JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

This article contains something which makes absolutely no logical sense, such as Nazi Zombie Mercenaries, Fucking Space Orangutans, anything written by a certain Irish leper or Robin Crud-ace, or Wizards of the Coast hiring the fucking Pinkertons over a children’s card game. If you proceed, consider yourself warned.

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If there is one thing you should know about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure before you delve into it, it should be this one thing:

It's dumb. It's so fucking dumb... And yet it works.

While the the story varies wildly based on the arc, it has a basic synopsis. It covers the multi-generational (and eventually multiversial) heroism of the Joestar family, who are constantly getting involved in all sorts of weird shit that results in epic, crazy, surprisingly clever fights and super-manly scenes. The title comes because each generation's Joestar has a name starting with "JO", resulting in the familial nickname of "JoJo". Although technically you can just pick up any saga at random, it's slightly easier to follow along if you read from the beginning. Slightly.

Starting in 1987 by manga artist Hirohiko Araki, Jojo has had an influence on not only Japanese anime and manga but internet culture as a whole. List a common anime trope, chances are that Jojo is either the originator or made that theme very famous. Cheering sidekicks, multiple chapter battles, attacks that defy every conventional belief you can dream of, flamboyant poses, you name it.

It's most well-known incarnation is probably Stardust Crusaders, mostly for how iconic Jotaro and Dio were as well as the popularity from the OVA and fighting game.

JoJo and /tg/

Wamuudes, Custodisi, and Karstodes; the personal guardians to the Emperor of Mankind.

JoJo is one of three anime/manga that /tg/ will openly admit they like, the other two being Berserk and Fist of the North Star. Hell, the early art style of JoJo is heavily inspired by FotNS, even Jonathan's outfit being very similar to Kenshiro's. Like the two aforementioned manga, JoJo is considered the to be an extremely manly series, with a predominantly male cast and the protagonists usually kicking ass to get to their objective without much thinking. However, at the same time it is flamboyantly gay, with many male characters being shirtless or wearing revealing clothing and striking strange/fabulous poses, making its relationship with /tg/ somewhat confusing and conflicted considering that /tg/ usually shies away from most stuff that is homosexual. One could say it's because it's like a breath of fresh air how silly it is, or the end goal of each arc is ultimately pretty simple; protagonist has to beat the shit out of and/or kill the big bad, end of story. The tone of any arc can change in an instant, becoming dumb and happy to dire and grimdark within a couple chapters. It's also because the action is often to awesome that fa/tg/uys turn a blind eye to the gay stuff. Or we just love it that way, since that's mostly what made JoJo popular in the first place. Plus Araki puts scads of references to classic rock and metal into Jojo, so that helps too.

We've had several Quest threads on /tg/ that relate to JoJo, the most popular being the multi-part Guardsman's Bizarre Adventure. We also have Super Stand Sunday, when /tg/ comes together and makes their own Stand every (you guessed it) Sunday.

The /tg/ interpretation of the Eversor Assassin is pretty much Dio Brando, down to him striking his trademark pose and crying "WRYYYY" before proceeding to cut up whatever enemy is in his way. But probably the most popular /tg/-JoJo relation, however, comes in the form of the YouTuber Bruva Alfabusa's "If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device" series, where he makes several references to JoJo throughout the series. The most popular reference is definitely the Pillarstodes; Adeptus Custodes based on the Pillar Men from Battle Tendency. This actually isn't that far off the mark since there is in fact official (albeit old) art of shirtless Custodes. Still, the Pillarstodes are quite flamboyant and hedonistic, but nonetheless they're also kickass.

Of course, there's also a RPG based off of JoJo, here.

It wouldn't be surprising if Hirohiko Araki himself was a fa/tg/uy himself. He's mentioned in some lectures and interviews that he decided to create an RPG/board game-style system for JoJo where characters travel to different places to fight enemies, as seen in Stardust Crusaders and onward.

Generation Sagas

Part 1: Phantom Blood

Here's where it all begins. And aside the looks and clothes of some of the characters, this is the less "gayish" arc of all. A Victorian Aristocrat in the 1880s named George Joestar is the only survivor of a horrible carriage crash. Mistaking the depraved scavenger Dario Brando as a Good Samaritan who tried to help him, he offers the Cockney lowlife a favor, to be called in whenever Dario wishes. Eventually, Dario dies, but sends his son - the ruthlessly ambitious, amoral and driven Dio Brando - to live at the Joestars, calling in his favor to get George to adopt the lad. This leads to much suffering for George's actual son, the goodhearted - if rather dimwitted - Jonathan Joestar, as Dio wants JoJo's place and starts to bully him horribly. Even burning his fucking dog alive just to get back at him! This all comes to a boil when it turns out he's poisoning George, a confrontation that leads to him using a mysterious stone mask to become a vampire. So, with the aid of mysterious vampire-killing martial artist, Baron Zeppelli, Jonathon masters the art of Ripple/Hamon, a mystical breath-controlled martial art that wields energy anathema to vampires. Jonathon eventually decapitates Dio, and all is well, right? ...Wrong! Whilst Jonathon is on his honeymoon, Dio's head shows up with his last remaining zombie minion, leading to Jonathon dying as Dio cuts off Jonathon's head in hopes of merging with his enemy's body, before the ship they're on sinks. Luckily, Jonathon's pregnant wife escapes.

Part 2: Battle Tendency

In the late 1930s, Joseph Joestar, grandson of Jonathon Joestar, is the second Joestar to get into strife when the mysterious Pillar Men awaken. These ungodly ancient (and fabulous) abominations created the vampirising stone masks as part of a process to find a way around their own pesky weakness to sunlight. The fact vampires taste even nicer than humans was a nifty bonus. Notable events include a hammy Nazi cyborg as one of the good guys and a final battle that starts in an erupting volcano, then ends with them riding a chunk of rock into the atmosphere after the volcano blows its top. Until the middle of the arc there was no real plot, for the most part it was Joseph simply fucking around and beating the shit out of/fooling every minor villain he came by. Araki by this point seemed to have realized how silly the series and embraced it, with much of it being done for laughs. Everything from the aforementioned Pillar Men, the Nazis, this installment's trick-happy Jojo, and probably the dumbest poses in the series certainly makes this the most outright silly arc of Jojo, and that right there is an accomplishment.

Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

In the 1980s, half-Japanese Jotaro Kujo takes up the role of hero when Dio Brando comes back, having assimilated Jonathan Joestar's body as his own. In doing so, he forsakes his former vampire powers and unlocks a new kind of power, strange psionic abilities called Stands. This causes a chain reaction that unlocks Stands around the world, and leads to Stands replacing Hamon as the super-power of choice in all subsequent generations. Now Jotaro, alongside an aged Joseph and a motley crew of ~~faggots~~ manly men must fight Dio and his practical army of Stand users.

This is by far the most well known and iconic part of Jojo, with the introduction of Stands being very well received and all the crazy shenanigans that come with them. Not only does it have two anime adaptations (whereas Part 1 only has one anime, an unreleased movie, and a videogame and Part 2 only has an anime), but it also has a two video games (one RPG for the SNES, one arcade fighting game by Capcom).

Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

It's the year 1999 in a Japanese suburb of Morioh. High Schooler Josuke Higashikata runs into a slightly-older Jotaro and Josuke learns that a) Jotaro's his nephew despite being ten years older and that old ass Joseph is his father, b) Stands exist, and c) there's a serial killer on the loose.

From there spans a rather loosely-assembled journey involving protecting his town from enemy stand users and befriending some of the people he beats up (including thugs and a seriously arrogant manga artist). There isn't really even a central arc until halfway-in, when Josuke figures out that Kira has a stand. For the most part, it is a mystery with the main cast trying to discover the identity of the aforementioned serial killer rampaging through their town and build up to the third act. Overall a very enjoyable arc, albeit subpar compared to Part 3 since the other protagonists besides Josuke are somewhat lacking, not to mention Jotaro stealing some of his thunder. Noted for being Araki's personal favorite arc to write and marking the shift in his art style from bulky and masculine to more defined and detailed but flamboyant and feminine.

Part 5: Vento Aureo

It's Italy in 2001. Giorno Giovanna (the son of Dio using Jonathan's body, though Giorno never knows this) is a kid with aspirations of becoming a "Gang Star" (What this means isn't very clear) with the help of his stand, "Gold Experience". After accidentally killing a gangster, Giorno finds himself immersed in the world of the mafia and eventually becomes a member of "Passione", where he joins his team. With this team, they go and accomplish missions at the behest of a fat bastard (who eventually dies), and later come under the eye of their organization's boss, who wants them to bring back a girl named Trisha.

