Part 3 Stardust Crusaders

Stadust crusaders protagonists from left to right: Joseph, Kakyoin, Jotaro, Avdol, and Polnaroff

Hey guys this week I'm going to talk to you about part 3 of JoJo: Stardust Crusaders! This was the series that dramatically increased JoJo's popularity to a global scale. In fact this was the first JoJo part to get translated in america. Sadly this caused a lot of confusion and made it difficult for American fans to understand the story line prior to the series but luckily each part of JoJo is a story of its own that doesn't require an understanding of prior parts to get. It was released as a manga and also as a poorly dubbed OVA or original video animation, basically what the Japanese refer to as direct to video releases.

The stories protagonist this time is Joseph Joestar's (our last protagonist) grandson Jotaro Kujo aka JoJo, (see the pattern?) a Japanese high school student. After hearing his grandson has locked himself in a prison cell after being "possessed by a demon" Joseph comes to visit immediately. He explains to his grandson that he has not been possessed but has acquired a bizarre new power known as a stand. People around the world have been acquiring stands as the result of the return of none other than Dio the antagonist of Part 1. His vampiric immortality allowed him to survive until now and it is up to the Joestars as well as they allies they make along the way to defeat Dio one last time.

Joseph and Stand Star Platinum

Part 3 introduces a new combat style that becomes the main fighting style of the series from then on. While part 2 had people fighting with hamon or vampiric abilities every character has a stand of some kind. A stand is a psychical entity that appears outside its user when summoned. There are many stands with many different powers. Jotaro's stand called Star Platinum has the ability to enhance precision dramatically increasing his vision and striking powers. Dio's stand called The World can stop time for ten seconds and also can be used to attack. Most stands have the ability to attack in a flurry of punches and their stand users then say a catch phrase while punching such as Jotaro saying "ORAORAORAORAORAORAORA." Not all stands are used for attacking however. Joseph's stand, Hemit Purple, can be used to smash polaroid cameras and result in them displaying an image they desire such as DIO's location. It can also hack into TV's and show live images of what they want. Stands come in all shapes and sizes from People to boats to even mini Suns. Not all stand users are people as well. One of Jotaro's allies is a dog capable of summoning a stand that can manipulate sand. The inclusion of stands made the series much more unique than other shonen that typically had a martial are of some kind and probably played a role in its dramatic increase in popularity.

Part 3 is the last of the series that is in an anime form and is still not yet completed as well. I recommend reading the manga first so you can appreciate the quality of the anime more. After this post I'm going to only be talking about parts that are in Manga format. 

"ORAORAORAORAORAORA"