid, pointless heroism) in one chapter. This is such a nice change, I can't even begin to describe.

I'd think better of the Joestar Final Resort if I hadn't seen it in wayyyy too many terrible Ranma 1/2 fics already. As it is, it's slightly funny, but not hilarious or even all that unexpected. I was also slightly disturbed by Jojo's LisaLisa scenes, even before...you know, simply because she is so muscular. (Though I probably should have been delighted with this...there was something really unnerving about Jojo's random "but she's hot!" moments, when truthfully LisaLisa looked almost as out of place in a dress as he had.) Rather than thinking she came out of nowhere, I was glad when Suzy Q showed up to deflect attention.

What else? Caesar Zappeli. Waaaah.

Ripple abilities aren't clearly defined in this arc, though they have clearly defined limitations. I liked that, it meant they were used much more creatively, for unexpected turnarounds, without any of that loophole-that-was-conveniently-not-mentioned-until-now crap.

The third arc. Slightly better if you come in knowing who some of the characters are, but I still don't really like it. It's boring. (This from someone who likes "structured" shounen manga of the defeat-five-enemies-based-on-the-five-elements-of-the-Chinese-zodiac variety). So far there have been twelve stand users named after the twelve Major Arcana plus a color (sometimes), and Jotaro Kujo and his four companions plus underaged girl sidekick/mascot/love interest (...) defeat them one by one while traveling overland to Cairo. The enemy Stands are all, invariably, cooler than the ally Stands, with the possible exception of Joseph's. Though I was amused by all the local color, especially India's (pigs in the toilet, indeed), it wasn't enough to make up for the fight-travel-repeat formula, especially when the fights weren't interesting.

Part of it is that Jotaro's main personality trait is stone-faced silence, and I learned more about Kaikyo and Jean from their character bios than their actions. You know you're in trouble when the highlight of the arc so far has been Joseph reverting back to his teenaged self. (Maybe you thought the arc was okay, but it only takes one scene like this to remind you of how much better the previous one was.)

Finishing the third arc today. I've got most of the day to read, I'll probably be finished with scanlations by tonight.

P.S. Going the serious-fandom-research route for fan_extension. The journal is doctairej. That stuff in the userinfo is not actually a full explanation of what we'll be doing, more like a few broad hints to tempt people into signing up. I'd like some Western media fans to sign up too, but who knows if that will happen.

P.P.S. A note so I don't forget about these before I blog them, it's been so long. The books I've read since July split evenly into good and bad:

Good
Intuition by Allegra Goodman
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Around the Bloc by Stephanie Elonzo Griest
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Bad
His Quiet Dust by William Styron
Half-Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins
The Best American Travel Writing, edited by Jamaica Kincaid
Maps for Lost Lovers by who really cares? I couldn't get past the first page.
The Fall of the Towers by Roger Delany.