There are few series that are as unpredictable as Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. For more than three decades, the ongoing journey of the Joestar family continues to transform in exciting ways. It truly feels like anything is possible in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and the eclectic powers of Stands have covered some extremely atypical skillsets.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a series that oddly begins with a heavy focus on vampires, and these blood-thirsty creatures of the night are crucial in Dio Brando’s descent to the dark side. Vampires are not a constant throughout JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but they’re approached in a very distinct manner that’s full of its share of advantages.
10 They Can Still Have Children
Vampires in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are fairly immortal figures, but this is typically a tragic sentence of loneliness in other vampire texts. A vampire may find a temporary partner, but their inability to age or give birth quickly robs them of certain conventional comforts. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure doesn’t confine its vampires, and it seems that they (or at least DIO) can still create life. Granted, part of DIO’s success here may have to do with how he takes over Jonathan Joestar’s body. However, DIO’s vampire status remains, and he’s able to sire offspring like Giorno Giovanna, where the vampire gene appears to be absent.
9 They Still Have Their Reflections
There are an endless amount of vampire traditions that have become established through a wide range of pop culture, some of which are helpful to the creatures and others that are more annoying. Fortunately, the vampires in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure don’t suffer from a lack of reflection. DIO is able to look at himself in a mirror, which is crucial for an anime series where the characters love to engage in such heightened and stylized poses. Other vampire customs don’t carry over into JoJo's either, and the series’ vampires also aren’t weakened by crosses or holy water.
8 They Can Restore Their Youthfulness And Appearance
Many vampire interpretations depict the creatures as frozen at their appearance whenever they’re turned into a vampire. This tends to freeze a lot of vampires in a form of eternal youth, but JoJo’s vampires have a little more nuance. Vampires can age and show deterioration, but this process is offset by their consumption of blood.
This means that whenever DIO replenishes his energy, he also regains his youthfulness and strength at the same time. This is a real luxury, but also one that doesn’t necessarily force DIO to look forever young.
7 They Consume Blood And Energy Through Their Fingers, Not Their Fangs
One of the biggest commonalities across vampire texts is that they consume blood from their victims once they break their skin with their fangs. The vampires in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure do have fangs, but they appear to be more ornamental in nature. These vampires actually suck blood through their hands, which form tentacle-like tendrils that feed off of life energy. This is a considerably easier way to gain strength, and all that a vampire needs to do is grab someone rather than make contact with their mouth.
6 They Can Survive A Decapitation And Regenerate Lost Limbs
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure showcases an especially resilient brand of vampires that can endure a ton of bodily harm and still survive. DIO is literally decapitated and survives the ordeal, although the destruction of his head would have led to his end. A vampire is able to regenerate any lost limbs as well as control their detached body parts, and they can successfully graft parts of their body to foreign objects, too. It’s these intense regeneration abilities that ultimately allow DIO’s severed vampire head to take over Jonathan Joestar’s body.
5 They’re Able To Control A Whole Army Through Hypnosis
A popular vampire custom is the idea that they can turn susceptible victims into their unwitting slaves. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure also empowers its vampires with a powerful form of hypnosis that can be administered in both individual and group scenarios.
DIO hypnotizes Poco to lure Jonathan into his trap, for instance, but there are also more general occasions where Kars or DIO have entire armies of mind-controlled slaves who are ready to do their bidding. The sheer number of vampires is one of the biggest hurdles that Joseph Joestar faces in Battle Tendency.
4 They Have Superhuman Speed And Strength
Depictions of vampires frequently focus on their more unique supernatural powers, like sucking blood or turning into a bat, but there’s also a common understanding that vampires also receive a substantial power boost. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure makes sure that its vampires also undergo a comparable transformation that leaves them with exaggerated performance stats. The vampires in JoJo's are so strong that even a weakened one can knock down a brick wall with a single punch, move as fast as a cheetah, and easily jump several meters high. Even their general senses become greatly enhanced.
3 They're Less Prone To Stand Limitations
The vampires in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are handled like curious science experiments, but the one constant with them all is that the transformation has a deeply restorative effect on the human body. This biology mixes with Stand powers in an exciting way once DIO gets deep into his experimentation with The World. DIO’s regenerated vampire status seems to gain him extra seconds with The World. Accordingly, it stands to reason that the Stand limitations that a vampire experiences could shrink more and more until they don’t even exist anymore.
2 They Can Flash Freeze Themselves Or Other Individuals
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure always plays by its own rules, so it should come as no surprise that it also introduces some radical evolutions to standard vampire abilities. DIO’s tenure as a vampire results in some unbelievable powers, which even includes a form of laser vision. Arguably the most extreme of these skills is a flash-freeze technique where he can transform his own or an enemy’s body into ice. This flash-freeze ability can also freeze an individual’s blood so that it’s not subjected to the standard Hamon effects.
1 They Plant Flesh Buds Into Their Victims' Brains
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s time spent with vampires certainly pushes the series to embrace the horror genre, but it unexpectedly leans into body horror territory with one morbid component of its vampires. JoJo’s vampires can plant a manipulative flesh bud in the brain of their victim which will eventually take root. These flesh buds are particularly dangerous because they’ll form tentacles that will attempt to kill both the host and the person that threatens their implantation if they’re attempted to be removed.