Once they bring her to the appointed location, they realize that the boss wanted to kill Trisha, which leads to Giorno and the team defecting from the organization and finding out who the boss is and how to defeat him. While it's still strange in typical JoJo fashion, it's often weird for the sake of being weird rather than for cartoony fun or silliness. That combined with a shoddy plot and boring protagonists makes this a somewhat mediocre arc.

Part 6: Stone Ocean

Jolyne Kujo was arrested for a crime she didn't commit (though she did have legitimate priors) in 2015 and is then sent to Green Dolphin Street, a maximum-security prison in Florida. Though her dad Jotaro couldn't bail her out, he did give a small locket (containing a fragment of a Stand Arrow), giving her the chance to develop a stand in order for her to survive this prison and get to the bottom of the conspiracy surrounding this prison.

Part 7: Steel Ball Run

The timeline resets to the 1800's. In this alternate universe, quadraplegic ex-jockey Johnny Joestar and Italian executioner Gyro Zeppeli cross paths and decide, for better or for worse, to partner up and participate in the Steel Ball Run, a race that spans the breadth of the United States as a test of endurance for both horse and rider (except for that one dude who just ran the whole way. He manages to make it pretty far). Along the way, they uncover the real purpose of the race when they become entangled with the Parts of the Saint's Corpse, which bestow its owner with incredible power.

As it turns out, the reason the race was even held was because President Funny Valentine wanted to own the complete Corpse, using the race and its participants as pawns in order to accomplish this goal. Though his goals are ultimately altruistic in their outlook, Johnny and Gyro still oppose this plan because it requires that only America prospers, while everything else is stuck struggling.

Part 8: JoJolion

We're back in Morioh, but not as we know it. The currently ongoing arc of JoJo based around the SBR version of the 2011 earthquake that hit Japan.

It's some years after SBR, and Morioh was recently wracked with terrible earthquakes which make these creepy images on the ground that gets ripped up. An unfortunate girl by the name of Yasuho Hirose discovers a body among the mess and rescues him. Though he's got no memories and is quirky almost to the point of stupidity, she decides to help the amnesiac 'Josuke' discover his real identity and some really wacky adventures ensue as they find various clues and odd characters that know something about his past. Somehow, by the grace of God, this makes absolutely no sense even by JoJo standards

Characters

The Joestars

Jonathan Joestar (Part 1)

Jonathan is pretty much the archetypal gentleman: Well-mannered, intelligent, and damned determined to protect that which he values. That last part he kinda develops after getting mercilessly bullied by Dio in their childhood and eventually lashes out. He then learns about the Ripple after nearly dying in an incident that sees his father dead, Dio turned into a vampire, and the entire Joestar estate burned to the ground. By joining Will Zeppeli and the persistent Speedwagon, he learns about the powers of the Stone Mask, how the Ripple is meant to counter it, and what it means to fight. And using that, he seemingly kills Dio.

Skip a bit and Jonathan gets married to Erina Pendleton (a girl he's had a thing for since the beginning), and they go on a honeymoon cruise which goes horribly wrong because Dio's severed head got in with a zombie. Jonathan sacrifices himself to stop Dio from returning to the surface and let the pregnant Erina escape with an orphaned baby. And then his head gets replaced with Dio's.

Sucks to be him.

Joseph Joestar (Part 2, 3, and 4)

Whereas his grandfather Jonathan is a gentleman, Joseph is a good-natured but impulsive punk. Over the course of Part 2 he develops from mostly being concerned about his desires to a genuine hero.

Though he doesn't know a lot about fighting, Joseph compensates by being a dirty cheat, not being above even dressing up as a woman (and poorly might we add). Even though he eventually learns about the Ripple by Lisa Lisa, he still keeps his aptitude for improvising, being able to use nets and ball clackers as weapons to defeat enemies. He even resorts to kamikaze-ing an immortal vampire god into an active volcano, losing his hand in the process, but doesn't care because it fucking worked.

Unlike his granddad, Joseph manages to survive his battle with the half-naked Aztec vampire demigods and eventually builds his own family, marrying the incredibly sexy but also incredibly stupid (seriously, his family thought he was dead because she forgot to tell them she was nursing him back to health) Susie Q. By the time Part 3 rolls around, Joseph's already in his 70's, looks close to it due to slacking off in his Hamon training after having beaten the Pillar Men, and is a real estate tycoon. Here, he develops the stand "Hermit Purple", a bunch of purple vines that let him read the future somewhat by interfacing with cameras and TV's and can conduct the Ripple (which he doesn't use as much after Part 2 because, as said above, he's a slacker who let his skills get rusty). He still is a bit of a trickster, using dirt and tar to defeat one stand and another stand's abilities against its' wielder.

He returns yet again in Part 4, but it's clear that time hasn't been good to him, as he's pretty much unable to do anything. Regardless, he tries (key word "tries") to help Josuke (his illegitimate son) and Jotaro in dealing with an orphaned baby and the Stand Arrow.

Jotaro Kujo (Part 3, 4, and 6)

Grandson of Joseph, and the son of a virtually nonexistent jazz player and a housewife (Holly).

Jotaro's stand is essentially what kicks off Part 3, as he locks himself up in a local jail because he has no clue what the hell it even is. After Joseph and Avdol convince him that it's not some unholy possession, Jotaro then joins along in an adventure which sees him travel the world and punch the fuck out of a lot of people. While less flamboyant than his grandfather, he's every bit as clever as he uses his unflappable demeanor to bluff his way out of numerous life-or-death encounters.

His stand, "Star Platinum" is a blue-ish muscleman with long hair with so many powers it becomes pretty clear how much of a protagonist he is: Punching shit really fast, a stretchy finger, the ability to pick out tiny details with precision, and (eventually) the power to stop time.

Part 4 sees him help out Josuke with taking care of stand business on behalf of the Speedwagon Foundation, but otherwise standing back to do other stuff. That said, he's still just as powerful, even moreso because he finally mastered the ability to stop time itself. Also despite being older he's drawn in a way that makes him look younger than in Part 3, because.

He returns again in Part 6 after finding out that the jail where his daughter is being held has its own issues with stands, and that Pucci has plans that involve Dio. At this point it becomes clear what his flaws are, as it's revealed that while he is a badass, he's also pretty useless in anything not involving being a protagonist, like being a dad.

Josuke Higashikata(Part 4)

The big shocker here: His father is Joseph Joestar. This in itself is pretty damn scary, as the old man was able to still get kids, though this isn't without consequence. As such, he lives with his mom and grandfather (a policeman). Then he runs into Jotaro and things go very... Bizarre.

Josuke is a bit of a goof like his dad, and sports serious pride in his pompadour to the point that he'll beat the shit out of someone for dissing it. On the flip side, one could say that he's too nice for his own good and his desire to be kind can sometimes put him in bad situations, though he's certainly not Lawful Stupid. His stand, "Crazy Diamond", is able to punch things really fast and restore things that were broken if he knows how they work, a power that could be seriously powerful if he puts his mind to it. However, this is incapable of bringing back the dead (he learns this the hard way), and if he uses this power when mad, things get messed up. This often happens when enemies make fun of his ~~dumbass pompadour.~~ WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY HAIR?!

Giorno Giovanna (Part 5)

The son of Dio using Jonathan's body, making his legitimacy as a Joestar up to debate.

His personality is rather...unremarkable, and as such it's up to the other guys to really add to the story while Giorno is something of a plot device. Which is a damn shame, consider he is literally the son of Dio and he could've been a very interesting character. (It should be noted that this may be down to shitty translations. Either that or the Japanese and Italians have shit taste in protagonists.) The fact that his stand, "Gold Experience", has some really bullshit powers doesn't help either. To iterate, his stand can imbue inatimate objects with life (like turning suitcases into frogs or bullets into trees or buttons into FUCKING HANDS) with no respect to conservation of mass and, like "Crazy Diamond" above, reattach them. Similarly, this power isn't able to resurrect the dead. He also has the power to rapidly accelerate the thought process of something he punches, though this is only brought up once and then never seen again.

