What Makes Jojo's Stands Stand Out? - Game Rant

Survival in the crowded field of battle manga/anime demands not only a good story premise and characters but also the consistency to keep fights interesting for years. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the series that have managed to achieve this, thanks in part, to its Stands.

Stands were first introduced in Jojo’s 3rd part, Stardust Crusaders, due to the series’ need for a more flexible powers system. Originally, the series had been defined by Hamon, a life energy based martial art made specifically for fighting vampires and other creatures of the night. Series creator Hirohiko Araki felt like Hamon had reached the end of what he could do with it, so as he had done once before, he took a big risk and changed the status quo. And once again, it only made Jojo more popular.

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Endless Possibilities

With a series that has run for as long as Jojo has, it’s hard to imagine how it manages to stay interesting and compelling, even between regular change ups of its entire main cast. The key to this sustained intrigue lies in the setup of Stands themselves. Whether they were born with them or obtained them later in life, anyone with a Stand has infinite possibilities to what their Stand might be. While a Stand’s abilities are tied to the user’s psyche, there is seemingly no limit on what they can actually be.

Stands are usually ghostly beings separate from the user, but can also be suits the user wears, a part of the user’s body, an unseen ability, or even a seemingly inanimate object. At first they appeared to be purely servile, but Stands with their own minds and personalities have also been introduced. Stand abilities started out as simple fire or sand manipulation, but before long spiraled into stopping time, erasing space itself, and traveling between multiple dimensions. Stands can even be possessed by animals, or have no user at all. This is all possible without ever feeling like something unnatural for Jojo as a series. The category “Stand” is so broad that Araki can do whatever he wants with it. And even when it seems like you’ve seen it all, more and more unique stands appear to shake things up.

Rules, Rules, Rules

Some series like Lord of The Rings tend to be more loose with the restraints on their power systems. While this can allow for big spectacles and unrestrained abilities, there is a great benefit to keeping a power system more grounded. For Jojo, putting restrictions on all stands forces the characters and the writer to be more creative with their solutions. There are more general rules, like how all damage done to stands is reflected on the user and vice versa, however, each individual stand has its unique limits. Dio’s stand can famously stop time, but he is limited to 5 seconds at first, and can only go up to 11 due to his vampire biology, and even then, it took regular usage to reach that point. That time limit gives Jotaro and friends a realistic chance of overcoming him, and also allows the audience to consider solutions themselves, as they have the same information that the protagonists have.

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The specificity of Stand rules ironically also frees the characters even more. Had Josuke’s Stand simply been a healing stand, he would still be able to help keep his friends alive. However, making his power specifically reassembly and reversion, allows him to pull off creative strategies like destroying and rebuilding a motorcycle to avoid hitting a baby, uncooking a plate of spaghetti, or using his enemy’s blood as a homing weapon to ensure they get hit. And since similar stands might have different restrictions, Araki can revisit similar ideas without ever repeating an exact set of abilities.

Made for Setpieces

Stands might have great potential, but the way in which they are used puts them over the edge. This includes how they are presented to the audience. A lot of people know that Araki is a big fan of western music. Jojo famously features references to everything from ACDC to Metallica and even Snoop Dogg. What is less known however, is that Araki is also a big fan of classic horror movies, and this can be seen in how he builds up Stand reveals.

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Many Stand fights start and build tension the way horror movies do. Everything starts off fine, then little by little things start to become more and more unsettling until eventually the characters are thrown into a full on assault where they are at a disadvantage and must discover the nature of their opponent and how to beat them. Many early stands translated this influence directly, like Ebony Devil’s doll form taking cues from the Chucky movies.

Not every encounter plays out like this, but the common structure allows Araki to build up much more tension and emotional investment in Jojo’s fights. Combine this with Jojo’s famous “pop-off” moments when the enemy has finally been figured out, and you get a winning strategy for consistently compelling and satisfying battles.

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