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duhragonball · 5 months ago

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Phantom Blood Liveblog JJBA ch.1-5

🇬🇧🗡️⚰️🩸🧛🐸🧂Yikes! P-part 1!🌭🍫🏰🧟🛳️🎩🥖

Back in May I liveblogged JoJolion, because I've been wanting to do it for a few years and couldn't find the time. Once I finally got into it, I had a blast, and that got me motivated to block out time to do other JoJo parts. I tried to cover the anime as I watched it in 2017, and the manga for the parts that weren't animated at the time. But I didn't really get a handle on how to do it right until later, and I always wanted to go back and read the manga for the parts I only saw in cartoon form.

And since Part 1 is the shortest one, I thought this would be the easiest one to squeeze into my busy schedule of reading comic books uh... important business. Yes, important sexy business. But liveblogging JoJo is pretty important and somewhat sexy in its own right, so let's begin, shall we?

The story opens on an ancient Aztec sacrificial ritual from sometime between the 16 and 12th centuries BCE. I don't want to spend a lot of time on that, since the main purpose of the scene is to showcase the weird, spooky mystery of the stone mask that appears throughout the story. For the first several chapters, it seems to be little more than a curiosity, but it quickly turns into something much more important.

We then jump to 1880, where Dario Brando is trying to talk to his son, Dio. Look at this. Just look at this. This is the very first time Dio has appeared in anything, anywhere, and he's flipping us all off. No one holds a book like that, Dio, you salty, salty bitch. You ain't slick.

What Dario wants to tell Dio is that he once "rescued" George Joestar back in 1868. I'm using quote marks here because what actually happened was that Dario and his wife discovered the Joestar family in a carriage wreck and tried to rob their corpses. But George was still alive, and he mistook Dario's actions as a kindness. This naivete pretty much defines George Joestar's whole character arc.

George's driver was killed in the wreck, and so was his wife, but their infant son, Jonathan survived. The anime implies that Jonathan's mom used her own body to protect Jonathan as best she could, but that isn't spelled out here. I guess that's kind of a given, though. I mean, she died and the baby lived, so what other interpretation could there be?

Anyway, George wanted to reward the Brando family, so he gave Dario a bunch of money, which he later used to start a hotel, but kind of blew it. But also, George promised to take care of Dario's son if anything ever happened to Dario. So now that he's dying, Dario tells Dio to go to the Joestar estate, where he can become a rich man.

Dio agrees to do this, but not out of any love or respect for his father. He hated Dario, mostly for being a failure who mistreated his mother, and he vows to become rich and powerful, but not for his father.

On the day Dio arrives at the estate, young Jonathan tries to rescue a doll for a girl named Erina. He doesn't know her, but he just happened to see bullies messing with her and chose to intervene. Jonathan gets his ass kicked, though. That doesnt' matter to him, though, because he considers himself a gentleman, and a true gentleman always has the courage to help those in need, even if he can't win. Especially if he can't win.

And this page might be the throughline of the entire JoJo series. I was watching some Hamon Beat videos a few weeks ago, and I was impressed with his response to the notion that Part 1 is "boring". Part 1 is literally the foundation of the entire series, and establishes all of the themes that run through the Parts that follow it. Sure, the 19th Century setting might be a little off-putting for some, and it takes a little while for the nutty super powers to kick in, but Hamon Beat makes a pretty strong argument. How much can someone really enjoy Stardust Crusaders or Diamond is Unbreakable if they hate Part 1?

Young Jonathan standing up for Erina--even when he doesn't know who she is, even when he's outnumbered-- is exactly the same thing that makes Jotaro advance towards Dio when he doesn't seem to have a chance of winning. It's the same thing that drove Josuke in his battle against Kira. Having preferences is fine. It's one thing to like Part 5 better because you liked the Stand powers or fashion choices more. But it's weird that people got into JoJo and seemed to completely miss the real heart of the story, so much so that they held the origin of it all with such contempt.

So Dio arrives to be adopted by George Joestar, and when Jonathan introduces himself, his dog Danny runs up and Dio knees him in the jaw. Keep in mind that Dio's whole agenda here is to play it cool and get in good with the family so he can score a huge inheritance. All he really has to do is behave for a few years until he's established himself, but he hates dogs, and he's too angry to hide it.

The family dynamic becomes pretty clear up front. Dio's main goal is to demoralize Jonathan any way he can. Presumably he wants to diminish Jonathan in the eyes of George, so that Dio will get the lion's share of the inheritance. And Jonathan is a little too nice for his own good, so he lets things slide in an attempt to get along. And George is still to naive to see Dio as anything but a perfect little gentleman.

For example, one night George scolds Jonathan for his table manners and sends him to bed before he can finish dinner. George points out Dio's impeccable table manners, which is... kind of ironic, considering what Dio will be doing for nutrition later on.

Anyway, the isolation really starts to get to Jonathan, and he wonders in a moment of teen angst if anyone will even miss him when he dies. This always gets to me, because Jonathan is part of this lineage of JoJo protagonists, but he's the very first one, and the second one won't show up for decades. Jonathan's the founder of this thing, but he has no way of knowing that, and it's a very lonely position to be in. If only he could know how dearly he'll be missed after he's gone, and how much his loss will mean to his descendants in the future. Maybe this is why I like Part 2 the best.

