Review of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

Would I continue watching this anime? Well, every once in a while, but it's definitely not my favorite. Why? When I watch action anime, the first thing I look for is a character that can grow from "weak" to "strong". I look for a character that seems like their powers have the potential or room for growth. To be honest, this isn't usually the anime I'd go for.

Update: Sigh. It's amazing how one's taste can change. I watched this 2 years ago and was into the "wimpy protagonist" gets stronger phase. Now I find myself wanting to rewatch this now and truly appreciating how unique the art is compared to other anime.

When I watched this anime called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: The Stardust Crusaders. I must confess, I did postpone watching it. Mainly due to the fact that the show seemed...unreasonably flashy.

I got the word "Bizarre" stuck in my head and thought this is probably one of those crazy animes that have all those crazy characters and strange comedic moments with a plot that's even more bizarre and hard to understand.

After watching, the story is not actually that bizarre. And even with it having two prequels beforehand, you don't need to watch them to understand what's happening in this series. Although, I do have to admit that in order to know how the family got their powers and the history behind it, you may want to check out the other two arcs first. But you can still enjoy the anime even being slightly clueless about how their powers came to be.

The main character's name is Jotaro Kujo. He is nicknamed Jojo because of the first syllable from his surname(Jotaro) is Jo. And the second syllable of his first name (Kujo) is Jo.

The protagonist isn't your usual "I'm going to save the world and while doing so I'm going to walk everybody's grandma across the street type of person". He's also not the "bullied protagonist that all of a sudden gets either outspoken or makes people shake in fear as soon as he gets power". Neither is he the "delinquent that beats everybody up to be the best fighter and have a nickname that has the word demon in it".

So you won't get any overly heroic protagonists (Although, he does have his own sense of justice) or a protagonist with a "dark past". Actually, most of the people with a "dark past" are usually the "antagonists". And this series really doesn't dwell on the "dark pasts" of the characters too much if at all. At least not in the earlier episodes.

Jojo's character is not weak by any means and he's not physically weak either. At the beginning of the anime Jojo has just discovered his powers and has yet to fully understand them. In fact, he believes he is possessed. He can fight already, his stand has already awakened and his character is usually "calm, cool, and collected". Although, every once in a while his way of handling a situation may be to beat somebody to death.

So this is a good anime for those who do not like wimpy characters and want some immediate action at the beginning rather than having to wait for the character to obtain the power and practice for close to 50 episodes (with a few fillers in between). And then only to go against incredibly (and obviously) weak opponents for another 20 episodes before getting to some real action. So if you want the immediate action within the first five episodes, you'll get it.

Anytime one watches an anime, we know that there usually is an ongoing theme with the character's powers or their past. For example: Their powers could be that all the character's powers deal with natural elements and can be elements such as water, fire, wind, and earth which can either assist or conquer one another.

In this series:

• They fight with something called a stand. A stand is a being that gets it's power depending on the character's mental and physical strength. As the character's stand can actually destroy you if you are not able to withstand it's power.
• Each stand has a tarot card which gives the name of the stand and a number. (Not sure what the number stands for)
• Each stand has a specialty. So far specialties have been all over the place precision, speed, manipulation, ability to make predictions, swordsmanship, fire, shadow clones, propagation, etc.

• What I find Bizarre about Jojo's Bizarre Adventures is how massive each of the bodies of the male characters in comparison to their age Or how the high school girls look like college students.
• Jojo's school uniform is over the top while Kakyoin's uniform is completely different and normal next to Jojo's uniform which has a big chain hanging from the collar.
• "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles is the closing theme song (I've heard songs in English before in anime, but for some reason havig this song as the closing theme surprised me)
• Why does Avdol, the fortune teller have to give Jojo his fate and name? Jojo already has powers. Did everybody in the series need a fortune teller to tell their fate and stand's name or just Jojo?
• Last name of Grandpa on mother's side Joestar, first name Joseph. Jojo's name is Jotaro Kujo. That is a lot of "Jo's" in the family and it doesn't matter which side of the family from whatever nationality. All the boys/men in the family will have "Jo" in both their first and last name. (I say that because the Joestar family is on his mother's side. And Jotaro is his father's name. So he still ends up with "Jo" being part of his last name.)
• Where does Jojo's hat begin and end?
• The one thing that drives me crazy about this anime is that when a character defeats a bad guy they sometimes have to explain what happens because you as the viewer really can't see what actually happens. Or you're at least not sure what actually happens.
• The captain guy in Episode 6 keeps calling Jojo "Oniichan". ??? And he's an old guy too...
• What does the number on the tarot card mean? Or do they have any meaning at all? (Maybe I need to watch the other 2 series to understand their meaning?)