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It's honestly fine to skip the 1st two arcs and revisit them as an extended flashback of sorts. I can say that since that's how I did it with the manga (part 3 was the only one released in English until this year). Doing it that way at the very least means you won't get the same storytelling whiplash that caused a lot of people who liked the 2nd arc to dislike the third. The only benefit to doing it chronologically is that you won't spoil the endings of either arc, something that didn't particularly matter much to me. The important thing is to go back and watch that 1st season in any case.

Experiencing arcs 1 and 2 after 3 probably enhanced the experience for me more than it did harm so I imagine doing the same with the anime is a perfectly viable way to get into the franchise. I am glad you chimed in on this either way Joe. After all the praise for arc 3 I've seen here, it's nice to see some representation for the 2012 anime.

The best way to watch JoJo is to read the manga.

Jokes aside, this was a great write-up, and I couldn't have told people where to start better myself!

This whole article feels like a very circuitous way of getting across the simple message of "JoJo's is good, don't skip the less popular parts!" The attempt to sell JoJo in this article as "It's what pro-wrestling wishes it could be!" is a pretty weak sell that would better suit Garouden or Tough.

Here is the plain simple truth. JoJo is near the pinnacle of crazy, over the top, machismo (yet also quite metro sexual) manga and anime. If the idea the (pen)ultimate evil being Vanilla Ice doesn't immediately make you want to watch this show than fine. You're missing out. But, and I mean this with every fiber of my being, you will never see another series that has a Vampire Chariot Race, Zombie Jack the Ripper, and of course Log Legs.

Just watch the whole damn thing, now is the best time to get into it!

Last edited by Barbobot on Tue Dec 22, 2015 2:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

If it weren't for the fact that Phantom Blood is so short at less than half a season I'd say skip it. For me, it lacks the humor and fun that is brought in with Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders. I started with it, but more because I hadn't watched/read anything JoJo's before that and at that point Stardust Crusaders hadn't aired yet. Jonathan Joestar is just a far more boring character to watch. He's the gentleman fighting for righteousness, which is all well and good, but it's not quite as entertaining as Joseph Joestar's crafty and creative insanity (OH MY GOD!!!!) or the diverse crew of Stardust Crusaders. It wasn't until I got to Battle Tendency in the first season that I really became a JoJo's fan and that is single-handedly thanks to Joseph Joestar.

Dio makes an excellent villain, whose absent from Battle Tendency, but even Stardust Crusaders doesn't get to any real content with Dio until the last 5 or 6 episodes of its 48 episode runtime. There will be a scene here or there occasionally earlier in the series, but nothing substantial. There are some other good villains in Stardust, like Vanilla Ice as Joe pointed out, or Hol Horse and the Oingo Boingo brothers. But there are probably just as many great villains as there are terrible villains as there's a new one nearly every 2-3 episodes. While Battle Tendency has some good villains in the Pillar Men, they just aren't quite as memorable as Dio or some of the best from Stardust Crusaders.

I never knew what JoJo was before the test dub for Stardust Crusaders came out aside from some series from the 80s akin to Fist of the North Star and BASTARD!!. I figured I'd check it out since it was only going to be available for the weekend.

I had never been so confused by an anime like that before. Granted, I was watching the dub and every time they said "Kujo" I thought they were referring to Steven King. I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
So I decided to start at the beginning with Phantom Blood. Still not knowing what the hell JoJo was really about.

Phantom Blood wasn't bad, but it didn't really do anything for me apart from laughing way too hard at hearing "SPEEDWAGON-KUN!" - it was about at that point I realized what I was in for and really started to enjoy it. I have a thing for heavy metal and classic rock references as names or spells.

Battle Tendency is where my decent into JoJo hell really took off. Right off the bat I liked Joseph a lot more than Johnathan. He was exciting, crafty, and offered the energy I needed to keep watching.

The TV version of Stardust Crusaders is great, and just what I wanted. But I agree that it really does lose some excitement just due to it being so much longer than the OVA version for example.

Also, as someone who saw the Stardust Crusaders OVA first I never thought I would say this but, Battle Tendency is absolutely better and crazier than Stardust Crusaders. But who knows, maybe it's a matter of perspective. Maybe I'll wind up saying the same thing about every new arc that I see.

Very good article, but maybe it lacks some context of why the first three parts feel as they do.

For example, Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency are from 1987, it's wackiness of logic and storyline was common around then, it's art is too like the weird version of Fist of the North Star, albeit BT is a huge improvement in all aspects from PB (although I still like PB more), basically what you're watching is a classic and a vanguard work in the genre, since the 'superpower' the first two parts introduce is pretty innovative and in BT the level of bullcrap you can pull of with it is just astounding, plus Dio is one of the first 'villain-protagonist' since Araki pretended for Phantom Blood to be Dio's setup, Jonathan came in later.

