JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: A Bizarre Adventure Into Memes (Part 1)

For my final post on Anime and the plethora of memes that accompany it I will be discussing JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. This was the first anime I have ever watched and I only watched it because of the many memes that I have seen about this great show. This show will always have a soft spot in my heart and I highly recommend it if you ever feel like participating in something so absurd that it just tickles your fancy. While I don’t think it is the perfect show by any means and it has a lot of continuity problems but I still appreciate the quality of the memeable lines and events that happen. This post will contain A LOT of SPOILERS, but even if you watch the show it will let you have an appreciation for the memes that spoil the event. These posts will be spread out over the course of these next three days since there are just so many memes to talk about.

All of the JoJo’s and their poses.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a shonen series that is seperated into parts. Right now part 5 is getting an anime release and part 8 is the most recent part in the Manga. To start off I will try and explain the series itself, as it is kind of a difficult story line to plot out all the way through but I will scrunch it down to the bare minimum. Dude’s fighting. That’s the barest of minimum. But what these fights entail and how they play into the greater story is what keeps the show fun and interesting. All of the characters are references to classic bands or songs and the music is easily one of the greatest parts of the show With the development of stands in part 3 and the constant changing of characters over time really allows the writer Araki, to flex his creative muscles, even if he forgets a few things. So I will try and sort these memes by parts and only to part 5 so that way it is a bit easier to process, and can be used as a compendium for these memes.

Part 1

The first part, Phantom Blood, follows Jonathan Joestar, the first Joestar in the Joestar bloodline, at the sweet old time of 1880. The young Jonathan and his father are living an Idyllic life and are bestowed a demon child named Demon Brando after his father passes away and Jonathan’s father takes him in because of a life debt. Dio is bad news and later becomes a blood sucking vampire. He creates a vampire army that Jonathan has to defeat with sun breathing called Hamon. Confused yet? Because the show is anything but usual, perhaps you could say bizarre, it is hard to outline everything but this is the basic outline for part 1, now to embrace the memes

I reject my humanity JoJo

Dio Brando rejecting his humanity

In part 1, Dio Brando finds a mask that allows him to turn himself into a vampire, this vampiric power removes one’s own humanity and replaces it with vampire powers. But because this line is so useful it allows people to replace the mask with whatever they want.

All of these memes are just simple replacement memes but truly shows how JoJo’s fandom spreads, either to comment on societal norms like pineapple on pizza, a show’s questionably attractive characters for heterosexual males or gacha games. All of these are a common theme in JoJo memes, which are seen in other shows and games in a great amount.

Speedwagon

The JoJo community has a big appreciation to what are considered JoBros, the people that assist the JoJo’s in their travels and help them in their time of need. However, the one they love the most is Mr. R.E.O. Speedwagon. The very first JoBro in part 1.

Callback to my previous post.

Whether it is ironic or not, there is a large part of the JoJo’s fandom that honestly loves Speedwagon and his character, he comes up again in part 2 and again acts as a guide to Jonathan’s son and he is someone that the audience can really latch onto, especially in the early parts as he is extremely wholesome and a very great benefactor to our main protaganist.

Let’s be realistic guys, there is only one person that everyone wants to be like from ShitPostCrusaders

Must protect relatable best boy from Animemes

Thunder Cross Split Attack

This scene is so weird to be such a meme but it’s a meme and so therefore I have to include it. The setup is that there are two hamon users looking to fight Dio and in this case one of them, Dire named after the band Dire Straits, is going to use his ultimate move on the playboy vampire. However it is countered to show how strong Dio is and the JoJo community could not get enough of this silly move. SO much that they made and hour long version of just that.

They throw it into memes to make them absurd, with a pointless political message to imitate boomer memes like this one

They use it on animals

And they put it into other memes.

And all of this simply, because? I don’t know. I never understood this meme and I still don’t. It is just a silly move in a silly shonen anime and I think that is the one and only reason it is funny.

Roundabout/ TO Be Continued

The most well known on this list and maybe you have seen it a lot even if you have never even watched anime. Roundabout is a song by Yes that serves as the ending to part 1 and it has the sickest guitar solo ever, but what truly makes it perfect is it’s slow and steady plucking of the guitar to start off the song. It leads to perfect comedic timing and allows for the viewer to imagine what might happen next.

The template.

meme compilation

This is just a few of the many memes that this has spawned and allows the anime to spread to not just the anime community but to those that have never watched anime before as they try to find both this song and where the to be continued is from.

The ”To Be Continued” arrow on this game’s info window. from UnexpectedJoJo

Azur Lane Roundabout reference

It Was Me, Dio!

This meme is a good showcase of soemething that the jojo community uses to infect itself into other anime communities. This cross-anime interaction is conducive to the show becoming more and more popular and developing such a devoted fanbase. With the introduction of Dio as such a bad but likeable character he himself has become something of a meme, specifically this awful face he is making to introduce himself. With references in gaming communities such as Undertale

it was me, DIO- from YuB

In the Expand Dong format

And it is used as a way to shape other characters

This kind of reference helps solidify a characters staying power and separates them from the cookie cutter figures that some anime characters fall into.

How Many Breads Have You Eaten in Your Life

The final major part 1 JoJo meme, Dio asks Will A. Zeppeli how many breads has he eaten in his life, because Zeppeli asked him how many people he has killed to heal his wounds. While the line is really cool, the actual visuals on the image are awful and show just how much Araki’s drawing style has improved over time.

This has the usual gaming suspects like undertale

And Team Fortress 2

And so many others. The JoJo’s community stretches far and wide and has so many well developed memes that act as a kind secret symbol to share with their fellow JoJo enthusiasts. This insider feeling creates a community that is tight knit in their love for a show and really appreciate when a show or a game or anything includes JoJo because it shows how strong their community is. It is a bizarre show with bizarre fans and even more bizarre memes. So stick around for the other parts memes and a reflection at the very end.