At the end of the arc, it becomes even more bullshit as Giorno gains another ability atop all the others: The ability to "reset any action to zero". What this means in layman's terms is that he can nullify anything that happens to him, which just happens to counter Diavolo's powers. This also means that he can reset Diavolo's death, making a rather horrifying cycle of just dying before coming back to life...just to die again.

Jolyne (Part 6)

Daughter of Jotaro Kujo, the only female Joestar to bear the nickname "JoJo" thus far, though she beats the shit out of anyone who calls her by her nickname. She's essentially her ancestor Joseph if all his bad traits were pushed up a couple of notches, making for a hot-blooded, rebellious, foul-mouthed, quick-tempered pervert. Seriously, we first see her when a prison guard catches her masturbating in her cell, and at one point she confesses to envying/admiring snails since, as hermaphrodites, they can fuck anything and everything they cross paths with. She's got a huge anti-authoritarian streak, and at first, the series seems set on deconstructing the "Joestar Family Traits" and showing how they can make you an unlikeable prick who needlessly gets yourself into trouble. Luckily, the surfacing of the generation's big bad and her finding allies she can actually share her positive traits with quickly brings her back into line with being the hero.

She's either insanely lucky, or a lot smarter than she appears - which is good, because, on the surface of it, her Stand, "Stone Free", is one of the weakest, as it lets her turn her body partially or completely into string. Sounds lame, right? Wrong. She can do all sorts of shit with that string, from spying on people by using it to catch sounds to tying people up to making stitches to turning it into razor floss and reducing enemies to mincemeat. Also, because the Stand channels its powers through her body, she can use her powers and have Stone Free do its own thing at the same time, so she's got a giant ghost-buddy that will beat the shit out of you whilst she's snaring 'n' slicing with her string. She has extreme daddy issues with Jotaro, shitting on him until near the end of Stone Ocean. It is somewhat justified though, considering he abandoned her and her mother when she was young. Ultimately responsible for creating the Jojolion universe, although she technically doesn't survive long enough to do so; she just keeps Pucci, the big bad of her generation, at bay until Emporio does the final dirty work.

Johnny (Part 7)

The JoJolion version of Jonathan from Part 1, Johnny is easily the most shit-on Joestar of them all. He was raised by a rich horse trainer and racer and pampered through his youth, kind of turning him into a spoiled brat. But later his older brother dies in a jockey accident that may or may not have been his fault, his father disowns him after telling him "God has taken the wrong son", and later after cutting in front of a kid in line for a play, the kid pulls a gun and shoots him, paralyzing him from the waist down. Just to add sprinkles on this shit-fest his "friends" leave him and no one visits him in the hospital.

Poor bastard.

After he leaves the hospital he meets Gyro Zeppili, and actually brightens up and becomes an overall better person, even if he doesn't win everything. His Stand "Tusk" enhances his powers of the Spin, allowing him to fire his fingernails like bullets... Don't ask how or why. He almost always rides a horse since he's a paraplegic, if Gyro isn't carrying him or he's not crawling.

Josuke Higashikata (Part 8)

Otherwise known as "That dude with four balls" and "Gappy the Gap-tooth Wonder"... Seriously, there isn't that much to note about him. He's the JoJolion version of Josuke from Part 4, but he is an amnesiac who's looking for his origins throughout Part 8. At first, he was thought to be Yoshikage Kira, but that was dispelled when a would-be assassin realizes that Kira, among other things, was an utter narcissist.

Oh, and as mentioned earlier, he has two pairs of balls. Connects to his past somehow, but it doesn't make it any less weird.

His Stand is "Soft & Wet", an incredibly stupid stand that manages to work because of the Jojo Logic. See, "Soft & Wet" works by using bubbles. When these bubbles pop, a property can be taken away from the thing they touch, and the way this is used is rather insane. Pop on a floor, now the floor has no friction. Pop a person's skin, now the water drains out of the person's open pores like a goddamn sponge. He even manages to take away fucking sound from a wall to make sure nobody could hear it breaking!

JoJo Allies (aka the "JoBros")

Note: The allies are organized based on their originating part... because there are a assload of minor protagonists, and an increasingly large amount of minor villains.

Part 1

Robert E.O. Speedwagon: Speedwagon is somewhat popular for being the only normal guy in a series about superpowered martial arts and vampires, with his only real "power" being his razor-sharp hat and big hammer. Also for the meme "Even Speedwagon is afraid!" (which wasn't even said by him, in the anime, it was totally said my him in the manga). Despite being fairly average, he still manages to be good friend to Jonathan and Zeppeli. After Jonathan's death, he moves to America and becomes an oil tycoon. This business eventually becomes the Speedwagon Foundation, which is a vague organization dedicated to helping the Joestar family with things like Stands. Come Part 2, he's now an old man, and he gets kidnapped by Nazis because he knows something about a Pillar Man they discovered. Joseph bails them out and Speedwagon leads them to Italy, where they meet Caesar and Lisa Lisa. By this point, he kinda fades into the background, being an old man and all, and eventually passes away in the epilogue.

William A. Zeppeli: First off, he has a fabulous hat. Second off, he was trained in the Ripple by a man named Tonpetti after his father and the ship he was in sinks because of the Stone Mask. having been trained by a master, he manages to pull some fine tricks like shooting disks of wine as weapons and stretching his arms to punch things. He then trains Jonathan after learning that the Stone Mask is still around. He eventually dies in a fight with Tarkus (not the awesome bald mehreen) where he literally gets split in half with a chain and then gives his last life's energy to power up Jonathan. This in itself begins the long line of close allies (usually Zeppelis) sacrificing themselves for Joestars.

Part 2

Caesar Zeppeli: Grandson of Baron Zeppeli. A student of Lisa Lisa, he has a major chip on his shoulder as he blames the Joestar family for his grandfather's death. However, he also blames himself for the accidental death of his father shortly after discovering the Pillar Men in Rome. As a Hamon user, he's more experienced, even adapting a unique bubble projectile attack. Caesar dies fighting Wamuu because he gets impatient and goes after the Pillar Men alone, but not before putting up one hell of a fight. He hates Joseph's guts at first, but under Lisa-Lisa the two become total bros, fighting by each other's sides until his death. Since he's Italian, he automatically makes women wet when he talks to them.

Lisa Lisa: Aka Elizabeth Joestar, Joseph's mother. She was forced to abandon Joseph and adopt a new identity when she discovered that her husband's murderer, who was also a top British military leader, was in fact a zombie, and killed him. She becomes the Hamon mentor for Caesar and Joseph, pushing them to their absolute limits to prepare for the Pillar Men. Lisa Lisa uses a special scarf that conducts Hamon in her fight against Kars. However, because Kars doesn't play fair, he nearly kills her and takes the Red Stone that she was guarding. Towards the end she tells Joseph that she's his mother... which, had she said so sooner, would've prevented him from spying on her bathing in an earlier scene. Considering she's around 40 years old, she's an absolute MILF since looks like she's only in her late-twenties.

Baron Rudolf von Stroheim: A goose-stepping Nazi who just can't shut up about how Germany is the greatest country in the world. Arguably one of the most fabulous minor characters in the series, and allegedly also the design inspiration for Guile. Initially a bad guy for kidnapping Speedwagon and seemingly trying to weaponize the Pillar Man he found in Mexico, he eats a grenade in an attempt to prevent Santana from escaping. That would be the end of it, but then he suddenly appears in the Swiss Alps as a cyborg with a fucking .50 cal in his chest to help kill the other super-vamps. Said machine gun is seemingly fired via pelvic thrusts. After spending the remainder of the arc being a badass and saving Joseph's bitch ass a couple times, he returns to the Wehrmacht to fight World War II. The epilogue describes him singlehandedly covering the retreat of Nazi forces from the Soviet invasion of Berlin, or Stalingrad in the anime. He died as he lived, screaming his head off about German greatness.

Part 3

Muhammad Avdol: An Egyptian fortune teller and expert on Stands. His stand is Magician's Red, which uses fire-based attacks. Avdol is a close friend of Joseph, and helps explain Stands to Jotaro. He's a no-nonsense character who uses his knowledge of the other Stands to great effect. Halfway into Part 3, Avdol is seemingly killed by one of Dio's assassins, but is spared thanks to the wound only grazing him, which came out of nowhere because Araki planned to kill him at first (allegedly to replace him with Hol Horse) but brought him back because of his popularity. He uses his faked death to purchase some safe transportation for the team (which ended up being boarded by another assassin anyways). Avdol is killed off for real by Vanilla Ice's void. Props to Araki for not making him a Middle-Eastern stereotype, considering Stardust Crusaders came out around 1989.

