Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 24
Posted: August 6, 2009 Filed under: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 6 Comments »Hirohiko Araki – Viz – 2009 – 98+ volumes
published in English as volume 12
I may have been looking forward to Ooku most this year, but there’s little that can come between me and my love of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This is pure, undiluted, ridiculous entertainment. This is the very definition of “comic” in the pictorial story sense. This is what every comic book dreams of being at night.
This starts with the end of the story between Hol Horse, Mondatta, and the Joestar group. Mondatta’s stand has once again predicted that Jojo’s head will be split open, this time by Hol Horse’s bullets, and Hol Horse scrambles in the two minutes he has to make the elaborate prophecy (which is never wrong) come true. Hol Horse’s scrambling to try to force things to work, his inevitable oversight, and the way that Jojo literally dodges the bullet are all pretty funny stuff. I read these two chapters just waiting for the punchline that came when Jojo inevitably did not die. I didn’t see the loophole until it happened, and I really should have. It was fantastic anyway.
The next stand user is Pet Shop, with Horus as his stand. Since Pet Shop is actually a hawk, it only makes sense that his opponent is Iggy, the little dog that’s been traveling with the Joestar group and wields the Fool stand. I was hoping that the entire fight would be wordless, but we do get running commentary from Iggy (first just his thoughts, then, hilariously, he gets dialogue bubbles in later chapters). Iggy’s commentary makes the fight way better than it could have been otherwise, because he thinks a lot of himself, does not want to fight, and has the most hilarious reactions and facial expressions ever. In one of the best scenes in the book, after condemning a small boy to death, Iggy shows back up to engage the stand user, saying he just can’t abandon a dog-lover while striking a funny and strangely triumphant pose.
Here’s something to ponder, though: To my knowledge, there have been at least two scenes redrawn by Araki for the American editions to sort of lessen graphic violence against dogs. One was just a panel or so where a dog was beheaded, but one was a reasonably lengthy story sequence where a dog that had its skull lopped in half with brains spilling out was redrawn to look more like a rat. Here, two dogs are gratuitously decapitated and an ice stake is rammed through their skulls. This is shown a few times, just so the impact sinks in. Their owner, a little boy, shows up to look for them and gets to see Pet Shop pulling out their eyes in one of the most gratuitous eyeball-popping scenes ever committed to paper. It is one of those comedically violent scenes that Araki has a knack for, you can tell it’s drawn with love and a sly wink. But its presence makes me wonder why the other scenes were changed, since this is about a thousand times worse.
Pet Shop’s single-mindedness while hunting Iggy down is hilariously insane as well. Frequently, the panels will spend a lot of time zooming closer and closer in on one of his eyes to show just how tough he really is, which gets funnier every time. At one point, when wounded by Iggy, he takes the tip of his wing, swabs blood off his wound, and tastes it. While flying. And also while the eye zoom is going on. It’s great.
As for the actual plot, the characters are now in Dio’s mansion, which is heavily guarded by stand users. Even so, I believe there are only four volumes left to this storyline, so hopefully we’ll see the wrapup by the end of next year.
I just can’t see why anyone would dislike this series. Well, unless you love dogs I guess, in which case I would advise against reading it or anything else by Hirohiko Araki.
It’s weird indeed that most people just haven’t heard about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and that the series doesn’t seem to work anywhere apart from Japan… Steel Ball Run is still part of the top 20 best sellers in Japan ! I’m French and the publisher who released part 1 to 4 in France just went bankrupt a few years ago (because the series did not sold out well enough). Since then, another publisher started to release Golden Wind (part 5) last year. But still, I wanted to buy the 46 first French volumes and I need to struggle through ebay or just check every little French bookshops selling pre-owned mangas in order to find them. The American publishing policy seems quite stupid as well, from what you wrote. Not only did they chose to publish the series starting with part 3 (which might be considered the best by most fans, but I personnaly also love part 2)(and 6) but they also censored some scenes (in some weird random way apparently). I’m quite happy now that the French translation doesn’t come from the American one (as it used to be for some other manga titles like Dragon Ball). Anyway, I hope for you that the whole Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure series will one day be published in the U.S. Keep transmitting your love for it to other people. This is just the best shonen manga EVER !
(BTW, where did you get your copy of Jojo-A-Gogo ? I must get that book !)
I had heard that the series was being released in French, but I had no idea the publisher went bankrupt. That’s a real shame, especially since the books seem to have become scarce. Maybe the new publisher will reprint them if the demand is high enough?
