Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Also Araki came up some really hard to understand power. Some of them require a lot of explanation to know all of the rule of that power.

It also helps that Jojo is a very over the top thing, therefore extravagant things are expected. It would be very annoying if every manga adaptation did this. In fact I remember being annoyed by the anime adpatation of Hunter × Hunter when they had a narrator explain everything during the insects arc.

(Also it is cool that you are watching anime with your son).

Edited by gropcbf on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:27:33 PM

I can't wait to see how the Hunter x Hunter anime adapts this.◊

...good god.

Jojo is one of the few series that can kind of get away with overexplaining everything, simply because it's possible you'd be completely lost if you didn't have narration.

As an example, early in Part 5 Narancia has a fight with a guy who can shrink. Without internal monologues, we wouldn't know that Naracia's Aerosmith tracks targets using carbon dioxide, and knowing that information is crucial to understanding the rest of that fight.

Plus the explanation really is for the audience’s benefit & doesn’t involve characters dumbly explaining their entire powerset to their enemy like that time in Bleach.

When did H×H become a Light Novel…?

I think Togashi’s back pains have driven him insane.

That or he just doesn’t want to draw.

Wouldn't be the first time. I remember the start of the Chimera Ant arc. It was nothing but outlines in some places.

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 14th 2019 at 3:26:02 AM

Kira after using Bites The Dust.

Characters going "I'm no doctor, but..." *proceeds to explain a paragraph's worth of medical facts* is just part of the goofy charm of Jojo tbh. Jojo has so many eccentricities in terms of how it does things and it's just a matter if you're buying what it's selling.

Edited by Moth13 on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:31:26 AM

So adaptations that want to tell their own story instead of the source creator's story have poisoned the well for adaptations that want to tell the source creator's story but suited for the medium?

Some Stands are indeed quite complicated (raising the question for me of how their users ever figured them out). But there's way too much explanation even for simple things. Consider the scene with Trish in the empty airplane cabin. She doesn't need to say one word before her Stand appears. If we can't tell why she reclines the seats at first, we'll realize it after the enemy attacks the seats. She could use her body language to express that she would rather hide and is only reluctantly becoming proactive. After all, we're not told right out why Doppio makes the sound of a phone ringing, but we figure it out ourselves. Why not trust us for other things as well?

Thanks! It's the least I can do for him after taking him to Carmen and Swan Lake and having him act in Shakespeare plays.

Edited by WesternRover on Apr 14th 2019 at 7:05:18 AM

O.K, so how do I put this?

Go to "Show Markup Help" when you start a post. You can use special quote marks so to avoid this.

Another way to look at it: none of those reasons. Araki is not in control of David Productions, I think, and David Productions is intent on making a faithful adaption, but they aren't in jeopardy of losing their jobs if they change it even the slightest bit.

A show like Hunter X Hunter would need a more pragmatic adaption. The Chimera Ant arc in the anime seems to be faithful to its manga counterpart and it is a slog to get through. I genuinely stopped watching around the point we spent an entire episode watching Killua, a main character, fight a bug monster inside of a cave while sussing out the rules of a convoluted magic system tied to that specific enemy.

Jojo, on the other hand, all of the tropes that usually make or break certain works always feel like they belong somehow. It's so over the top and funny at times but it works somehow.

For instance: this scene of Polnareff trying to escape from Coooool Ice.

Damn you gave up pretty easy.

YMMV. The Chimera Ant arc is still my favorite arc of any battle shounen. Stardust Crusaders was much more of a slog to get through in comparison.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Apr 14th 2019 at 8:58:45 AM

Several parts are really slow but the highs are generally golden.

Starting with parts 4 and 5 might warp one's predictive on what Jojo fundamentally is, because those parts appear to take themselves more seriously. The thing about Jojo is that it's cheesy and overdramatic, and having the characters constantly expositing everything, often in ways that no human would ever say things, is part of that.

I honestly think the big reason why part 5 is the weakest part is because it's the only one where stuff like that actually feels like it detracts from the story, rather than being part of the charm.

Also, @Soble: That bit's probably the slowest part of the arc. Like, I'm not going claim any kind of 'oh everyone hates bit, everything else is fine' thing, because I actually like the way that sequences shows the superhuman Killua being pushed to his absolute limit against an opponent significantly weaker than him, just because of how strange that guy's ability was. It's a similar appeal to a lot of fights in Jojo. But it is probably the least consequential fight in that arc.

Edited by Gilphon on Apr 14th 2019 at 9:16:59 AM

5 has the worst ending but it has plenty of positives over parts 1-3 including better fights, characterization, and so on, so I wouldn't call it the worst.

I mean, if we're going down this road, I also feel that part 5 has the overall weakest cast (except maybe part 3) and the fight quality is deeply uneven- for example, Grafeful Dead is great, but then immediately after that we get Baby Face.

Like, it's still Jojo, and that implies a certain baseline of quality, but it ends up being less than the sum of its parts here.

Edited by Gilphon on Apr 14th 2019 at 9:24:54 AM

I also genuinely really like the Dart Board fight in Hunter x Hunter. Not just the fight itself, but also how the ants are being tactical and coordinated to wear down a powerful foe over several fights.

There's no "maybe" in my opinion, part 3's cast is much worse and I'd argue part 1's is too. The character writing for the series in general got noticeably better from part 4 onwards.

30 years ago I thought nothing of sitting through a six-episode Doctor Who story, but I'm simply too busy nowadays. Someone tells me a TV series is must-see, and I ask "What are the 5 best episodes, continuity be d____d?" It's a real concession to my son to even watch an entire season (we watch perhaps 3-4 episodes a week), and he said I would like #4 the best. I in fact do like #4, both the funny episodes (e.g. Italian restaurant) and the thrilling ones (e.g. Hayato). I don't like #5 as much because it's violent without being suspenseful, perhaps because I don't care as much what happens to the "good" characters.

If you're watching Jojo, you REALLY should start with Part 1. The pacing in Parts 1 and 2 is much faster and the Adventure is much less bizarre, though it progressively gets more bizarre and slower paced as the series goes on. It provides a fantastic shallow end for you to wade into and get used to the series because you dive into the deep end of Part 3 onwards.

This is why it's a terrible idea to skip Parts 1 and 2, even ignoring that they're still fantastic stories, the latter Parts are too weirdly structured to just jump into without any preperation, the culture shock can be jarring.

I feel like Part 3 can work as a starting point, but you're going to be missing a lot of context for some things and wonder why this blond guy is talking to his naked body for a good portion of his screentime.