Noriaki Kakyoin: A Japanese student from the same school as Jotaro. His stand is Hierophant Green; its main attack is an emerald projectile shower, but he can also extend its whole body into coils that stretch long distances, as well as enter very small spaces. At first he's being mind controlled by Dio through a flesh bud and attacks Jotaro, but the latter manages to subdue him and even remove his flesh bud in an extremely risky impromptu surgery. In a show of gratitude, Kakyoin joins Jotaro's team, having found kinship in the other Stand users. In the final battle against Dio, Kakyoin is killed, but not before figuring out Dio's power and conveying the message to Joseph. That's right, Kakyoin is Jotaro's Zeppeli.

Jean Pierre Polnareff: A French swordsman with an absurdly tall hairdo. His stand is Silver Chariot, an armored swordfighter that can slice with incredible speed and precision. Like Kakyoin, Polnareff is being controlled by Dio's Flesh Bud, but is defeated by the team and later joins their group. His motivation is to find his sister's killer, who is one of Dio's assassins, as well as get revenge on Dio himself. Polnareff is highly emotional; he hits on every lady he meets, he's deeply concerned about finding adequate toilets on their many stops, and he keeps blaming himself for Avdol's death (both times; see above). Nonetheless, he's a very capable fighter. Polnareff is the only fighter besides the Joestars to survive the battle against Dio. Some point after Part 3 but before Part 5, Polnareff would find himself battling Diavolo and nearly DIE, becoming wheelchair-bound as a result. He then becomes a contact for Giorno's gang as they begin looking for clues to Diavolo's identity and they all meet at the Coliseum. And then he pretty much dies and stabs his stand with the Stand Arrow, turning it into a super-stand that can swap spirits and force evolution. Once the battle ends, it's revealed that Polnareff's spirit survives... inside a turtle. Granted, it's a stand-using turtle, but still.

Iggy: The final member of Jotaro's team, introduced halfway into the series. He's selfish, ornery, anti-social, and likes to fart on Polnareff's face. Oh, also he's a dog. Yes, dogs can be Stand users too. His stand is The Fool, which allows him to construct anything from sand, whether it's a giant attack dog, a hang glider, or a protective shell. He gets in vicious fight against Dio's guard falcon, Pet Shop, which ends up costing him his leg. Iggy later sacrifices himself to save Polnareff from Vanilla Ice.

Part 4

Koichi Hirose: Josuke's best friend, he's a short dude who just happens to be the same age as Josuke. He's not quite as weird, but he finds himself in much weirder situations as a result, like getting stabbed by an arrow and evolving his stand, or finding out his girlfriend's a stand-using psychopath. His stand, "Echoes", is a real special one because it gains three modes over the course of the story: Stage one just makes lots of noise, Stage two throws these sound effects and they actually happen (like making a sound effect for fire and then the place combusts), and Stage three suddenly replaces the sound powers and becomes some short guy whose punches imbue such a powerful force that its targets slam into the ground. He's usually the more reasonable guy and he happens to be nice. He's just incredibly bad with luck. He appears again early in Part 5 to help Jotaro confirm Giorno's identity.

Okyasu Nijimura: The archetypal yankee thug with a really big heart. Sure, he first met Josuke as an enemy and nearly killed Koichi, but it's revealed that he and his brother were only causing trouble to find a cure for their freakishly-mutated unkillable dad. They eventually find common purpose when Okyasu's brother is kidnapped and killed by an enemy stand user and they become friends from there. And then...the gangster becomes a bigger nut than Josuke. His stand is called "The Hand" (wow, points for originality) and it has a a freakishly huge right hand which it uses to eradicate space and then have it reform around that rent, which he can use for transportation. Like Vanilla Ice's power, this is fucking awesome.

Rohan Kishibe: A master manga artist who happens to live in Morioh. Basically Araki if he had a stand. He's an egotist to the worst degree and hate's Josuke's guts, but has nothing but respect for Koichi and Jotaro. His stand "Heaven's Door" allows him to read people like literal books, which lets him rip out pages (which harms the user in a way) and write in commands that the victim must obey. His whole jackass act is a bit more justified once it's revealed that as a kid, his parents and a neighbor of his were murdered by Kira, and he was only able to survive because the neghbor hid him.

Shizuka Joestar: A baby with the Stand Achtung Baby, which allows her to become invisible along with things closely around her, depending on how stressed she is. She was saved from drowning by Josuke and Joseph, with the latter adopting her at the end of part 4. This means that she's the adopted sister of Josuke and Holly, making her Jotaro's aunt and Jolyne's great-aunt, despite Shizuka being the same age as the latter. Unfortunately we don't get to see her again in parts 5 and 6, and given how 6 ended were probably not going to see her ever again.

Part 5

Bruno Bucellati: The top guy in the gang, Bucellati tends to be the level-headed one. His stand is "Sticky Fingers", which makes zippers in absolutely anything. This makes him a fighter of incredible utility, especially when some thought is applied to the way his powers are used. His defining moment is being literally unable to die. No, seriously, King Crimson puts a fucking hole through his midsection, and the motherfucker just keeps walking. He only dies after the whole soul-switcheroo of the Silver Chariot Requiem.
Leone Abbachio: Looks like Sephiroth, only acts stoic and tries to keep his conscience clean (He was a cop and only defected when he saw how fucked the police system was after his partner died). His stand, "Moody Blues", allows him to sorta-travel back through time like a cassette tape, when his stand begins impersonating someone and repeats their actions. Considering how this could discover Diavolo's identity, this leads to Abbachio being assassinated by King Crimson personally.
Guido Mista: A more punkish guy who has a MASSIVE phobia of the number 4. His stand is "Sex Pistols", six little bullet-shaped guys numbered 1-7 (skipping 4 because of said phobia) who can kick bullets (or effectively anything bullet-sized) in a way almost identical to the Emperor, except for the fact that his gun is perfectly normal. Mista is one of the only guys to survive this entire debacle.
Narancia Ghirga: Despite looking younger than everyone else, he's actually older than Giorno by two years (despite Giorno looking fucking 20. he's really 15). He's pretty book-dumb and loud-mouthed, which ends up with him being the first victim of several stand attacks. His stand is "Aerosmith", a miniature airplane that traces things by their CO2 emissions and then blasts the fuck outta them with dakka. He gets killed in the Silver Chariot Requiem switcheroo, being assassinated in the mayhem.
Panacotta Fugo: Whereas Narancia is book-dumb and impulsive, Fugo is book-smart and methodical in his actions, which contrast to his stand, "Purple Haze". See, "Purple Haze" is something insane and easily-agitated with little capsules in its fists filled with a virus so potent that it eats alive anything it touches. This power is so OP that Araki was forced to write him out of the plot by making him reject the notion of revolting against the Boss.

Part 6

Hermes Costello: One of Jolyne's fellow inmates, Hermes is about as much of a match as you can get, except for the part where she has a serious revenge-boner for one of Pucci's subordinates for killing her sister. Her stand "Kiss" allows her to slap stickers on things, duplicating things, but the moment it comes off, the duplicate and original slam together again and blow up a bit.
Foo Fighters: This here is the single most awesome character. She's a fucking swarm of amoeba with a stand. Taking the form of a dead inmate. She was originally controlled by Pucci, but eventually Jolyne manages to befriend her and they manage to be friends. Her stand is also non-conventional, as she's constantly using it to keep herself together.
Weather Report: He's amnesiac and unstable. And he wears a giant buffalo hat. His stand is also named "Weather Report", and it allows him to oxygenate the air around him, effectively making it combustible. However, once he realizes his identity as Pucci's brother, he discovers a second part of his stand, "Heavy Weather". This is even more fucked up as it somehow uses rainbows to submit subliminal messages like 'Rain frogs' or 'Turn into fucking snails'. Shit's creepy.
Narcisso Anasui: Another messed up dude, but he's only restrained by the fact that he seriously has a thing for Jolyne despite her dad's refusal. Despite that, however, he manages to be more reliable than Weather. His Stand is "Diver Down", with the mundane yet neat power of phasing through matter. This allows him to climb into things, break them from the inside, and then break out.

Part 7

Gyro Zeppeli: That's right, he's another Zeppeli. He's still the guy to teach the Joestar about the power du jour (Spin), and he still dies near the end (though by then, he's done way more than his fair share of things and Johnny's come a long way). In the rebooted Jojolion universe, the Zeppelis were executioners and doctors for the kingdom of Naples, mastering the art of the Steel Balls for this particular job. Gyro, while competent, found himself questioning his conscience when he was instructed to execute a young boy for his possible involvement in a murder. Denying this accusation, Gyro decides to flee to America in order to participate in the Steel Ball Run race and win that boy a pardon, hoping to learn about his convictions along the way. He gains a stand at one point, called "Scan", which allowed him to see using his steel balls, but he eventually loses it when he lost the Saint's Eye to Dio.
Hot Pants: She starts off as one of several competitors in the race who manages to keep well ahead in the race, all while rather thinly disguised as a dude. As time goes on, however, Gyro and Johnny cross paths with her and somewhat become enemies (Gyro's kinda pissed for her thieving them of the Corpse Parts, but Johnny's slightly more understanding as well as aware of her identity). It's eventually revealed that she was a nun of the Vatican in penance for letting her brother die years ago, and participated in the race to recover the Saint's Corpse, thinking that recovering such a relic would grant God's mercy. Her stand is the utilitarian "Cream Starter", which is a spray can of meat foam that can be used to heal wounds, dissolve flesh, and even disguise faces.
Lucy Steel: Despite the 17-year age gap, Lucy is somehow the wife of industrialist Stephen Steel, the man who organized the Steel Ball Run (under Valentine's orders). Though she doesn't really do much early on, she's the first person to realize that everything's not kosher in this mess and fears for her husband's safety around the President. From here, she gets caught up in the mess of the Corpse, helping Hot Pants with infiltrating the President's house by impersonating Valentine's wife and delivering a warning to Johnny and Gyro. And she does all this despite lacking a stand. Welll...sorta. Eventually, she's revealed to somehow be pregnant with the Corpse's head (Don't ask. Seriously, don't ask) and eventually becomes the Corpse itself, serving to trigger a power of Valentine's Stand. After Valentine's demise, she then manages to save the day by killing Dio using one last moment of "D4C" fuckery.

Part 8

Yasuho Hirose: Josuke's ~~lover~~ ~~girlfriend~~ fuck buddy and the first person to discover his unconscious ass amongst the Wall Eyes. She doesn't have much in the way of personality since she's mostly there for sex appeal and to help Josuke find out who he truly is. Her Stand, Paisley Park, has some of the most vague powers in the series. It's main ability is to "guide" Yasuho through situations and to an end goal, either by giving her cues or manipulating electronics around her. Of course, considering how intentionally vague this power is, expected it to be abused like a disobedient child. Also, she named Josuke after her dog and she said he looked a lot like him. What a bitch.
Joshu Higashikata: This little fuckwit is Josuke's stepbrother and is by far the worst JoBro. Every negative trait you can think of he probably has, including; spoiled, petty, possessive, selfish, perverted, idiotic, amongst any other things. Just a horrible person in general, constantly antagonizing and arguing with Josuke because he wants Yasuho for himself. Also, his Stand Nut King Call is basically Sticky Fingers but with nuts and bolts; attaching a bolt to someone and making them fall apart when its removed.

The Dicks/Villians

Dio Brando (Part 1 and 3)

Part 3 Dio and his Stand ~~"The World"~~ ZA WARUDO

Technically the big bad of the overall series, although he's only actually on-stage in the first and third sagas. Arrogant, vain and frankly something of a coward, Dio was born the son of abusive, stupid, drunkard Dario Brando, but had a natural intelligence, ambition and drive that his father lacked. Poisoning his father, he was sent to live with George and Jonathan Joestar, as part of a debt the elder Joestar owed to Dario. Despising Jonathan for his attempts to befriend his new stepbrother, Dio bullied Jonathon throughout their childhood, and even after they seemingly made amends, was secretly plotting to steel Jonathon's birthright. He attempted to poison George, only for his scheme to be revealed, whereupon he used the Stone Mask the Joestars had unwittingly guarded to become a vampire and attempted to conquer England by creating an army of zombies. As mentioned above, this eventually left him a severed head trapped on the bottom of the ocean, until he managed to assimilate Jonathon's body and escape for the third saga. He sits in his lair for most of it because he has difficulty controlling Jonathan's body and doesn't fight the heroes himself until all his minions are dead. When he does however he proceeds to completely wreck their shit until Jotaro narrowly manages to defeat him. Afterwords his body is thrown into the desert and incinerated to make sure he doesn't come back. Although he was defeated, agents and plots of his were the primary source of trouble for the next three sagas... until the sixth ended with Dio and his depredations literally being retconned out of existence. Ironically, for all his arrogance and power, Dio ultimately owed everything he had to the Joestars. His life of luxury in his teens was paid for by Joestar money. He became a vampire with a Stone Mask owned by the Joestar family. He needed Jonathon Joestar's body after his own was destroyed by Ripple energy. He needed Joseph Joestar's blood so he could better merge with Jonathon's body. He even makes extensive use of Hermit Purple #2, Joseph's Stand, during the third saga.

He is well-loved by the fans for his over-the-top flamboyance (even by the series' standards), grandiloquent speaking style, and sheer dickishness such that Eldrad himself would be impressed. He is the source of ZA WARUDO, which is his Stand ("The World") freezing time around him. While he typically follows that up with an improbably numerous volley of knives, he is infamous for what comes after: Slamming a road roller from out of nowhere down on his opponent, punching it until the vehicle explodes, then screeching in triumph. WRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

He also has a slew of minions and henchmen in Part 3. Most of them fill out the remainder of the major arcana in Tarot. Others are named after Egyptian gods, and the last few come from wherever:

