 Time to strike your best pose, bring all your memes, cause we're talking JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1 Phantom Blood. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode, another review here at a Week in Geekdom Geo here, and today I finally bring you the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1 anime review that you guys voted on. Here I have the first blu-ray set, the Limited Edition, which comes with all sorts of goodies that sadly we don't get anymore, you know, compared to the new releases, but here is the actual blu-ray for Part 1 and Part 2, but we're just gonna focus on the first eight episodes of Part 1, which are pretty interesting. There's a lot of heated debate as to which series or which season I should say is the best one. The anime is of course done by David Production and it debuted back in 2012, if I remember correctly, and it's a multi-generational story featuring characters related to the Joestar family, and our main character in this adventure is Jonathan Joestar, which got a lot of flag online from the community because some consider him to be the blandest or most boring of the JoJo characters. I happen to disagree, I think Jonathan is actually one of my favorite characters in the whole franchise, simply because of his purity and such an honest character. He reminds me of your Clark Kent, if you will. He's honest and just an overall nice guy who just happens to be extremely overpowered. I had to admit, I got into the franchise really late, I think like what, like a year and a half ago or something like that, and I just kept seeing the memes, and I remember a long time ago I was, I think, at a Walmart or something, and I first saw the release of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure from this set, but on DVD, and I don't know, I thought it looked interesting, but I didn't make too much noise about it, but online people just kept talking about it. Obviously there's a gap when a show gets adapted, you have a bunch of new fans that are coming in for the first time and are hyping up the series, and of course you have your longtime manga readers that like to scuff at anime nubes because that's just the cycle of things, I guess, but they like to make fun of that fact, and I was somewhere in the middle because I had no idea, but I kept hearing about this series, and I had some friends recommended to me, but I never gave it a shot, and then a year and a half ago, a lot of memes started showing up, and by that I mean a lot of memes, like holy crap guys, calm down with the memes, at first they're funny, and some stay really funny to this day, but it's just an onslaught of memes with JoJo, and references and videos seemingly trying to grab something out of thin air and make it a reference to this manga and anime series, I mean, okay, wow. So after so many memes I decided, alright, well I might as well just jump into it, right? I watched like the first three or four episodes, and it was fun, I like the idea of, you know, Jonathan being the protagonist in the 1800s, it being a period piece with supernatural action and like, you know, battle shown in mechanics which will later evolve as the series progresses, but at the start with pseudo martial arts and boxing and just European focused training when it came to battles, and then all of a sudden as the series progresses, and you get elements like Hamon and all the chi, energy, mystical things, it becomes grander than life, and there's a certain cheesiness, but in a good way to the whole series which has, it just makes it really endearing and really memorable. Obviously the characters are larger than life, the color palettes are all over the place, and they're wonderfully rendered and done by David Production, this is one of their flagship title adaptations, and there's a lot of love and care that went into making this as fun and as close as possible to the manga and presents us a really cool story. Like I said earlier, a multi-generational story with JoJo's, basically Jonathan Joestar, hence the JoJo, and it is in the 18th century, the character survives from as a baby, an accident where the Joestar family was, I guess, taking a ride, and the carriage fell across a ravine or a cliff, and the character of Dario Brando of the Brando family sees an opportunity to steal from rich people, but Jonathan's father is too honorable and he doesn't see it that way, he sees Dario saving him, so he's forever thankful and gives him the family ring and all that stuff, and he tells them whatever you need, I owe you my life, you saved my life and my child, unfortunately, his wife passed away, but he's thankful for being saved, but the truth of the matter is Dario is just a scumbag and he just wanted to steal everything, right? So we flash forward a little bit and we get introduced to certain new elements, we see Jonathan as a young kid, and Dario has a son which will become one of the franchise's flagship characters and just one of the craziest, most wonderful villains that you could ever hope to write in your story, of course, Dio Brando. Dio's a little screwy in the head and will do anything to achieve his goals, and when Dario passes away, Dario reveals to Dio of favor that they're owed from the Joestar family, so Dio goes to live with them, and that sort of kicks off the main adventure for at least a good portion of the franchise's history, the relationship between Dio and Jonathan, and how they're butting heads, obviously they don't know the origin or the true nature of the Brando family and Dio's ambition, and him wanting to rise to power and be the wealthiest and strongest, and then the top dog of European society at the time, and it's all carefully orchestrated to make Jonathan out to be the bad guy, so his father will reprimand him, and Dio will excel as the head of the Joestar family, right? So I don't necessarily want to spoil everything that happens in the series, but as the story progresses, there are some heinous acts committed, some very memorable memes that to this day are still thrown around in the weeb anime community, and what essentially it boils down to, although the anime doesn't show it right away, there is the mask element from ancient times that basically this stone mask turns people into, because it wants blood, and it turns people into living vampires, or ghoulish fiends and all that stuff, so after realizing this and a couple fights and hijinks