Pretty awesome show.
Easily best entertainment of the year.
But is it really all that good?
Video:
Flamboyant, flashy and over-the-top, this is an action show that makes sure to milk every single scene for all visual impression possible.
Living up to the word "Bizzare" in the show's title, it is as though the creators were making a point out of looking for every single visual gimmick they could possiblty insert in the show without outright breaking it.
If a scene allows for a shiny special effect - it'll be there. If there is any way at all to make the scene color scheme even a little bit funky - count on JoJo to make it so. If it makes any sense at all for a character to stike a pose for the camera - you can damn well be sure it'll be stricken in the coolest way possible.
However, what really makes this show take the proverbial cake in "Art" part is the focused and well-defined artistic vision. It is not yet another show about superpowers, putting on special effects on screen just for the hell of it. Every scene has a well defined goal it tries to achieve in terms of viewer experience, and doesn't compromise this goal for anything. Despite the sheer volume of visuals going on, there isn't really a single pointless brushstroke. Every odd color works to convey the mood of the scene and the state of the characters, sweeping the viewer right along with it.
JoJo is a show that makes great use of novelty of the experience. As long as there are new interesting characters, new interesting locales and new interesting action, the show's creators are really able to make all of that greatly entertaining stuff hit home for a 10-worthy visual experience.
There is, however, a problem. In a couple of cases where locales or characters are simply not all that interesting, the novelty that the show works off begins to sag. And that's when you begin to notice that JoJo is actually less of animated movie and more like a sequence of still images. Beatifully rendered, expertly paced, completely thought out, enchanced all sorts of SFX, but still just not quite there for an ideal action anime.
Which does force me to detract a point from what could otherwise have been a perfect score. 9/10.
Sound:
JoJo's sound works much in the same way as visuals. There is this awesome overall sound theme, which is basically about being LOUD in a lot of possible ways, and there is an exellent use of all sorts of sound to support the scenes at hand.
Everything good that was said for the show's visuals, goes for the show's sounds as well. From the amazing OPs to the amazing ED, through all the supercharged voice acting and faithful SFX work, the audial experience of the show works as good the visual experience does.
And, what's more, when visual experience begins to show imperfections, it is the sound that picks up the slack. Because unlike the visuals, the sound of this show is not a series of individual well-played notes, but rather a continious, coherent and living song of a great bizzare adventure.
It wouldn't be a stretch to say that, even though the show's visuals are already amazing, it is the show's sound that actually carries them and ties them together. And for that, it's worth a 10/10.
Story:
JoJo's story is ... hard to judge by common story standarts.
There is a little bit of overarching conflict, which can be roughly defined as an adventure classic of "Pride versus Compassion", and the initial ark really does a hell of a job, pretty much being an amazing story in it's own right, but...
Well, don't be fooled. JoJo is a show that thrives on novelty, not on smarts. Ultimately, the only purpose of JoJo's plot is to give a lot of burly men with superpowers to do battle with a lot of other burly men with superpowers in as many cool settings as possible.
That being said, in that regard the story is actually quite well done. All the various fight locations flow well into one another, and some care is taken for the timeskip-ridden story not to feel completely all over the place. The story's pacing is definitely it's strongest suit, with every episode delivering a small chunk of required exposition and then delivering completely on the full extent of the conflict the delivered exposition affords.
The true strength of JoJo's story, however, is not in any big wide story developments. Yes, it kind of wrestles with notions of immortality, ethics of world conquest and this kind of stuff. However, that's really not the point here.
The point here is how thick the big enemy guy's armor is, how hard is it to find holes in it, how far he will corner the heroes, and how the heroes will eventually find a way to slip in a burning piece of cloth in just the right spot anyway. It is about men faced with overwhelming odds and adapting to surpass these odds.
Yes, it is about adventure. It is about blowing away all stereotypes associated with the genre and reminding all of us spoiled people just how much can looking at a good fight can make your blood pump.
And yet... There is a reason why people find pure adventure stories kind of boring. Ultimately, a fight is not interesting if it doesn't have a really awesome cause behind it. And JoJo's story does not really deliver well on awesome causes outside of first ark.
In this show, story has a clear function - getting the characters into more and more novel altercations. The extent to which it executes on this function is amazing and is almost unheard of for stories of this type, which perfectly merits a 7/10. Going beyond that, however, requires originality beyond the name and graphics of the character's next move. Which stories of that type are just traditionally bad on delivering.
Though, to be fair, i can totally see how 20 years ago (when the shown parts of the manga were written) this story would completely blow anyone's mind :D
Characters:
Now, characters in this show are drop dead amazing. They are so amazing that they really make you forget about the story's lack of originality. In fact, the story owes it's higher than average score precisely to the fact that it is graced by the existence of such amazing characters.
Now, what makes them amazing?
Three things. First, they are all unique, purely on the merit of power of their visual and audial presentation. JoJo works with a lot of old cliches, like the compassionate hero, or a greedy villain, or the Obi Wan, or anything else you can think of. However, make them dress funny (but fitting for their roles) and have them be LOUD, and those cliches suddenly remind you of the sheer expressive power that made them cliches in the first place.
Second. They really love things. They love them so much they are easily able to LAUGH, CRY and then HIT STUFF for the sake of these things, completely sincerely and in really rapid succession. And those who aren't always being loud, instead do some amazingly colorful brooding over things that they loved, but lost.
Characters that are both unique and really, visibly, belieavably love what they do? That's already a recipe for win right there. But JoJo takes it that one important step further. It constantly takes two characters that love opposite things, pits them against each other and them gleefully watches the sparks fly, as the characters discover their strengths and weaknesses and devise ways to become stronger.
Now, sometimes the villain wins, in which case the heroes that survive his victory deal with loss and try to move on. Sometimes there are more than two characters, in which case instead of one-sided beatdowns by stronger parties, you'll see actual cases of three-way conflict. Sometimes one of the characters is not really a villain, just habitually nasty, but inherently noble. And in that case you can't help but root for the poor bastard.
JoJo is really a textbook example of classic approach to exellent adventure characters. You do this, and you got yourself an amazing set of guys who can pull the story pretty much on their own. 10/10.
Value:
Now, you'd think that with scores as good as above, the show's value would be amazing.
Sadly, it's only average in my eyes.
JoJo doesn't really do anything new. Heck, even it's story is two decades old. It provides great examples of how to do stuff that good artists already know how to do, but it doesn't really push the medium forward. The sad fact is, anime is not better for having had JoJo's Bizzare Adventure.
It is also squarely targeted at anime fans. I'm not aware of any other social groups that are able to handle this much concentrated weirdness.
I actually feel older adaptations of JoJo had more value than this newer one (even though they were positively less entertaining).
I guess, JoJo's biggest accomplishment is that it took all the knowledge that modern anime creators have amassed in terms of mechanics of keeping the viewer glued to a screen and having fun, and then put this knowledge together in a really neat package.
That's worth 6/10 in value, i guess.
Enjoyment:
I would be lying if i said i didn't enjoy it. I certainly did :D.
However, one needs to ask oneself... Was it the kind of enjoyment that reduces you to tears, leads you to reconcile entire scores of your own inner conflicts and leaves you a better man? Or was it just a good timewaster?
JoJo is in a weird spot in that regard. On one hand, it definitely felt like more of a timewaster. On another hand, i wouldn't mind wasting my time like that again, which is usually a good indicator that small-scale inner reconciliations are indeed going on.
I guess for now i'll have to put enjoyment at "slightly higher than strictly healthy" (which would make it 8/10) and hope that the next season clears things up a bit :D