Oh, also this scene of him staring at the moon kind of reminds me of Jolyne looking at the moon in prison. But let's move on.

No, wait, let's not move on, because Jonathan's morbid thoughts lead him to notice the portrait of his dead mother that's mounted over his bed. Maybe that gives him some small comfort, the reassurance that if he misses her despite having no memory of her, then perhaps his life can mean something to others as well. Anyway, he forgot he had secret bedtime candy in his room, so he won't go to sleep hungry tonight.

But Jonathan's life still sucks. Dio quickly steals away all of Jonathan's friends by beating him at boxing with his superior fighting skills. Jonathan and his pals box for fun, but Dio grew up on the streets, so he knows all the tricks. He offers to teach the others, but warns them not to share his secrets with Jonathan, whom he says can't keep secrets.

This is sort of the basis of Dio's interpersonal skills. "Everyone wants to be friends with someone who is strong or will do something for them!" By making himself useful to the others, and making Jonathan appear weak and useless, Dio can ingratiate himself to the other boys, and isolate Jonathan further.

Later, George sees Dio checking out the Stone Mask and explains how he bought it at a yard sale in London the day of the carriage accident. Dio is curious about its value, its history, and the Aztec writings inside it, but he denies having any interest in the thing.

Meanwhile, Jonathan hits it off with Erina Pendelton, the girl he tried to help earlier in the story. They ride old-timey roller coasters and swim in old-timey swimsuits and so on.

Here's a panel of Erina chilling out with Danny that I thought was pretty cool.

But Dio quickly finds out about this, and decides to forcibly kiss Erina just to wreck what little happiness Jonathan has left.

You might have noticed by now that Dio is kind of an asshole. Again, this is the blueprint for every other villain in the franchise. Dio's already got a bright future ahead of him as an adopted son of George Joestar, but he wants more, and he believes he can increase his own fortune by oppressing others. Dio wants to dominate Jonathan, Kars wanted to dominate all of nature, Kira and Diavolo wanted to erase all evidence of their crimes to live as they pleased, and so on.

But it's not as easy as he likes to think. For all his cruel tactics and ruthless plotting, Erina can shut him down just by washing off her face with gutter water to show her contempt for him. Dio could just let this slide and appreciate how well his plan is working, but he can't. He knows he's being insulted, and he can't stand that. Deep down inside, he wants something that can't be reduced to a simple display of power. He can hurt and manipulate others but he can't make them love him.

For a while, Jonathan isn't aware of this incident between Dio and Erina, because Erina is too ashamed to go near him or tell him. But Jonathan still has Danny. George tells Dio about Danny's backstory. As a pup, Danny was timid, so Jonathan use to tease him and throw rocks at him and stuff. But then Jonathan was drowning in a river, and no one was there to help him, except Danny, who dove in and pulled him to safety like a good boy.

The moral of Danny is that he had no reason to repay Jonathan's cruelty with loyalty, but he did it anyway, and after that they became good friends, with Jonathan never giving him orders. The bond between them was more like that of trusted friends.

Of course, Dio can't understand any of this. He just sees Danny as another vulnerability of Jonathan's to exploit. It's possible, though, that Dio envies what Jonathan and Danny have together, and he can't have that for himself because the concept is so alien to him...

Later, Jonathan finally finds out about what Dio did to Erina, and he confronts Dio immediately. Dio kicks his ass again, but this time Jonathan refuses to back down. He knows if he loses this fight, he'll never escape Dio's shadow, so he knuckles up and...

BAM! PART 1 IS BORING? BITCH WHERE?

YEAH FUCK HIM UP JONATHAN! FUCK HIM UP!

So as they fight, some of Dio's blood splashes onto the Stone Mask, and it falls off the wall, then a bunch of claws come out of it, as though triggered by the blood. This distracts Jonathan, but not for very long.

Dio actually cries, although I suspect this was just a diversion so he could pull a knife, but before he can escalate things, George shows up and scolds them both for fighting in the house. Being George, though, he leans harder on Jonathan for beating Dio excessively. Dammit, George...

Dio retaliates by locking Danny into the incinerator, and the next time one of the servants uses it, he discovers Danny burning alive. I'm pretty sure the anime didn't show Danny getting out of the incinerator, so here you go.

Jonathan comes home to find out Danny's dead, and he knows Dio did it but he can't prove it or start another fight, so he just goes to bed and has a depression nap. As for Dio...

He finally does enough self-reflection to realize that he's overplaying his hand. Dio's plan is to play the long game and win the Joestar estate, but he underestimated Jonathan's righteous fury and pushed him too far. If he tries any more shenanigans, it might wreck everything, so he resolves to dial it back for a while.

Meanwhile the Stone Mask... uh... doesn't do anything. Patience, folks...

#jojo's bizarre adventure #phantom blood #jonathan joestar #dio brando #erina pendleton #george joestar #danny

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