Here’s an in-depth review of JOJO’S Bizarre adventure Phantom Blood arc, from my favourite anime franchise JOJO’s Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki. few consider it the worst arc of the franchise, while others love it. Here’s what I think about it?
Plot
The story takes place in the year 1868, where English nobleman George Joestar and his son Jonathan become indebted to Dario Brando after being rescued by him from an accident. However, Dario had no intention of saving Joestars, he believes they were dead and was trying to rob their corpse. After the death of Dario 12 years later, George adopts his son, Dio Brando, in order to repay his debt.
While Dio publicly shows his obedient nature over his new father, he secretly plans to steal all the Joestar’s fortune. His first step is to create the drift between the father and son. But when Dio pushes Jonathan too far, Jonathan defeats him in a fight.
Years later, the two appear to have become close friends with the outside world. But trouble comes to light when George falls ill, and Jonathan suspects Dio of this incident.
Animation
The animation seemed fine while giving us a lot of meme text and god-level transitions. The animation in the opening is fabulous. The use of CGI was quite good, which is followed in every following arc. This arc sets the bar for the JOJO poses quite high. The animation compliments some of the most iconic scenes in the anime. In my opinion, the animation could have been done better considering the time it came.
Soundtrack
The opening SONO CHINO SADAME by Hiroaki Tominaga is one of my favourites. The title of this song translates to Legacy of the Bloodline, which tells the great adventure that different JOJOs along the bloodline are going to experience. The opening is complemented with the fabulous animation. The ending ROUNDABOUT by Yes is just a masterpiece of ending, giving rise to the ‘To be continued‘ meme. The ending and the opening songs just are the perfect combination one can hope for.
Voice Acting (Japanese)
I created this section specifically to SIMP over one of my favourite voice actors Takehito Koyasu, who gave his fabulous voice to one of my favourite anime characters, Dio Brando. With Kazuyuki Okitsu giving voice to our protagonist Jonathan, Youji Ueda giving voice to Speedwagon and delivering some of the most iconic anime quotes, and Yoku Shioya giving voice to Zeppeli. I just loved the Japanese voice-acting cast for this arc.
Character Sketch
The anime starts by showing the evil nature of Dio pretty early by showing him being rude, power-hungry and a jerk to Jonathan, showing him killing Jonathan’s dog in the first episode. The story also shows the kind and loving nature of Jonathan and his sensing of the malicious motives of Dio. The anime also shows Speedwagon getting his heart changed when he meets with the gentlemanly nature of Jonathan, and later becomes quite an iconic character in the story with some iconic dialogues. We later meet with master Zeppeli, who saw his father being killed due to a cursed mask, and he travels the world to destroy this mask and has mastered the technique of Hamon (or ripple).
Bottom Line
Phantom Blood is my least favourite from the franchise, but the songs are just fabulous. This arc gave rise to JOJO meme culture. The arc also consists of some of my favourite dialogues. The showcase of JOJO poses was just amazing when I first saw the anime. The lacing of this arc is quite slow, and the story is also kind of boring. The transition of time at the start seemed weird to me. The characters and motivation in the story are lacking and for me, Jonathan was the worst JOJO so far. The Hamon technique is dumb. I would have loved this arc if Araki had put ‘Stands‘ from the beginning in place of the dumb Hamon. The concept of becoming a vampire from the Stone Mask was just stupid. The horror aspect of vampires does get better as the story progresses, but it is just bad. The overall plot of the arc was quite thrashing for me. This arc makes the franchise to be skipped by new viewers by being the first arc.
Conclusion
In my opinion, read the wiki summary instead for this arc if you stand against a dumb story and want to experience the real stuff up ahead. The dialogue and iconic scenes are great, but the bad story makes the arc boring and dumb. But still, I won’t consider it a waste of time. Watch it if you are free, with sparing the dumb story because you will still enjoy it.