There is no manga series quite like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. As the name suggests, the long-running franchise is filled with some of the most outlandish and off-the-wall storytelling in the medium. Likely best known in the industry for its lavish and spectacular openings, the anime adaption by David Productions is currently working on producing Part 6 of 8 (and soon to be 9) of the wacky shonen saga.
Series creator Hirohiko Araki is well known for his off-the-cuff writing style which, baring some vague end goals for the overall theme, relies heavily on the manga artist's stream of consciousness plotting. However, despite critical acclaim, both the manga and anime have several moments that even hardcore fans would prefer to have King Crimson'ed from existence.
The following article contains spoilers for all 8 parts of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
10 Dio Making A Woman Eat Her Baby
While generally classified as an action-adventure series, the JoJo franchise maintains its core routes in that of horror, both the body and gothic variety. Part 1: Phantom Blood is arguably the most horror-focused part in the entire series with protagonist Jonathan Joestar battling the vampiric monstrosities crafted by his maniacal adoptive brother Dio.
Araki was only 27 when he wrote Phantom Blood, hence why it suffers from some uneven plotting and an immature lack of restraint. One stand-out moment is when Dio Brando turns a woman into a vampire and watches as she eats her own. It's an unnerving scene to be sure, but lacks the tact and artistry that Araki would later develop over the course of his career.
9 Battle Tendency's Nazi Friends
Joseph Joestar really doesn't seem to have an issue with Nazis. Coming into conflict with the soldiers of the Third Reich is a natural extension of the clear Indiana Jones influence present in Part 2: Battle Tendency, but even Indy makes his disdain for Adolf's minions clear.
While Joseph initially fights Stroheim and his company, they eventually join forces and by the end team up to defeat Kars. That's all well and good until Stroheim just kind of keeps getting to be a Nazi and even ends the Part with an oddly idealized ending in which he goes out in a blaze of glory at the Battle of Stalingrad. It's certainly one of the more uncomfortable parts of the series.
8 DIO's Children (Other Than Giorno)
Giorno Giovanna is a fan-favorite character. His calm and cool demeanor creates a perfect mix of Jonathan Joestar's heroic aspects and DIO's villainous aspects. Giorno's brothers on the other hand? Not so much.
From left to right there is Donatello, Rikiel, and the bizarre-looking Ungalo. While they each featured creative and unique stands, their less than epic arrival as well as their hilariously bad designs have left them very low on the tier list of DIO's offsprings. Thankfully this would be the last of DIO's children to appear in the series thus far.
7 Every Dead Dog
It's no secret that the series loves to kill dogs. Phantom Blood started off with the cruel murder of Danny by Dio Brando, and even by Part 3 fans weren't safe from the dramatic and sorrowful death of team mascot Iggy.
The literal inverse of the "save the dog" trope in which audiences are immediately endeared to a character regardless of moral depravity based on how they treat animals, the longstanding JoJo tradition is shorthand for Araki to make fans quickly despise the villain of the week... or just to make fans hurt.
6 Joseph Joestar's Oedipus Complex
In the grand tradition of all long-running franchises that make the story up as they go (Star Wars, Marvel, etc.) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fell into the awkward Luke/Leia trap in its second part. After several scenes of the ever-inflamed Joseph Joestar ogling at Lisa Lisa, it is revealed towards the end of the final battle that she is in fact his long-lost mother.
The best part of this revelation is that the audience never sees what Joseph's reaction is to this news, leaving tons of room for parody and satire.
5 Jolyne Making Fun Of Foo Fighters
Stone Ocean was incredibly progressive for its time, and arguably even still today. While female protagonists in manga were nothing new, it was considered a risk by the men in charge of Shonen Jump to have their long-running and male-dominated series be taken over by a woman.
Despite Araki's outspoken LGBTQIA+ advocacy, there is an infamous moment in Stone Ocean where Jolyne insults Foo Fighters using a homophobic slur. To be fair, this comes from English language fan scanlations so whether this is actually the intent of the author or just another classic example of mistranslation-isms is tough to say without actually being able to read Japanese. Regardless, it's since become part of the JoJo meme pantheon. Thankfully the dub and subs for the anime adaption leave this line out (or possibly just find a more proper translation).
4 Anne, Fugo, & The Other Abandoned Characters
Despite plenty of fan speculation and debate, Hirhiko Araki did not "forget" about these characters. It's well documented that Fugo was written out largely due to the writer's own struggle with depression at the time and simply not having the heart to carry out his planned betrayal story arc.
Anne and Achtung Baby may seem like sure-fire mistakes by the author, but they have more to do with the weekly serialized nature of manga and comics in general. Anne and Achtung showed up, played their part, and then left when the writer felt they were no longer needed. Despite that, many fans still feel unsatisfied with their endings and love to speculate on future stories.
3 Stone Ocean's Finale
Steel Ball Run wasn't the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to end on a downer. As anime-only fans will soon learn (assuming it doesn't take another full year for more) Stone Ocean has one of the darkest and most heartbreaking endings in series history.
While Pucci fails in his plot to perfect the world, he does succeed in ending the original universe in which all prior parts of the series had taken place. This results in the effective death of the entire cast, as well as all previous casts, with the only silver lining being the survival of Emporio as he meets a reincarnated Jolyne from the new world. Many fans mistakenly believe this created the Steel Ball Run universe, but as far as Araki has said, it's just one of an infinite number of alternate timelines in the JoJo canon.
2 The Dropped Plot Points In JoJolion
Part 8: JoJolion only recently wrapped up in August 2021 and fans are eagerly awaiting Jojo's ninth part, tentatively titled JoJoLands. Despite the hype, many long-time readers felt let down by JoJolion's abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion.
JoJo is no stranger to dropped plotlines. The ever overblown "Araki Forgot" meme remains a common shorthand in the fandom despite how it regularly gets applied to things the general audience simply missed on first viewing. However, JoJolion may hold the record for most dropped subplots in series history. That might not have been felt so harshly if not for the final two chapters being a non-sequitur flashback which, outside of a Hermit Purple cameo, do little to elaborate on the tantalizing mysteries of the story.
1 Gyro Saving Marco (Only For Him To Die Regardless)
Steel Ball Run is the best part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Its heart-pounding and emotional rollercoaster of a finale begins with a high-speed train board shoot out in classic western style and ends with a solemn and thoughtful issue. The loss of best boy Gyro Zeppeli left a massive hole in fans' hearts everywhere (though not as massive as the one left in Kakyoin).
Thankfully, Gyro would end up succeeding in saving the life of the small boy Marco as he had wanted to... That is until Marco abruptly dies of cold, making the entire endeavor pointless. It's a gutshot that sells the melancholic finale ever harder. While Araki's writing style can sometimes lead to underwhelming resolutions like the ending to JoJolion, it can just as often lead to emotional lows and highs untouched by other series.