Part 9 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – The JOJOLands has begun, and it immediately confirms fans’ belief that this new installment in Hiroiko Araki’s generational saga will be heavily inspired by Part 5 – Golden Wind. However, The JOJOLands takes Golden Wind‘s premise much further, improving key aspects of Giorno Giovanna’s story.
Chapter #1 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – The JOJOLands introduces the new protagonist, Jodio Joestar, who is a fifteen-year-old boy living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Contrary to all his JoJo predecessors, Jodio doesn’t seem heroic at all. In fact, he is a small-time criminal who mostly works as a “gofer”, carrying things like money and drugs. Jodio, his brother Dragona, and other friends are “employed” by the school’s principal, who uses them for her illegitimate business, including stealing and fencing goods. This setting, along with references in Jodio’s look and name, confirms what fans expected, that Part 9 will be inspired by Part 5, just like Part 8, JoJoLion, was based on Part 4, Diamond is Unbreakable.
Giorno Giovanna Was A Criminal Only By Name
The protagonist of JoJo‘s Part 5 – Golden Wind, is Giorno Giovanna, who is also a criminal who dreams of becoming a “Gang-Star” and ends up running the largest crime syndicate in Italy. However, the differences are significant. Giorno wants to become a criminal because, as a kid, he befriended an injured gangster that he saved. As the man protected Giorno from harm (including his abusive stepfather) in return for his aid, he learned that he could trust people and became a better person. Giorno consequently settles on his dream to make the corrupt Italian mafia like the man who had helped him and strive to become a “Gang-Star”. This is clearly a romanticized version of crime, and Giorno and his allies remain, throughout the series, pure-hearted heroes who have very little in common with bona fide criminals.
In The JOJOLands, however, Jodio’s actions and personality have nothing of Giorno’s “romantic gangster” charm. This is clear when Jodio observes one of the other kids at school getting bullied. Rather than helping him (like any of the previous JoJo would have done), Jodio compares himself to the unfortunate kid, belittling him and highlighting how his own knowledge and faith in “the mechanism” (the system that regulates each person’s position in life) makes him superior. Also, Jodio clearly states that his dream is “becoming filthy rich” and reaching the apex of the mechanism, which is way more prosaic than Giorno’s dream of reforming the Italian criminal system.
The JOJOLands Improves Part 5 By Taking Its Premise Much Further
The differences between Jodio and Giorno, however, highlight that Part 9 is already way more realistic than Part 5. In Golden Wind, the criminal world was a loose setting for the story, but it had little real impact on it. The JOJOLands, instead, is doing what Part 5 was too afraid to do: make its protagonist a real criminal. This is an absolute novelty for one of the protagonists of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, who have always been epitomes of virtue and justice. It’s possible that, as the story progresses, Jodio will show his positive side (which already came out when he protected his brother from an abusive cop), but for now, The JOJOLands is improving Golden Wind‘s premise of having a criminal protagonist by taking it much further.