Japanese Title: JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken
Year: 2012
Episodes: 26
Studios: David Production
Adaptation: JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 2: Sentou Chouryuu
Genres: Action, Adventure, Supernatural, Vampire, Shounen
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency builds upon the foundations of Phantom Blood but, it also contains many interesting attributes that make it unique amongst the franchise.
Review
Battle Tendency (Part 2) is set decades in the future from the Phantom Blood origin story of Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando. It follows the story of Joseph Joestar, the grandson of Jonathan and a new evil he must put an end to, one far greater than before. Creators of the stone masks have begun to wake from their thousand year slumber and as fate would have it, Joseph must learn the hamon techniques required to defeat the original creators of the mask.
Joseph’s intelligence and his immature personality makes him distinct from his previous counterpart, but he also shares important similarities with Jonathan, such as having a pure and noble heart. What you will find drastically different in this part over Phantom Blood is the complexity of its characters. Because it is significantly longer, Battle Tendency manages to fine tune its characters and give them sufficient but necessary progression. There is more at stake here and a greater adversary for our protagonist to overcome, but this is also cleverly balanced by the multiple gags in the series. Tragedy will hit you ten times harder than before with the time spent growing with the characters and it will also make you laugh ten times harder with many of Joseph’s gimmicks and his child-like personality.
Recommendations: If you enjoyed this anime, consider watching Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor. It contains similar levels of absurd comedy found in JoJo.
I rate this anime 10/10.
