During the height of the 2020 pandemic, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure blindsided me with a completely beautiful lesson I never expected—and which was maybe unintended. Jojo is so foundational for today’s shōnen, it almost demands a cliché opener about how it needs no introduction. Once upon a time, though, I did need an introduction to the series. And like many others, the pandemic left me with a lot of time to fill. Jojo and I would have more than enough time to get acquainted.
Series creator Hirohiko Araki has said Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure‘s overarching message is about the beauty of humanity. The pandemic, on the other hand, was a global affair showing the bizarre nature of humanity: the simultaneous possibility for cooperation, misanthropy, and apocalyptic pettiness were on display as relationships around the world were tested. Also on display, of course, was the contrast of a global logic impressed on individuals enduring the solitude of lockdown. The pandemic showed that finding beauty in humanity is a choice.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Must Be Understood In Terms Of Contrast
The Series Sets Up Binaries To Knock Them Down
Contrast is also essential to Jojo: the contrast between, for example, stand users and normal humans is so intense that normal people can’t see stands. The contrast between Jonathon’s nobility and heroism was starkly juxtaposed against Dio’s egoistic disregard for those contrived ideals, and this feud would fuel the earlier part of the series. Araki’s trademark artistic boldness, where very different colors pop against one another, also serves as the foundation for his approach to storytelling itself.
Jojo also shows that seeming contrast is always incredibly fuzzy. In the same way as two bold colors come together through their interplay within a bigger picture, the contrasting elements in Jojo always merge just as they diverge, blurring the line between seemingly distinct things. Humans can’t see stands, but they’re certainly affected by them and they can become stand users. Stands themselves are manifestations of the soul, but cause material damage.
Look at Dio, too. Giorno exists because Jonathon’s bloodline was injected with Dio’s. For that matter, when Dio develops his stand, the Joestars do too—specifically and only because Dio had overtaken Jonathon’s body. It’s the apt cherry on top that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s Dio himself is outside the gender binary, per Araki. Jojo is built entirely on the idea of interconnectedness: that contrasts exist to be torn apart.
The Pandemic Contrast Of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
During The Pandemic, The Legendary Shōnen Was Put In A Different Light
J ojo is about how two things that seem impassably separate can and often must bleed together. Ironically, I bled together with Jojo. During the peak isolation of the pandemic, I fell into a depressive slump I’m not proud of, but also for which I don’t blame myself. After all, I was far from the only one. At one point—I’d be lying to say I remember how—a wine glass broke off, but broke cleanly, exposing its thick stem. Forgetting to clean it up, I also forgot during one pivotal moment to avoid it. I stepped on it with considerable force.
It pierced the bottom of my foot. Agony. My own fault, but still: agony. No doubt, I could have avoided such a fate entirely. But still: the dull, crimson-stained agony of a blunt object penetrating the muscles and tendons dead center in my left foot’s arch.
I’d been working through Stardust Crusaders then. Much like the Persona games—which I also first played during the pandemic—the camaraderie apparent in Stardust Crusaders rinsed the loneliness away to leave just a fulfilling solitude atop which I could build other, less pathological reactions to everything around me. In other words, prior to the wine glass incident, I’d had the good fortune of being surrounded exclusively by buff people who don’t exist.
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It made me feel stronger, myself. Jotaro, Joseph, and the rest of the Egypt-bound entourage could swallow bullets for breakfast and heal their broken arm before lunch. I couldn’t. Today, a raised stigma remains. Possibly a bit of deeply embedded glass, too—I certainly wouldn’t go around poking at it. Jojo is always a bit selective about the injuries it decides to keep; it tailors and accessorizes its plot armor with the trademark Joestar swagger and Araki’s thick confidence.
Only plot-critical injuries stick around for Jojo‘s good guys. Over time, that became more apparent to me: they’re like me, in that most injuries heal except the “plot-critical” ones; it’s unlike me, in that my injury would have been comic relief in Jojo.
Araki’s Ode To Humanity And The Importance Of Contrast
Jojo Puts Something Unexpected In Plain View
Fiction is tricky because it’s something that’s experienced in the real world. Fiction and nonfiction always speak to each other. The real world informs the fictional stories, providing the language that gives them life. Fiction has the capacity to inform the real world, too. We learn lessons from books, and the possibility is what enables debates about things like whether video games cause violence.
It’s actually very difficult to tell fiction from nonfiction. That’s why “lies” aren’t self-evident, and we need a handy word like “lies” to call them out. But then the callout can be called a lie—after which you’re suspended in the interpretive vortex again, with no hope of truth.
Unfortunately, the one big truth is, that we’re all suspended in that goofy little vortex. Jojo, especially: nominally fiction, Araki nonetheless says its primary theme is being “an ode to humanity”. How can fiction, which necessarily represents an “unreal” humanity, be an ode to any “humanity” other than the one it represents? It sounds obvious, but it’s through that interplay of fiction and nonfiction.
I won’t lie, I was briefly frustrated that I had been so foolish as to identify with the Joestars and their company. Over time, I came to appreciate it. It’s not that shōnen heroes stand in front of the viewer or reader, taunting them with the idea of what they could be— strength, nobility, whatever they could in theory have but don’t. The heroes stand there to remind us precisely what we can’t be.
Humanity infests Jojo from the outside so it can see itself. A fundamentally unreal humanity must, by proxy, serve as a mirror to humanity in the negative space where humanity feels most unreal. In its reflection, I stopped blaming myself for the strength I lacked. I appreciated the strength and resolve I’m capable of having.
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It’s a potent lesson, even if it’s not explicitly stated. Yakuza‘s Infinite Wealth plays with the trope in reverse when (avoiding spoilers) former protagonist Kazuma Kiryu returns with cancer, having to face that the bulletproof protagonist he masqueraded as for so long was never real. That Kiryu only existed as fiction, within a fiction—that, in a particularly meta moment, Kiryu has this realization as part of a “fictional narrative” just shows the funny weave of fiction and nonfiction. In dire straits during the pandemic, devoid of contact and feeling sorry for myself, the series found a way to show me something new about myself.
One poignant observation of psychoanalysis is that depression, self-hatred, and self-destruction are self-obsession with a particularly narcissistic character. People often throw around the term “main character syndrome”, but I feel our way of life gives us all main character syndrome: fundamentally unfair assessments and expectations, as though we’re all shōnen protagonists—whether we meet those expectations, or hate ourselves for not. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure isn’t an ode to humanity because it shows humanity at its most beautiful; it’s an ode to humanity because it makes humanity find the beauty within itself, through its bloodshed, brutality, bullets, and fundamentally unreal protagonists.
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a Japanese multimedia franchise created by Hirohiko Araki. It follows the adventures of the Joestar family, spanning generations, each with unique abilities and battling supernatural enemies. Known for its eccentric characters, distinctive art style, and creative battles, it includes manga, anime, games, and merchandise.
- Created by
- Hirohiko Araki
- TV Show(s)
- JoJo Bizarre Adventure
- Character(s)
- Will A. Zeppeli , Jonathan Joestar , Giorno Giovanna , Jotaro Kujo , Joseph Joestar , Jolyne Cujoh , Johnny Joestar , Josuke Higashikata , Gyro Zeppeli
- Video Game(s)
- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure , JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R