Then, Stardust Crusaders is an episodic adventure and you may feel like "dang it's 2014 and they're still doing things like these?", most shonen manga and anime try to deviate from this route aside of some first episodes to get on with larger plotlines. However, Stardust Crusaders is actually a pioneer on the shonen adventure genre, five dudes traveling around the world with very well-done cultural settings was not common back then, even more considering it was not possible to just google up 'what Egypt looks like', Araki did a great job in researching long enough to get most of the enviroments accurately.

Even the superpowers again are innovative since spiritual-like projections was not in the list of many mangakas back then, in fact this would inspire most of mangas that would come out later.

And Diamond is again is very new experience in shonen, not gonna spoil it for any newcomers, but expect for it to be really interesting.

I encountered Jojo by part 02 and was hooked immediately.

And part 03 is good too.

I planned to watch part 01 by purchasing the Localized DVD from WB. Unfortunately, they are using dub's close captions as subtitles, which killed my interest almost entirely.... Crying or Very sad

I like the initial two series better than the 3rd - couldn't image why you'd want to skip those. Love the homage to 70's and 80's rock groups in the character names (REO Speedwagon, Lisa Lisa, CARS, Dire Straits, and lots more) - though the sub/dub do there best to change these. For me the "power-up" used in the first series is also more to my tastes.

I started with Phantom Blood. Though it was a little boring in comparison to the other two, it was good in its own right. But I've told my friends who asked about it to start with PB, to me the story feels much more important in both Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders when you understand why the Joestars have that burning need to destroy Dio.

I really started to like it by the end of PB, and loved BT. SC is great as a stand alone, but it feels a tonnes better when you watch the first two series.

I'm really excited for Diamond is Unbreakable! Everyone says it's fantastic, so I hope that's true!

I liked this article, I'll have to let my friends know about it.

Quote:

It is at this point some horrible, diabolically evil and fundamentally wrong person will attempt to mislead you. Slithering over your shoulder and whispering into you ear, they will inform you that you should skip the first two arcs, Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency, and jump straight to Stardust Crusaders.

I refuse to believe that such evil exists in this world. That's DIO levels of evil we're talking about here. Phantom Blood is a bit dated on its shonen storytelling (then again, 87'), but it's fun in its own right. Battle Tendency, on the other hand, is just sheer insanity (and of the good kind).

With Stardust Crusaders, I believe Araki realized the possibilities Stands could bring to the table, but didn't quite get how to make that work. It certainly gets a lot better in Part 4, where most Stands are creative and their users extremely fun to watch.

Plus, it has Kishibe Rohan, the best Jojo character. Anything with Kishibe Rohan on it is golden. I'd even say that Part 6 wasn't as good until they mentioned Kishibe Rohan in that single pannel. I'm really excited to see him on Diamond is Unbreakable.

Last edited by RestLessone on Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

I also started with Phantom Blood. Sort of.

When Stardust Crusaders' first ep streamed (via CR), I took notice of the buzz and watched it. I was somewhat familiar with Jojo's and its influence, but due to me misinterpreting something way back I thought the story was very, very different from what it was. I found the episode fun, so went through the Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency arcs. PB is especially different from the others, but it's charming in its own right.

In addition to laying the groundwork for Dio, I think it's important from a legacy standpoint. It's cool watching these Jojos go by and get referenced in the future.

oh jojo perhaps its time i finally finish what a started on crunchyroll so many seasons ago.

I've always been 'wary' of jojo because i know that its quite popular but the extreme 'hammyness' of the series always kept me at arms length. the first few episodes was chock full of melodrama, bulging muscles, nonsensical lines and more melodrama. arguably its probably less ridiculous than gurren lagaan or kill la kill but those always had characters (and cough fanservice cough) i really liked, with jojo its like banging my head against a wall waiting for them to shut up and fight without some spectator describing whats happing as im watching whats happening. If only it wasn't bloated with ham and more raw like fist of the north star i'd be up to date by now.

oh well i'm pretty bored right now so i'll give it another shot and see how long i'll last till i tap out

The best reason for watching the 2012 series are the ridiculous fansubs. They helped me get through the series when it got boring, which was surprisingly often. I already felt like Battle Tendency had too many episodes for its own good, so I'm kind of doubtful about Stardust Crusaders, though I'm sure I'll eventually get to it, but the lack of this fansub group working on it will probably make me enjoy it less.

Part one is fun, although the first episode is in such a rush to get through 1st JoJo's backstory that I thought it was a recap episode at first. Worth watching just to see a zombie Scottish knight giving an entirely serious death speech where he bestows the power of Pluck on JoJo. Part 2 at times felt like a parody of itself, as though it had moved from emulating wrestling to voguing. I'm totally down for macho-camp manly action, though, so if anything that was an improvement.

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