Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable #1-8

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable #1-8

Originally released in 1992

Written by Hirohiko Araki

Art by Hirohiko Araki

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a weird show.  What started out as a man using the power of the sun to fight vampires over an inheritance squabble turned into people using spectral manifestations of their inner power, which are often named after songs or bands, to fight each other in increasingly implausible scenarios. (By the time of part 6, a character's power is Feng Shui, which is commonly used for furniture arrangement)

Case in point, the man pictured above is Jotaro Kujo, the protagonist of the previous part.  He grew from a delinquent to a marine biology student.  He's come to Morio Town to meet the young man pictured below.

This is Josuke Higashikata, a high school student who acts tough but has a kind heart.  He's Jotaro's uncle, despite being much younger than him, due to Jotaro's grandfather having an affair. (Joseph's father is a decade or two older than his grandfather)  Josuke is scared of turtles, and goes into a blind rage when anyone insults his hair.

Due to the events of part 3, anyone in the same bloodline as Jotaro, Josuke, and Jotaro's grandfather Joseph possesses a Stand, the aforementioned spectral beings.  In the case of the main protagonists, their Stand often boils down to hitting something really, really hard, with an added ability thrown on top in some cases.  When it comes to Josuke, he has the ability to heal any non-fatal injury, though he can't heal any damage done to himself.

I chose part four because I'd only seen the animated version, and I was pretty sure that they condensed a lot of chapters into a single episode, and I wanted to see what was changed or left out.  The main thing that I didn't recall was that they went into the backstory of the villain - I can't remember if they covered it in the anime or not, but I don't think they did because it goes to some dark and disgusting places.

Unlike parts 2 and 3, which were globe-trotting adventures, part 4 confines itself to a single town, Morio Town, and the wacky adventures (and multiple serial killers) and Josuke and Jotaro run into while they're there. (Another character, Koichi Hirose, is introduced here, though he won't be important until later)

The first enemy Stand user that Josuke encounters is one of those serial killers, a man known as Angelo who gained a Stand ability after being shot in the face by an arrow.  His Stand can travel through liquids to possess or kill people, and even though he's the first villain in this part of the manga, he uses it in extremely creative ways - at one point, a dehumidifier becomes menacing.

Likewise, Josuke's ability to heal people or restore broken objects gets put to creative and disturbing use. Whereas series like Hunter x Hunter, Death Note, and Yu-Gi-Oh focus on battles of wits, while other Shonen Jump series focus on brawls, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a good mix of both.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a series that's been running continuously since the 1980s, with no signs of slowing down. (Part 9 is, as of this writing, in the process of being released. The chapters go by at a good pace, and it's amazing how Araki can take completely random abilities and stretch them to their limits.