later and putting several characters in harm's way, Dio acquires the mask and becomes this eternal vampire, so begins the story about the Joestar family against this rising evil, obviously later on in the series, we get an explanation for the origin of the mask and the powers and all that stuff, and we have the really badass fights, and the ultra machismo character designs that Araki obviously was inspired by the 80s culture of Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies, and the machismo era, if you will, the series would later tone that down in favor of more stylized, stylish, fashionable, metrosexual character designs that well define the series to this day, but at the start it's, I like that contrast of, you know, the rise in popularity of certain things, pop culture obviously dictates how your characters are going to look in a story, in a fictional story, and later on as the characters realize that Dio is this unstoppable force, there has to be sort of this Deus Ex type solution to the whole thing, and we get introduced to Camon, which is the basis for a lot of the fighting that will ensue in the series, and sort of this mystical chi-like energy and all these crazy cookie elements, but the series progresses in a nice way where you don't mind this escalation of power, because it was never supposed to be a drama, it was supposed to be this action-packed fun series, this bizarre adventure of ghouls, phantoms, vampires, superpowers, and later on with the stands and all that stuff, right? So I like how it takes an unusual approach to the battle mechanics of other manga or an anime, because you got to remember this started out as a Shonen Jump title, right? Later on it moved on to its own thing, but it still has that youthfulness and seeing all the characters try out different battle moves and using different strategies, it's all in there, it's all fun, it's all tongue-in-cheek, but in the best way possible. Obviously the the fantastic art and production design from David Production with a really interesting color palette, I love how it switches between multiple tones in a scene to highlight not only the action, but the gothic element, because it is based on in Europe and it does have that feel, it kind of reminded me of an anime crazy ghost in Goblins mixed with Castlevania, obviously with the quirky elements that JoJo's known for. At eight episodes, I think it is a wonderful introduction. Now the problem with this series is that a lot of people find that the first eight are very safe and Jonathan is a boring protagonist and the story is a little bit rough and sluggish and it doesn't really represent what's so great about the series. I liked it nonetheless because it reminded me of that gothic fanfare and all the NES games that I mentioned and that aesthetic and it being a period piece in the 1800s, I really enjoyed that stuff. It's a little bit tropey and you can see some of the things that are happening from a mile away and the characters behave in predictable manners, obviously Jonathan is very stereotypical and he might be a big of a boy scout similar to a character like Superman, but I liked that. I like his honesty, his resolve and his good-natured spirit and in the face of adversity not giving up, in the face of this ultimate evil that arises in the wonderfully delicious villain known as Dio, I like his resolve to avenge the fallen characters of the series, don't want to spoil it just in case, but there is some death involved and I do like that when it comes to the series, sometimes nothing's off-limit and people will die and you're shocked but you just got to keep going because again the series spans multiple years, right? It keeps going afterwards in different eras so I like that about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The actions intense, the colors I liked and the wonderful characters, I really enjoyed. Do I recommend it as a starting point? Yes, of course, it is a starting point. Just know that the series evolves and it gets better and it gets much more complex with themes and character development. It just so happens that at the start it's a little bit stereotypical with some of its character representation, but it gets really good. Obviously, Araki's love for human anatomy and physiology and the way he poses the characters are just emblematic and really do make the series and just to show you the little art cards here because I think they do a good job of giving you a feel for the characters, you do see his display of anatomy and showing how all these characters look. There we go. Look at that thinking focus. Right. So as you can see just super stylistic character designs and the man has impeccable taste and all his characters are, you know what you're getting yourself into when you see his character designs. They're all appropriate for the era, but they still have a very high fashion sense for each. And in eight episodes the first part I think is a really quick, fun, action-packed experience that you'll probably dig if you've never watched. So that is my spoiler-free review. I don't really like doing spoilers on this channel, but it's been a ton of fun and I wholeheartedly enjoy this series with its great soundtrack and music and the characters and all the stuff that I just mentioned. It's a blast. So yeah, I do, I do, I do recommend it. A lot of people will say, oh, start with part three. Eh, start with part one. Do it as intended, right? So what about you guys? Obviously, I know you've seen Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and you like that series. Let me know what you thought of Phantom Blood. And if you want me to continue reviewing the series, of course, let me know as well. I'd be happy to do that. And thank you for everybody that voted on this title to be reviewed. I had a lot of fun revisiting part one and watching all that stuff. And yeah, make me nostalgic for that era, if you will. So thank you everybody for tuning in. I have a new poll on my community tab, of course, with new anime that hopefully you guys can vote on for me to review. Pretty excited about that as well. So yeah, thank you so much for liking, commenting, subscribing, and being a part of a Week in Geekdom, I truly appreciate it. And if you want to subscribe, please consider doing so. I do content like this where I go over anime, comics, manga, all that fun stuff. I've got to go guys. I will catch all of you on our next video.