Gray Fly: An old codger of an assassin whose MO is getting on the plane/train/bus/boat as his target, then crashing it with no survivors except him. Stands make a user tougher, but how he survives a fucking plane crash is unknown. His Stand is Tower of Gray, a flying beetle so fast it can dodge Star Platinum's punches. It has a long, Xenomorph-style tongue with which it rips out the tongues of its targets. Kakyoin managed to trick it into a specific predictable pattern that allowed him to shred it using Hierophant Green's tentacles.
Captain Tennille: Not his real name, the man posing as Captain Tennille is an assassin with an aquatic Stand, Dark Blue Moon. He had a good disguise going for him until Jotaro tricked him into revealing himself. Dark Blue Moon is very deadly underwater and can manipulate the stuff to some degree. Jotaro managed to trick the would-be assassin into thinking he was defeated, which allowed him to come close enough to ORA ORA ORA the Stand.
Forever: A sapient orangutan that likes smoking pipes, human pornography, posing as a regular ape and brutal murder. Don't insult his intelligence: you won't live for very long. His Stand is Strength, which can possess objects and bring out their "true potential": in the manga this turns a tiny yacht into a massive freighter that Forever has total control over, up to and including phasing through the bulkheads like they weren't there. He tried to molest the little girl traveling with the Crusaders, only for Jotaro to rescue her and spank the monkey. Based on the intelligent orangutan from the horror movie [1]
Devo the Cursed: A real fucked-up piece of shit. He's a Native American haman who's able to "curse" people to die horrific deaths. In truth, he's a masochist and uses his Stand, "Ebony Devil" to possess a killer doll and take a few pages from Chucky's book by murdering someone who hurt him in various brutal and creative ways. And this shit is fucking brutal, we're talking razors to the back of the foot, shampoo in the eyes, razor-toothed mouth, and blowdryers in the bathtub. Polnareff manages to outmaneuver him and rip his doll (and therefore his Stand, and therefore him) to pieces, leaving a janitor at the hotel to find Devo's bloody mess in a bathroom. What a dick. Also called Soul Sacrifice in the official sub to avoid lawsuits, notable because Araki picked the name himself.
Rubber Soul: Another assassin sent by DIO who was promised a fuckton of money to kill the Stardust Crusaders. His Stand, Yellow Temperance, is an amorphous blob of flesh that allows him to disguise himself as other people and eat organic matter (like people) by murderglomping them. He's a poor actor though, which is what eventually gave him away and got him a ticket on the ORA ORA ORA train. Known best by a phrase he uttered: DO YOU UNDERSTAAAAAAAAND?
Hol Horse: A cowboy whose stand is a gun named "The Emperor". The Emperor's only real ability is that the bullets are part of his Stand too, so Hol Horse can manipulate the trajectory of its bullets mid-flight; allowing it to bypass obstacles that would prevent them from reaching their mark. He's a womanizing coward, but considering how unremarkable his stand is, it's only fair. Yet ironically, he's the only one of Dio's minions that tells him off and even attempts to kill him. He teams up with a guy whose stand literally lives in mirrors (which leads to sorta-killing someone important) and a kid whose stand is a fortune-telling comic book. Neither of these team-ups end well.
J. Geil: An ugly motherfucker with two right hands. A sadist through and through, he raped and killed Polnareff's sister, which drove him to join the Crusaders in the first place. His Stand, Hanged Man, is made of light that can jump between reflections and can stab you from them. He is rather clever though, and lies to the Crusaders when explaining his powers to throw them through a loop instead of telling the truth like a chump. This did not stop him from being turned into a pincushion by Polnareff and hanged upside down like his Stand's counterpart in Tarot.
Nena: A short fat ugly woman who can hide inside of other peoples' bodies. She is initially met wearing the body of an attractive Indian woman and distracted Polnareff while Joseph was fighting for his life against her Stand, Empress. It starts as a tumor on the target's body which grows and starts to eat them from the inside out, allowing Nena to inhabit them (although it's not explained how she switches between bodies). Underestimated Joseph and paid the price for it.
ZZ: A weird looking motherfucker with a bizarre haircut, beefy arms, a tiny torso and a gut, ZZ tried to ambush the Crusaders while they were driving towards Egypt. His Stand, Wheel of Fortune, is like Strength in that it possesses and turbocharges a normal object, but it only works on cars that ZZ drives from the inside. When he got beaten he begged for his life, and the Crusaders decided to grant him mercy... by chaining him to a rock somewhere near the Pakistani border in India so he could starve to death.
Enya Geil: One of DIO's inner circle and his chief adviser. A shriveled old hag who encourages DIO to develop his powers and to rule THE WORLD with them. The mother of J. Geil mentioned above, she loves her son and dotes on him, overlooking the fact that he's a serial killer and rapist. Has two right hands, just like her son. She is extremely mad at Polnareff for killing him, and becomes increasingly infuriated whe she has to play nice with him while plotting her revenge. Her Stand, Justice, is a mist that can raise the dead and can control body parts it drills holes into by using a prexisting wound. It can also create illusions and is next to immune to physical damge because it is made of smoke. This did not help it when Star Platinum inhaled it, which knocked Enya out. She was then captured by the Crusaders who wanted to interrogate her, but got executed by Steely Dan before being able to tell them anything, much to her dismay. Ultimately responsible for parts after the third having Stands flying out of their asses by finding and abusing the Stand Arrow Despite being old as fuck in the main series, the OVA has a flashback that reveals her to have been quite the looker.
Steely Dan: A kebab-stand owner and controls a Stand named "The Lovers". Unlike other stand-wielders, Dan's stand is microscopic and can't do anything in straight-up combat. Its specialty is that it can infiltrate the bodies of opponents and do damage from within, where in this case he infected Joseph with a flesh bud and blackmailed Jotaro into being his punching bag/man servant. He's pretty notable in the series for pissing off Jotaro to such a degree that 6 whole pages/20 seconds were entirely devoted to him being ORA ORA ORAed into oblivion.
Arabia Fats: A short fat dude whose Stand is The Sun, a very powerful Stand capable of firing deadly beams of light, but requires line of sight for him to work. He had to disguise himself using a truck with a mirror on the front while sniping at the Crusaders who had retreated to a cave. After they figured out his disguise they had a good laugh and knocked him out with a single rock to the head, then seemingly left him to die in the desert after taking all his supplies.
Mannish Boy: A murderous infant with fangs and a love for cigarettes at 11 months old. His Stand, Death 13, is essentially the murderous clown version of Freddy Krueger with the addition of being woken up from the attack makes you forget everything that happened. Kakyoin outsmarts and beats him, but since he doesn't want to murder a baby (Stand baby wat do?) he makes it eat shit. Literally.
Cameo: Yet another assassin who went after Polnareff. His Stand, Judgement, can possess dirt and clay; he uses this to put on a fake genie act, making illusory objects with a hearty "HAIL 2 U!" before killing his victims with their own desires. Since his Stand's form is just a blob of clay, it's extremely strong and smashing it doesn't actually hurt Cameo. Polnareff wished for treasure, which turned into dust later. He wished for his sister and the then-dead Avdol back, only for them to be bloodthirsty monsters that would have killed him were it not for the real, not-dead Avdol to show up. Cameo got fucked up by Magician's Red and buried in the ground, only for Avdol and Polnareff to piss into the snorkel Cameo was using to breathe.
Midler: The final of the Tarot assassins sent after the Crusaders. Her Stand, High Priestess, can possess and transform any mineral matter. It took the form of a giant face to drown the Crusaders who were fleeing their sinking submarine, only for Doctor Joestar to do some dental work on her, ORA ORA ORA style. Only seen in the manga and anime as being knocked the fuck out with her teeth knocked the fuck out of her mouth. When Capcom made the fighting game, they asked Araki to draw a more presentable design for her, and delivered with a smokin' hot belly dancer. Araki apparently liked this design enough to make it canon, as it appears in later artbooks for the series.
Pet Shop: Dio's pet falcon, as much of a crazy motherfucker as any other assassin in the series. Its stand is called "Horus", which has the ability to manipulate ice, using it to lay traps and launch it like homing missiles. It guards Dio's mansion and shows down with Iggy after it trespasses into the mansion grounds. Pet Shop's also infamous for being hilariously broken in any game he appears in (The Capcom fighter and Eyes of Heaven), because he's a flying bird with all the frozen Dakka he could ever need while everyone else is stuck on the ground.
Daniel J. D'Arby: The only real fight the heroes couldn't just punch, D'Arby is a professional gambler and cheater whose stand, "Osiris", works on psychology. Those who admit defeat in their minds get their souls ripped out and turned into poker chips for his games. Of course, he gets defeated in probably the ballsiest fakeout ever. He's popular in the fandom for his hilarious attempt at southern-accented Engrish. He has a younger brother who shows up later named Terrance, who does pretty much the same thing except with video games and wooden dummies.
Mariah: She's a hot brown Red Riding Hood with a stand that controls magnetism. By touching random conspicuous outlets, victims can turn into living magnets that can attract anything metallic, though the power of this magnetism is based upon how close she is and how much time has passed.
Anubis: Probably the weirdest thing out there, Anubis is a stand that inhabits a sword. This sword has the ability to pass through things it doesn't want to cut, the ability to learn from being defeated (making sure he can't lose again), and the ability to possess whoever wields the sword. This makes Anubis a trifecta of a threatening opponent, and this leads to probably the longest fight in Jojo history between switching wielders three times (A farmer boy named Chaka, a barber named Khan, and Polnareff). The sword then breaks and is thrown into the ocean, where it rusts for eternity.
Vanilla Ice: Dio's most fanatical and powerful servant...without pants. Vanilla Ice became a vampire after Dio tested his loyalty by saying he needed his blood to fully regenerate, where he went the extra mile by using his own stand to decapitate himself without hesitation. Impressed by his devotion (or maybe it was his massive bulge) Dio used his blood to resurrect Vanilla Ice, granting him near-immortality. His stand is named "Cream", a humanoid monster that has a unique ability where it swallows itself (and Vanilla Ice) in order to become a null void, literally wiping out chunks of reality like the Eldar's D-Cannons. This power is so fucking awesome that it kills two named characters....well sort of. He killed one of them by kicking them to death, rather than swallowing them into his void. He would have likely killed Polnareff but Dio forget to tell him that sunlight would incinerate him and Polnareff uses that to kill him after he shrugged off every other attack used on him.