I’m just happy we are still getting part 3 in English, at least. The releases stopped for a full year, I think due to some protests over the anime in Japan being insensitive to Muslims (Dio is holding a page from the Koran or something, I can’t remember the details). It just started again in April of this year. I’m hoping the publisher continues past part 3 and on to part 4, or rather, that it’s popular enough to be worthwhile for them to continue. I’m quite fond of parts 1 and 2 myself, but I’ll take anything that I’m given in English when it comes to Jojo.
I got Jojo-a-Gogo several years ago from a website called Sasuga Books, but it looks like they no longer carry it. It’s still in stock at Amazon Japan, so it must still be in print – http://www.amazon.co.jp/JOJO-GO-GO-%E8%8D%92%E6%9C%A8-%E9%A3%9B%E5%91%82%E5%BD%A6/dp/4087825914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249883101&sr=8-1
It’s very expensive. I was pretty lucky that Sasuga was in the US, so I didn’t have to pay international shipping for the book (it’s huge). Amazon Japan charges an arm and a leg for shipping internationally, so you might want to use a go-between like Celga.com, who will charge you other fees, but the overall charge might not be as much as the express international shipping that Amazon Japan would charge.
The main way shonen (particularly Jump) manga is popularized in America is through anime. The Jojo anime was, as far as I know, never broadcast anywhere. Other types of manga may not enjoy as great a readership as mainstream shonen, but the readers are trained to find new titles without television. Whereas most shonen readers, on the whole, seem happy to stick with the usual suspects.
This is pure speculation. What do I know?
You’re probably right, and I think the trend was set long ago by Dragonball. But now I have to wonder if Naruto’s popularity came before or after the anime aired. Same with Bleach. Probably after. Then again, Jojo’s a lot different from those series. It’s cartoony in a different way, and that audience might have a hard time relating to it since the characters all look like adults. On the other hand, Dragonball Z featured a lot of adult characters who were just as muscular as Jojo’s characters. I think Jojo doesn’t really have a proper anime, either. I know it has a movie and an OVA series, and maybe a 12-episode anime covering part 3 that may or may not be the same as the OAV? I can’t remember. It doesn’t really have the 400-episode anime that some of the other Jump series that are marketed at kids do, though.
Hmm. I do wonder how popular One Piece is compared to the others. It must be popular enough that they decided to release five volumes a month next year, but I think it hasn’t really been on TV in a long time. It was on Fox on Saturday morning for a little bit though, which I’m sure didn’t hurt things, regardless of how bad the dub was.
It’s actually the same for France, most of shounen readers discover the manga by having seen the anime before. For Jojo’s, only part 3 has been adapted into an anime (which is apparently not as good as the manga). (Part 1 has recently been adapted to a direct-to-dvd OAV). But I’ve heard that most of the names of the stands had been changed because of copyrights. Apparently, that’s the reason why Jojo’s is stuck in Japan : the copyright legislation seems quite different in Japan than anywhere else in the world and some stand names would be considered plagiarism (strangely enough, it doesn’t matter for books, only for TV series and probably other media like video games). I think it’s really sad that most shounen readers go from the anime to the book, since it’s been created the other way around. And more than that, I think the comics are almost always far better than the anime.
Thanks for the Jojo-A-Gogo tip anyway ! I’ve spent all my money in pre-owned Jojo’s for now, but I might be able to afford the artbook one day ^ ^ !
Yeah, it’s a real shame that some of those stand names have to be changed, they’re pretty hilarious and the fact they have no real meaning for the series itself makes the random music names even better. Most of them remained in the English version, and in one awesome instance, the music reference was switched to something else (I still love that Oingo and Boingo became Zenyatta and Mondatta). The only major change was Avdol, which seems to mostly be a change in romanization, and the possible change of a Beatles reference in a minor character, though I can’t compare that to the original and can’t remember at all how it was handled in the English version. It wasn’t too big a deal in context, really. If I recall, they get a little crazier in Dio’s mansion, so I’m curious to see what happens to Kenny G and Cream and everyone.
Strangely, it seems like a lot of people go from the video games to the manga, too. The fighting games seem to be bizarrely popular in those circles. I don’t know very much about fighting games, and… I probably wouldn’t play the Jojo fighting games if I was given the chance, but people seem to think they’re awesome, and then pick up the manga after the game. Can’t complain, but it is kind of weird.