The first volume of my favorite manga and anime series of all time, and it’s definitely not without its growing pains by no means whatsoever. Of all the jojo arcs this one is the most flawed (even Araki has said so), but it had to be the way it is to set the scene for the arguably much better later volumes of the series. It serves as the groundwork of the JJBA adventure series and without this, the others wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Story (7)

The story starts out with a visual of a woman being sacrificed to some deity by the Aztecs during ancient times. The blood that comes off of her gets splattered unto the priest’s mask and it awakens some sort of supernatural power (important later). Afterwards it cuts to thousands of years later and Dario Brando notices a noble’s caravan that had crashed and most of its occupants (save a baby (jojo) and a man) dead. He goes to loot the wreckage (and surprise!, the mask from earlier is there) and finds several things of value, he goes to the presumed dead George Joestar to loot his “body” and is taken aback hby the fact that he is actually alive. George Joestar is mistaken and believes that Dario Brando was trying to save his life, and Dario plays along with this. They then make a promise that george will take care of his son Dio Brando if Dario should die.

Fast forward 12 years later and Dario is in ill health, once he finally croaks dio goes to live with the Joestar family to live out the 12 year promise between their fathers and also to steal the riches of the Joestar family, but while he was evil to begin with, he becomes more and more of an awful human being (and alter vampire) through the series.

Phantom blood takes a while to establish the Shōnen action that the jojo series is so famous for. It feels more like a Victorian drama and a seinen focusing more on family issues than combat but with a Hokuto Shinken feel to it at first, but by the second volume the latent supernatural themes start showing.

Character (8)

Jonathan is basically nicer and less powerful kenshiro. He always plays the hero who helps everyone and fits many Shōnen anime tropes. Despite the fact that he manages to be my favorite jojo (not even sure why, I just really like Jonathan) he’s really the least interesting one. But he serves as a necessary catalyst for the personalities of his descendants. The contrast is fun to witness, especially between him and Jotaro. There’s not really much else to say about him.

Dio is established extremely well as a villain. Araki does an amazing job at making you absolutely despise him. Unlike a lot of Shōnen villains Dio does not fuck around. He is utterly and despicably evil from the get go, trying to make Jonathan spiral into depression so that he loses his mind and is in no state to challenge his claim to the Joestar fortune, and showing no mercy to anyone and making other anime villains look empathetic in comparison. Despite this he is incredibly powerful but his boasting about his power is his downfall. From burning jonathan’s dog to killing his adoptive father to making a woman eat her child, nothing Dio does benefits anyone except Dio and he makes damn sure well you know it, he is pure evil.

The other characters are rather interesting and clearly there were ideas for them that Araki just forgot about (especially Speedwagon), the problem is that it focuses too much on the adventures of Jonathan and Dio to pay much mind at all to the supporting cast, and they’re not fleshed out nearly as much as they could be.


Art (7)

The art is... interesting. Some scenes look absolutely gorgeous while others look really flawed (it improved throughout the books though). Movements during fight scenes look especially awkward. Basidallt, drawings of houses, landscapes, castles, vehicles, basically anything inanimate are all gorgeous, but drawings of people look off and fall into uncanny valley fairly often. The first arc is infamous for having such bad male anatomy that you would think Araki is a girl who draws Yaoi rather than a Shōnen artist, the male characters have a physique that the greatest of body builders couldn’t hope to achieve and are usually bulging out so much in every direction that you wonder if they can even fit through doors. Jonathan also looks like the mascot for big boy burgers (but extremely muscular) throughout the length of the book, take that as you will.

Enjoyment (9)

Despite the fact that this is the weakest jojo arc I actually enjoyed it a lot. The first volume is pretty much all drama but later on in the series it starts focusing more on fighting and the signature “bizarreness” of the series’ namesake comes into play pretty quickly.

Overall (8)