Finding My Own Stand at Shibuya's THE★JOJO WORLD Store

There are innumerable reasons why Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series has captured the imagination of fans around the world. There are the over-the-top action sequences, highly quotable characters, outlandish comedy, and more. No small part of the JoJo formula is characters' Stands, powerful entities that engage in battle, and just so happen to be named after legendary music acts and songs. Part of fandom often includes putting yourself into the action, whether that's writing fanfiction or taking one of numerous personality quizzes that match you, the fan, with your own Stand. But what if I told you there's a place where you can get your own officially sanctioned Stand based on your actual abilities?

It's true, you just have to head to the sixth floor of Shibuya's PARCO department store. Inside, on the same floor as the official Nintendo, CAPCOM, and other fandom-focused shops, is THE★JOJO WORLD store. Inside, you can find plenty of merchandise spanning Phantom Blood to The JOJOLands, the Iggy Cafe, a handful of mini-games, and even an Iggy shrine fortune dispenser. However, one of the largest attractions is an immersive laboratory set-up designed to put your abilities to the test and match you with a fitting Stand ally.

After paying the 990 yen entry fee, I entered one of the Stand Abilities Lab's designated booths. Inside was a screen, a wall of buttons, a small handheld switch, and a pressure plate on the floor. It was with these items alone that I would undergo a grueling series of six tests based on moments from the JoJo's series. I was fairly confident when starting the test. I'm not an exceptionally athletic person, but I was ready to give it 100%. Besides, if one test was strength-based, maybe I could make up for it with dexterity or logic.

The six tests cover "destructive power," "speed," "precision," "range," "growth potential," and "stamina." Each individual ability is evaluated based on its own action-based mini-game, which ranges from hitting lit-up buttons and running in place to navigating a maze and locating differences in an image. While I expected to excel at the image-differences test, I found it to be the most difficult. The time limit is unforgiving, and the differences are pretty subtle! I also thought I had performed pretty well at hitting the lit-up buttons, but ended up averaging a C ranking in the "destructive power" category. That was the test I completed first, so I knew early on that the lab was pretty serious about judging your abilities!

As it turned out, I did manage to squeeze a few As: my endurance and range (and a B in speed) made up for the rest of my Cs across the board. So, what Stand was perfect for me?

You know, it makes sense that I would end up with a Stand without standard combat abilities. Boy II Man appears in Diamond is Unbreakable, and instead of physically attacking Josuke and his friends, it is able to steal energy from their Stands via a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. If Stand user Ken Oyanagi wins enough times, he can absorb the opponent's Stand entirely.

And listen, I don't want to get spooky on you all of a sudden, but the Rock-Paper-Scissors connection was personally interesting to me. You see, at Anime Expo 2024, I was attending a Delicious in Dungeon panel hosted by Trigger. As is common at their panels, they were closing out with a prize giveaway that included several character shikishi drawn by Naoki Takeda. In this case, it included a giant game of Rock-Paper-Scissors with the entire audience. Long story short, I won one of the shikishi after successfully winning nine games of Rock-Paper-Scissors in a row. Could the Stand Abilities Lab somehow detect this part of my character lore? Let's ponder that over food from the Iggy Cafe menu.

The Iggy Cafe had one of the best logos and overall theming I have seen. There's a large marquee featuring Iggy himself in a chef's hat encircled by coffee beans. My husband liked the logo so much that he picked up a blue apron with it emblazoned on the front. I was able to try a variety of items from the menu, including sweet and savory snacks and a few lunch-worthy options. These aren't big plates of pasta, but you can get your fill.

We ordered the Mochimochimocchi (S・P), the Iggy donuts, a pork katsu sandwich, and THE★JOJO WORLD original drink.

The mochi balls came in two flavors: milk cream and caramel. Each squishy dessert ball looked like one of the bullets from Guido Mista's Stand, Sex Pistols (Six Bullets in the English-localized version). Both flavors were excellent, and I enjoyed the chewy mochi texture.

The Iggy donuts were standard cake donuts, but the icing is what makes them special. The character faces are incredibly cute. I almost felt bad ruining Iggy's silly face. The icing quality was particularly good. Usually, to get desserts this detailed, American bakeries resort to fondant, something I do not care for.

The star of the menu is the pork katsu sandwich. While the sandwich itself isn't as thematically consistent as the desserts, I appreciate a good katsu sandwich, and this one fit the bill. The panko crust was delicious, the meat was juicy, the flavored sauce added a bit of acidity, and the bread was nice and fluffy. The sandwich itself came with a takeaway bag modeled after the St. Gentleman sandwich shop from Diamond is Unbreakable.

I washed all the food down with THE★JOJO WORLD original drink, a pink-and-blue concoction made with pineapple juice, pink lemonade, and blue jelly. This was also exceptionally good, and I typically don't like boba-like textures in my drinks. The pineapple juice changed the flavor just enough that it didn't feel like a special-colored lemonade, but more like an alcohol-free cocktail.

There's plenty to explore at THE★JOJO WORLD store, whether you want to find out your very own Stand or pick up merchandise from your favorite JoJo series. Can't make it out to Shibuya any time soon? Here's hoping JoJo-related events will make their way to the U.S. in the near future.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure animation and characters ©Hirohiko Araki＆LUCKY LAND COMMUNICATIONS/SHUEISHA, ©Hirohiko Araki&LUCKY LAND COMMUNICATIONS/SHUEISHA,JOJO The Animation Project