Pillar Men (Santana, Wamuu, ACDC, Kars) (Part 2)

~~The personal guardians of the Emperor of Mankind~~ A pre-human tribe of supermen from the ancient past, these beings possess superhuman control over their bodies, allowing them to manipulate their own flesh and the flesh of other people as they see fit. This makes them virtually indestructible, capable of reassembling themselves from being blown to bloody scraps. They feed on the flesh of all other races, and their body manipulating traits allow them to literally absorb flesh with a touch. Each of the Pillar Men seen has an elemental "mode" which they theme their personal body modification around (for instance, Wamuu can form a lethal wind shear by spinning his arms like turbines) The tribe's only weakness is sunlight, and thus by extension Ripple energy; Kars' claim to fame was attempting to fix this with the Stone Masks, which didn't work but did create dickass vampires like Dio and massively boosted their shapeshifting powers. By the time of the series, only four members of this tribe survive, having slaughtered the rest of their kind (ostensibly in self-defense; they didn't like their leader's scheme since the increased metabolism induced by the Stone Masks would lead to hunting everything else to extinction if everyone did it) and sealed themselves into pillars to await the right moment to awaken again. Their big plan is to use a magic gemstone called the Red Stone of Aja to power a new Stone Mask that will not only make them sunproof but also give them perfect shapechanging at the cellular level, able to mimic any form of life on the planet and probably some that aren't. Appearance-wise they are built like bodybuilders and dress in ancient Mesoamerican style. Their thought processes are typically cold and alien, though Wamuu has a sense of honor (and grows fond of Jojo). While Wamuu and Esidisi have an honorable warrior mentality, their leader Kars is a double-crossing cheat who will not hesitate to fight dirty, and after successfully using the true Stone Mask, becomes what may be the most powerful being in the entire series, only defeated by sending him into orbit where he eventually stopped thinking.

There's also a fourth Pillar Man, the first one we meet, called Santana by Stroheim. He's the weakest of them all and gets tricked into exposing himself to sunlight and Hamon at once. He's mostly the wake-up to their evil and kicks off the real storyline of generation 2.

Yoshikage Kira (Part 4)

A serial killer with a really creepy hand fetish. As in, he chops off women's hands to make the severed hands into his "girlfriends", keeping them in fancy boxes and having romantic dinners with them... until they rot and he has to get a replacement. The worst part is that he's seriously obsessed with living an ordinary life as a mediocre person...while also being a serial killer with a really creepy hand fetish.

For the most part, he's watched over by his dad, who's now turned into a living photo thanks to developing a stand. Otherwise, he uses his stand "Killer Queen", a pink catlike humanoid, as a killing instrument. See, its power allows it to imbue objects with an explosive charge which he can set off at will. These explosions are so efficient that they don't leave any trace of his victim, which has led to his long career as a killer. The only thing that he leaves behind is a hand, which he will usually have a relationship with despite being the hand of some girl he just murdered. "Killer Queen" also has two separate components to it. The first is "Sheer Heart Attack", a skull-faced tank-bomb that comes from his right hand. This bomb chases down any heat signatures, which makes it effective for hunting down solitary targets, but when crowded with many heat sources, gets disoriented easily. The second power he gains after stabbing himself with a Stand Arrow and switching bodies with another person. This power, "Bites the Dust", is a tiny "Killer Queen" which kills a target at a certain time and will reset time as much as it needs to until Kira can find out who it is that died.

Diavolo (Part 5)

Diavolo is the boss of the Mafia group "Passione", though he never shows his face and operates under the pseudonym "Soliddo Nazo". He also has pink hair and doesn't wear a shirt, but he is anything but fabulous. His big goal is absolute control, and he considers everything, even family, to be a setback.

Diavolo's main quirk is that he has a split personality. This personality, Vinegar Doppio, is a rather ordinary person who just happens to have pink hair and also imagines a phone ringing everywhere and then uses random objects like frogs or shoes just as a phone.

His stand, "King Crimson", is a red and white man with a tiny face on his forehead and has a power that's really difficult to understand. See, he can sort of see time as line from Point A to Point B, and then nullify anything that can happen between those points, like getting shot with a bullet. At the same time, everything stays where it was at Point B despite otherwise being rewound to Point A. There's probably a better way to explain it, but to do so would take too fucking long and leads to anything KC does getting summarized as "IT JUST WORKS". As Doppio, "King Crimson" has a secondary form called "Epitaph" allows him to see a few seconds into the future.

Enrico Pucci (Part 6)

The big bad of Part 6, a gay ex-Catholic priest who worships the ground Dio walks on and who seeks to use his Stands to rewrite reality as Dio would have wished it. We're not joking when we say he's gay, there's flashback scenes where they're laying in bed together (not naked, but their clothes are visibly ruffled). His Stand "Whitesnake" can swipe away other people's Stands or memories in the form of a disk. Pucci can then insert these disks into other people, allowing them to view these memories or use the Stand on the disk. "Whitesnake" later becomes "C-Moon", which can manipulate gravity. Then shit really hits the fan when he later attains the Stand "Made In Heaven" which can accelerate time and manipulate gravity. To make a complicated explanation a little easier to explain, as time continues to travel, the universe will hit a "vanishing point", and a new universe will be created, where everything repeats itself, according to "fate". Pucci can then alter this universe to his desire, basically making the perfect world that Dio always wanted. Ultimately, he gets fucked over by Weather Report and he ends up creating an entirely different universe, Jojolion, where both Dio and the Joestars exist.

Funny Valentine (Part 7)

The fucking president of the United States! No, seriously, he's the 23rd President of the United States, a veteran of the Civil War with the fucking Stars and Stripes as scars on his back, and the real mastermind of the Steel Ball Run. His goal of the race? To recover the Corpse and use it to lead America to a new age of lasting prosperity. And that's why you don't fuck with this President!

Oh, and his Stand, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" (D4C), which allows him to essentially jump between parallel universes. While anything else he brings will be destroyed the moment it comes into contact with its dimensional equal (meaning that he can find someone, drag him into another dimension, and collide him into his dimensional equivalent and kill them both), he is utterly immune to it and is able to replace himself by having his Stand transfer between Valentines. The issue, though, is that it is anchored to one universe: The universe where the Corpse originates from. Eventually, he does recover the Corpse, and at this point, he develops "Love Train", a secondary effect to "D4C" which sheaths him in a field of parallel dimensions. Anything that tries to hit him that passes through the field gets deflected and redirected elsewhere, allowing only good fortune near him. The issue is that it he has to leave this sheath in order to attack. Like Devo, D4C was a victim of copyright law, and in his video game appearances the subs are very careful to never refer to D4C by its full name. The writers still managed to make this as hilariously stupid as the rest of the series, though; Valentine's signature move in All Star Battle is renamed "Filthy Acts Performed at Fair and Reasonable Prices."

Diego Brando (Part 7)

Essentially the JoJolion version of Dio Brando from the original series. Though he is calculating and callous like the original, he is much more considerate with his actions, not killing innocents left and right. However, he won't hesitate to absolutely destroy anyone who gets in his way. His backstory differs in that his father left him behind and he was raised by his mother longer than Dio's (though it was only until he was six). As the original rejected his humanity because it made him weak, Diego takes a different spin on it and blames humanity as a whole for his misfortunes. He participates in the Steel Ball Run race against Johnny and Gyro, wanting the fatass cash prize at the end for himself.

His Stand, "Scary Monsters", has, arguably, the stupidest yet hilariously awesome power in Steel Ball Run and maybe JoJo as a whole. Scary Monsters allows Diego to transform into a blue-green raptor and attack his enemies. For whatever reason as a raptor he has "DIO" plastered over and over again all over his body. If he wishes Diego can simply change his body to have sharp teeth or claws. He can also infect people through bites and scratches and turn them into raptors that are under his control. Essentially he is a wereraptor, which is awesome in every sense of the word. This even extends to his horse, which he turned into a colossal raptor than can climb up walls.

After being upped by Johnny and Gyro on several occasions, he teams up with Funny Valentine in order to gain some revenge and to find some of the Corpse Parts. But in a sudden but inevitable betrayal, Diego makes a 180 and tries to kill Valentine. Naturally, this fails.

Diego 2: Electric Boogaloo: At some point in the story Funny Valentine uses D4C to nab another Diego from another universe to help him. He's basically Part 3's Dio with a different name and appearance. He's also still human, which limits his ability to use The World to stop time.

Terms and Stuff You Need to Know

Ripple

The Ripple, or "Hamon", or "Sendo", as its sometimes called, was a power introduced in Phantom Blood and used up until early Stardust Crusaders. Created by monks in fuckknowswhere-istan, this martial art(?) was created to specifically destroy undead zombies and vampires. The user, quite literally, harnesses the power of the sun via breathing. This can let the user empower their attacks and attain superhuman feats. And for dramatic effect the Ripple can transfer to metal and hair, making it unstable and acting like a weapon in of itself. The last person to uses this was Joseph, who stops training in it after Part 2, and only uses it a couple times in Part 3. When he returns in Part 4, he's such an old man that he's incapable of even that (though to be fair, this was his choice. The Ripple could extend a person's natural lifespan considerably, but one guy still feared growing old, became a vampire, and then died because sunlight. Joseph opts not to do this.)

