#10 What anime has your favourite fight scenes?
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (parts 1-4)
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s fight scenes aren’t as clever as Code Geass’s or Fate/Zero’s, as good-looking as Attack on Titan’s or Naruto’s, or as emotionally charged as Neon Genesis Evangelion’s. They don’t even have the most at stake – Team Gurren had the fate of the whole galaxy riding on the outcome of their final battle! So why have I chosen Jojo above all of these other shows? Because its fight scenes are definitely the most fun!
The reason why Jojo’s fight scenes are so much fun is because they are just so dumb! Not in the sense that they are stupid, it’s obvious just how much thought Aragaki-sensei put into them, but in the sense that they are so ridiculous and over-the-top! Don’t know what I’m talking about? Remember that time when Dio’s disembodied head held its own against Jonathon using its nonsensical tentacles? Or when the Nazi general, Stroheim, fought the ancient Aztec god, Kars, using the machine gun protruding from his belly? Or when Joseph and crew fought an orangutan, an old lady, a literal baby, and a bird (though not all at once) during their journey to Egypt? These are just a handful of examples. If you’ve seen the shows, you’ll know that there are many, many more!
Jojo’s fight scenes aren’t just ridiculously fun, they’re nothing like the ones in other anime. Most anime’s idea of a good fight involves two burly meatheads going at each other with their fists, swords, or giant robots. And whilst Jojo isn’t above a good fist fight between men, it’s often far more creative than that! Its antagonists include: men, women, children, infants, allies turned rogue, gods, mythical creatures, animals, inanimate objects, and even objects capable of sentient thought. Their weapons and abilities are just as limitless. You have your common, everyday weapons, like swords and guns, but then you have your less common ones, such as the bola. You even have your fantastical weapons, like Ripple, the ability to control energy waves, and the various stands’ abilities. My favourite is Rohan Kishibe’s Heaven’s Door’s ability to incapacitate its enemies by turning them into books, which can then be read to gather information on its victim or edited, to enter commands or remove memories.
These fight scenes aren’t just unique within anime. As each enemy has radically different traits and powers, each fight is unique in itself. Even if the same character might be fighting a second or a third time, their abilities are constantly evolving, preventing things from becoming boring and predictable. Not to mention that the fights don’t always come down to who throws a better punch. Sometimes they’re a battle of wits, nerve, or endurance. At any rate, no two are the same.
These fight scenes are the product of a rare and beautiful mind. As you can probably tell, Aragaki-sensei doesn’t waste time wondering “won’t this seem dumb?” or “this seems improbable at best, impossible at worst”. His imagination is positively childlike, uninhibited by adult logic and reasoning. It’s no wonder that Jojo, 30 years on, is going just as strong as ever!