What Is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? The Genre-Defying Saga Now Nine Parts Deep, Explained by Marine

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Nearly 40 years and nine distinct story Parts in, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure remains one of the most singular, hard-to-categorize battle manga ever made.

A New Hero, Every Part

Hirohiko Araki began serializing JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1987. Rather than following one continuous protagonist, the series is divided into numbered "Parts," each following a different Joestar-family descendant in a different era and often a different genre. Starting with Part 3, "Stardust Crusaders," the series introduced Stands — manifestations of psychic fighting power — which became its defining battle mechanic.

The Series Today

As of August 2026, Part 9, "The JOJOLands," is ongoing in Ultra Jump magazine, following young Hawaii resident Jodio Joestar, with 8 volumes collected so far. On the anime side, Part 7, "Steel Ball Run," began its own adaptation on March 19, 2026, continuing the franchise's practice of adapting earlier Parts even while new material is still being written.

What To Know

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's decision to swap protagonists (and often entire genres and time periods) every "Part" while keeping the Joestar bloodline as the connective thread is nearly unique among decades-long manga — it lets the series constantly reinvent its tone and visual style instead of stretching one story indefinitely, which is a big part of why longtime fans debate which Part is "the best" the way other fandoms debate favorite seasons of a show.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's extremely stylized, muscular, high-fashion-influenced art style, a deliberate departure from typical shonen manga art, has become so recognizable in Japan that its poses and visual language are frequently referenced or parodied across unrelated Japanese media, well beyond the anime/manga community itself.

What Fans Are Saying

• "A new protagonist and setting every Part is such a unique structure for a manga this long-running."
• "The Stand battle system is genuinely one of the most creative power systems in shonen manga."
• "Steel Ball Run finally getting an anime after all these years is huge."

Original Japanese

• 「部ごとに主人公が変わる構成は、本当に他にない特徴だと思います」
• 「スタンドのバトルシステムは、発想がとても独創的ですよね」
• 「スティール・ボール・ランがついにアニメ化されたのは嬉しいです」

Easy Japanese

「ジョジョの奇妙な冒険」は、荒木飛呂彦さんが描く長期連載マンガです。1987年に始まり、独特の絵柄と「スタンド」というバトルが特徴です。