Spin: The Spin is basically a new version of the Ripple introduced in Part 7. We're not joking when we say it's almost exactly like Hamon except it's far more flashy and when it comes into contact with objects it makes them spin rapidly(duh) by achieving the perfect rotational ratio of the Golden Rectangle (A rectangle that can break into a perfect square and a smaller rectangle with which to repeat this process, potentially ad infinitum). Gyro Zeppili is the most effective with the Spin, using it to charge and launch steel balls at his enemies, though Johnny eventually manages to pull it off using his nails.

Stands

Stands are... weird to say the least. Getting their start in Stardust Crusaders, they are literal spiritual manifestations on a user's willpower and strength. The capabilities of Stands can vary absurdly, among the known powers are: stopping time, shooting out crystal projectiles, tossing marbles that are practically mini virus bombs, and punches so powerful they can break diamond. There are some stands that aren't combat oriented, such as spiritual photography, enhanced healing, or reading people's memories, but generally most are. This is complicated further by the fact that virtually anyone can be a Stand user, so ambushes by enemies are frequent. The first few were introduced were based of the tarot cards (Star Platinum, Magician's Red, etc), but from mid-Part 3 and onward they were named after Egyptian Gods, famous rock musicians and songs. Rolling Stones, Purple Haze, and fucking Metallica are Stands. This made later incarnations of Jojo to be an absolute copyright hell to deal with, since literally every Stand and maybe character can be traced to a band, person, or song. Many names had to be either adjusted or changed completely in localizations.

They also don't have much of a fixed way of manifesting either, with some people being born knowing how to use them (Avdol, Kakyoin), while the Joestars only developed it with Dio waking up, while others still had to get stabbed with magical arrows made from a meteorite or ending up in a weird mystic area and touching mummified body parts.

While there are an array of inconsistencies with Stands, JoJo was nice enough to give this list of the rules for Stands.

A Stand protects its user, like a guardian. The name comes from "standing by" the user, sometimes using their powers without direct orders in order to protect the user, and by extension, themselves.
A person can have only one Stand (though their Stand may evolve (e.g. Echoes, Tusk)).
Not everyone is strong enough to acquire a stand, whether it's by the Golden Arrow or other means (such as Holly slowly dying from her own stand).
Conversely, any living thing is capable of acquiring a stand, from babies, to animals, to plankton.
Stands can be inherited.
A Stand is part of its user, and damage is usually reflected between the two. Usually, if a Stand's leg is cut off, its user will lose their leg as well. Certain aspects of some Stands, such as the armor of "Silver Chariot" or "The Fool", are immune to this effect. If the Stand is not exactly humanoid, they may reflect damage to their user's body relative to the area of the Stand that was damaged, or are an exception.
Stands may only be seen by Stand users; the exception being Stands bound to physical objects (e.g. Strength; attached once to a boat).
A Stand can only be directly damaged by another Stand. A Stand user however can still be attacked directly by a stand or conventional attacks.
A Stand's energy or power is inversely proportional to their operating range. The further a Stand is from its user, the weaker it becomes – Long-range Stands and/or Stands' long-range abilities are simpler in mechanism. One exception is Red Hot Chili Pepper, an electricity-based stand that can travel anywhere that has power lines or aboard anything with a battery.
Stands are usually bound to their user's body, but exceptions abound; Wheel of Fortune being bound to a car, and The Fool being bound to sand.
When a Stand User dies, their Stand disappears with them.
When a Stand is defeated, their user is either knocked unconscious or killed, depending on the level of injury.
Stands allow people to see ghosts (since stands themselves are spiritual phenomena), a fact that becomes important to the plot of part 4.

Stand Arrow: Once, some time in the 70's, a meteorite crashed in Iceland. An exploration team was sent to bring it in, but suddenly killed each other. This rock would eventually find a way out, though...and then incorporated into a set of arrows. These arrows tend to kickstart the process of developing a stand by cutting or piercing someone, but the spiritual strain of the process could prove to be fatal to some. And if you get hit by one while owning a stand? Well, surviving tends to grant you an incredible new power, usually called a Requiem. It's known that about five of these exist: One was given to Enya Geil (an old lady serving Dio), and another found its way to Kira. Yet another was found by Polnareff, which is then handed over to Giorno. The rest are owned by Diavolo.
Corpse Parts: Okay... wat. If you thought all the aforementioned stuff above was strange, you're in for a real treat. So get this; in Steel Ball Run, a major driving part of the plot is that both the heroes and villains are searching for the body parts of what they believe to be the shriveled corpse of some long-dead Saint. Why they want them is that if they absorb the body part into themselves, they get a Stand and various other benefits, making them the JoJolion version of the Golden Arrow. Of course the various characters searching for it want it for various reasons, but those are the main benefits. Oh, by the way, it's later discovered that the Corpse Parts are actually the body parts of Jesus Fucking Christ. We ain't talking Communion or some shit; the literal, physical, holes-in-the-hands body of Jesus. Somehow his body made it to North America centuries ago and an earthquake split it into nine separate pieces and spread it throughout the U.S.

Stone Masks

These grotesque, fanged stone masks only appear in the first and second parts, but are vitally important to the story as a whole. Initially believed to come from the Aztecs, they are actually creations of the Pillar Men; intended to allow for the Pillar Men to overcome their weaknesses and become true gods. When placed on the face and smeared with blood, they drive spikes into a wearer's brain, transforming them into a vampire. Dio Brando became a vampire through the power of one of these masks. However, when powered with the Red Stone of Asia, a gem that can amplify the powers of the sun, a vampire can effectively become immortal. When Kars does this, he not only becomes immune to sunlight and Ripple, but he also gains the ability to shapeshift into whatever he wants, such as gaining wings or turning feathers into fucking piranhas.

Vampires: Human beings transformed by the Stone Masks, vampires are essentially watered-down versions of the Pillar Men. They have similar traits, such as super strength, horrific flesh-manipulating powers, the need to feed on human blood and a vulnerability to sunlight and Ripple, but just don't stack up to the Pillar Men in terms of power.

JoJo Media

Manga: Obviously, if you want JoJo in its original, true form, you can find yourself some copies or just read it online. Beware of the ever-changing art styles and hilarity. Something to note; Stardust Crusaders will be rereleased in hardback covers in fall 2016.

1993 OVA: An OVA for Stardust Crusaders that came out in 1993, but had a few more episodes were released sometime in 2000 that take place before the '93 OVA. Takes the arc far more seriously than the manga, with added gore and dramatic, tension-filled scenes.

Fighting Vidya: Originally a fighting arcade game that was released for Arcades, the Dreamcast and PS1 in 1998, this was pretty much the first contact many Westerners had with JoJo. Based on Part 3 and plays a lot like Street Fighter because it was made by Capcom, who at the time were also working on Street Fighter 3. Available on the PSN and Xbox markets for those who want to play it.

PS2 Vidyas: There are two other Vidya made around 2005, based around Part 1 (Which was supposed to tie into the movie that never released) and Part 5. These were never released stateside and admittedly aren't that noteworthy. They are, however, far more faithful to the original series (as Araki was working on the stories to these games) with everything that entails.

TV Series: A very well animated TV series by David Production made in 2012, which is responsible for the current Jojo resurgence. As of April 2016, they have fully animated and released Part 1-3, with Part 1 and 2 dubbed in English. Part 4 is ongoing and episodes are released weekly.

All-Star Battle: Another JoJo fighting vidya from 2013, but this time pulls characters from all eight arcs. Nothing really notable except that it's the most absolutely fucking fabulous game ever.

Eyes of Heaven: Another JoJo vidya, this time a arena fighting game with a few more characters that weren't in All-Star Battle. Notable for its absolutely hilarious story mode involving time-travel, the other JoJo's meeting each other, and Dio basically becoming a Chaos God. The ending basically rewrites part 3 and onward to be a bit less grimdark, in that Jotaro's entire party survives at the end, while Jotaro becomes a better father to Jolyne as he brings her with him at start of part 4. Dawww.