30 in 30: Battle Tendency

Ohhh yes, folks. I can’t hide my excitement for this one! One of my all-time favorite arcs featuring one of my all-time favorite JoJos. So let’s waste no more time and dive right into the run that turned me from passive viewer to zealous addict: this is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency!

Picking up nearly 50 years after the events of Phantom Blood, we jump ahead to Jonathan’s grandson, Joseph Joestar, a wily and impulsive youth who has inherited the family fortune further bolstered by the progress of the Speedwagon Foundation (Robert has really made a name for himself in the intervening years!). Robert and his associates have recently made a startling discovery surrounding the Stone Mask that turned Dio into a vampire, awakening an ancient race of beings known as the Pillar Men, who created them. Joseph must travel to South America, hone his new-found Hamon abilities alongside his begrudging ally and grandson of William Zeppeli, Caesar, to defeat a menace the likes of which the world has not witnessed in millennia.

It’s a pretty basic setup, but in classic Araki fashion, it comes with its own host of twists. The very introduction of the Pillar Men comes with the betrayal of the last of the surviving Hamon masters to fight Dio: Straizo, who dons the mask and becomes a fearsome vampire with innate knowledge of the art. We also have our ever-valiant hero swapped out for a protagonist whose trademark fighting style is literally to run and cheat at any given moment. Joseph is a master tactician, and though he’s drawn to be another mountain of muscle, his real strength lies not in his ability to beat his opponents into pulp, but the way in which he can out-plan and outsmart anyone he comes up against. He’s a jokester, through-and-through. 

Juxtaposing him, however, we have Caesar Zeppeli, Italian playboy and Hamon master. He’s well-trained in his craft, but still has much to learn, as we see once he joins Joseph in tutelage under Lisa Lisa. Caesar is driven by heritage and pride, and this is what initially puts him so at odds with JoJo: not only is this man-child the descendant of the man he blames for his grandfather’s death, but he’s an uncultured and untrained British pig with no patience for their shared craft. Still, in the end, he can’t help but respect the genius and power in Joseph, once he buckles down and trains, much the same way JoJo values Caesar’s skill and clear-headed thinking even in the most dogged fights.

Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the most important part: this Zeppeli fights with bubbles. Yep. Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli wears soap-lined gloves which he can channel his Hamon through… to make energy-charged bubble attacks. Talk about fabulously badass. 

Opposing them are some equally flamboyant and terrifying Big Bads: the aforementioned Pillar Men. These godlike beings created the Stone Masks to overcome their own aversion to sunlight, unlocking supernatural abilities in themselves and causing humans who donned them to become vampires. Their experiments branded them heretics by their own people, so the four were threatened with extermination, but ended up wiping out the rest of their kind. These last four survivors were what Hamon masters were trained to fight, and their stony imprisonment was their greatest triumph.

Their names: Santana, Eisidisi, Wamuu, and Kars.

Why are there only three pictured above? Well, clever reader, that is because the fourth, Santana (or “Santviento,” as the English version chooses to call him, in perhaps the worst attempt yet to avoid lawsuit), is introduced and vanquished early by an untrained Joseph, as he infiltrates a Nazi science lab trying to experiment on him. Obviously this plan goes horribly awry for the Germans, as toying with the closest equivalent to a Central-American god as can be found in this universe is likely to end in misery, anyhow. But it is here that Joseph learns of their great weakness to sunlight, and also finds an unlikely ally in the German science officer, Rudol Von Stroheim (Japanese pop art has a weird thing with WWII fascist powers. That’s a discussion for more learned minds or at least another time. Right now, we’ll just point out how Stroheim launched Guille’s Street Fighter career).

No, seriously, check out that wedge!

Anyways, our surviving and main godlike villains, named after major 80s bands AC/DC, Wham!, and Cars, respectively, are later released from their prison from ol’ Crop-Top’s bright idea, and resume their plan to gain immortality via the Stone Masks and the Red Stone of Asia, which will refract sunlight in such a way that it will evolve them into perfect beings. At first, they want to merely destroy the intruders like the pests they are, but Joseph shows his gall, impressing Wamuu. This highlights Araki’s impressive talents at writing complex villains: although he is the least of the three and subservient to the rest, Wamuu is a man driven by honor and a need to prove himself as a warrior, so he asks his master, Kars, to spare JoJo and his team, that they may spar at a later date, once they have trained to a higher level. The lead Pillar Man agrees, and we have our full story arc set.

The other two also get clever little story bits. Eisidisi is a hotheaded fighter, and a man not above playing completely dirty. But unlike Joseph, he’s willing to put innocents in harm’s way to get his ends. Kars, on the other hand, is a talented scientist, the brains behind the operation who created the Stone Masks in hopes of elevating all of his people. His only goal is to attain more knowledge and thereby to become the pinnacle of evolution, no matter the cost. Unfortunately, none of these motivations are helped by the small, seven-volume run of Battle Tendency, so the Pillar Men can seem like lesser villains when compared to some of the other heavy hitters, and really pale in comparison to the likes of Dio, unless seriously extrapolated upon via introspection and theory.

So what is it that makes Battle Tendency one of my all-time favorite Jojo arcs? Well, it’s a combination of things. First of all, I really love Joseph as a character. I’ve always been a fan of characters who can use their wits over their fists to beat their opponents, and he’s got this in spades. Plus his clever dialogue and jovial personality is always a winning combination.

It’s also the first time we get a really good mix of characters that are well-explored. I know I didn’t have much time here to dive into all of them, but between Joseph, Caesar, Lisa Lisa, Stroheim, and even the minor players like the street thief Smokey and Joseph’s main flirt, Suzie Q, you have much more charmingly written personalities out of the cast. And even the villains get to have some limelight, to the point where you almost start to sympathize with Wamuu’s need to find a worthy opponent, or Kars’s goal of simply bettering his species.

Then you tack onto it all the great things that David Productions did with the anime: the amazing translations of the ridiculous poses, the vibrant palate-swaps when situations get tense, and of course the amazing music. Seriously, Battle Tendency probably has the best soundtrack of the series, to date, and there are some major contenders. But the opening, “Bloody Stream,” by Coda, is just fantastic and bubbly (no pun intended) fun, and I cannot, cannot go without leaving you with this gem:

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE A SERIES WITH A VILLAIN THEME LIKE THAT?! That’s just freaking inspired, is what it is!

So you’re probably asking, “Okay, is there anything wrong with this arc?” And, to be frank… not really? I mean, there’s some subtextual stuff, vis-a-vis “the Good Nazi,” and Araki still hasn’t quite figured out how to handle strong female characters, although Lisa Lisa is a great step in the right direction (too bad he’ll pretty much roll that back next round). But honestly, my issues with Battle Tendency are nitpicks. It’s creative, it’s fun, and it was a bold new direction for the series, considering it almost completely trashed the old cast – an almost unheard of act in ongoing 80s manga. It wasn’t the biggest leap Jojo’s would make in its run, but it was definitely a sign that things would always be flamboyant and always be bizarre.