#and would my Persona be one of the standard shadows? Or a big legend or tale character?

[krshush]

Also the most like honest hook that Persona can drive into your brain that I don’t see anyone talk about is wondering what your Arcana and Persona would be.

I KNOW I’m not the only person thinking about it. I Know.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: DIO

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Finally. After leaving this sitting in my drafts for a year, I’m finally going to tackle the big one, the man, the myth, the legend that is Dio Brando, or as he would be known at the height of his power… DIO.

DIO is one of anime and manga’s most famous antagonists, and quite frankly it isn’t too hard to see why. The guy is flamboyant, dramatic, oozes sexual charisma, and is just in general a formidable foe. He’s everything an evil vampire should be. But more than that, he’s everything a great antagonist in general should be. He’s hammy, he’s deliciously evil, he’s overly-dramatic... other villains wish they could be as delightfully extra as DIO. And even on top of all that, he continued affecting the series and pop culture long after he bit the dust.

Motivation/Goals: DIO simply starts as a selfish man who wants the sort of life he feels he is owed; to this end, he goes out of his way to screw Jonathan Joestar out of his perfect life and make him miserable while supplanting him as the golden boy in the eyes of the Joestar patriarch and become the sole inheritor of his fortune. But as time goes on and Jonathan begins to unravel Dio’s schemes, he utilizes an ancient stone mask to become a powerful vampire, and shifts his goal from merely inheriting a fortune to conquering the world. Even a silly thing like decapitation doesn’t stop him; after Jonathan ends up beheading him, he simply attaches his head onto Jonathan’s corpse and after many decades returns more powerful than ever to create the ideal world: one where he reigns supreme with the power of The World to squash all opposition.

Frankly, DIO’s motivations are incredibly standard supervillain stuff, but it’s the way he does things to achieve his goals that make them cool. Much like every great villain in the series, DIO is incapable of going a single moment without doing something either flamboyant or awesome, and much like everyone in the series he often combines the two. This is the man who figured the best way to kill a guy is to drop a steamroller on him and decided becoming a vampire was the logical response to being cornered by the police, so it stands to reason that no matter what he does he would do it with the over-the-top style of the series he hails from.

Performance: Anime voice actor extraordinaire Patrick Seitz voices DIO, and he makes him just as insane, over-the-top, and hammy as you would expect from a vampire who dresses like he had the raw essence of the 1980s injected into his veins.

Final Fate: DIO made one very simple mistake in the midst of all his scheming during the events of Stardust Crusaders: he pissed Jotaro off. It did not end well for the vampire. However, even after his death, DIO’s influence continues to effect the series in numerous ways, particularly Vento Aureo and Stone Ocean, both arcs that deal with characters that have strong ties to the man himself. Even Diamond is Unbreakable would not have happened the way it did if not for him.

Best Scene: The entire final battle with Jotaro is one of the defining moments of the whole series, but considering it takes up several episodes it would be cheating to put it here; if this were the OVA from the 90s, where his fight took up only about eleven minutes, I’d cheat and put it here. But there is a truly iconic moment that stands out even among a battle filled with standout moments: Dio, finally tired of Jotaro’s crap, decides he’s going to ��roll all over” him, and drops a steamroller on his head in stopped time.

Best Quote: Are you kidding? Everything out of this man’s mouth becomes a meme. I truly cannot single out one single line from the man to say is his best. EVERYTHING he says is awesome, especially his quotes when he pulls off his super move in Heritage for the Future.

Final Thoughts & Score:  DIO is fascinating because he actually changes and adapts as time goes on. At the start, as a human, he is a bratty, monstrous, self-serving young man, one who was quick to blame his actions on his upbringing under his cruel father Dario. After Jonathan befriends Speedwagon and catches on to Dio’s scheming though, Dio’s justifications fall apart, and so Dio rejects his humanity, becoming a vampire who plays with his power like a child plays with his toys on Christmas. He begins to revel in his evil, and fully embraces his inhuman nature.

Then after his first defeat, Dio changes even more, becoming more self-aware of his limitations. Stardust Crusaders in particular shows that he has outgrown his immature belief of humanity’s inferiority to vampires; he has far more human followers in that arc, and it is even revealed in later arcs he sired quite a few children with human women. Still, with that in mind, it is quite apparent that he still views himself as the peak lifeform. He’s a lot more cautious and manipulative this time around as he heals and becomes accustomed to his new body. and while he is obviously dangerous, until the very end his role is far more passive.

Of course, once he finally gains the blood of a Joestar, he goes off the deep end, and his old persona rises again only far more mad than ever before, with his contempt for humanity, massive ego, and overwhelming arrogance inflating to the point that his defiance leads directly into his ultimate downfall. And it’s not like this was missing prior; these traits were very much present before he drained Joseph. But when he thought his victory was assured, he dropped all pretense and revealed his true colors.

The one thing true of DIO across all of his appearances is that he is charming, he is cunning, and he’s not a force to be taken lightly. It’s so interesting that he gets such a noticeable character arc that goes across several storylines and even expands long after he is killed. His staying power and the depth of his personality transcending his lifetime is just another element that adds onto the staying power of his character.

DIO is one of the most enjoyable anime antagonists ever made. The fact that he acts as an overarching villain for nearly the entire series, with his presence being felt even in the three parts directly after his death, is a testament to just how depraved and powerful DIO was. It’s so easy to see why DIO is so wildly popular; on top of being a powerful formidable threat, he just oozes style and charisma, with every little thing he does being the sort of insane over-the-top craziness you could want out of the series.

11/10 is the obvious score for DIO. He’s easily one of the best vampires in all of fiction, and definitely one of the coolest. The fact that even through all the craziness surrounding him, he had a well-defined character arc and managed to effect so much after his death just manages to make him one of the more successful villains out there, even if only inadvertently. The manga has already shown us all the pain that’s to come from DIO’s actions, so when it’s finally animated it will only further solidify DIO’s ranking as one of the best villains ever crafted. And that’s not even getting into his playable outings in games such as All-Star Battle and Heritage for the Future, the latter being one of his most iconic appearances ever and the source of dozens of his most famous memes. He’s such a prominent figure in popular culture that you may have seen something inspired by him without even realizing it; I was aware of many of his iconic quotes years before I ever comprehended what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was thanks to memes and videos online.

The fact that even through the hamminess DIO is just an unrepentantly evil bastard is incredible. He dresses like an 80s pop star, he gloats like a petty schoolchild, he’s extremely dramatic, and yet he is one of the cruelest, most evil villains ever created. He killed a dog just because he got rightfully beaten down, made a mother eat her own baby, forced a senator to run over innocent bystanders, blasted a hole through Kakyoin, and relished in every single one of those actions. And even from beyond the grave, DIO’s dark shadow still plagued the Joestar’s. Evil such as DIO just never dies, and I certainly wouldn’t want it any other way.

Before we go… All together now: