JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been around for long enough that the anime has developed certain trends that fans don't love.

A lot of popular anime series come and go, but Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has proven itself to be an evergreen fixture of the industry. For nearly four decades, Araki’s signature series has pushed shonen ideals while also consistently subverting expectations and establishing its own voice in important ways.

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It’s this fearlessness towards change that’s helped JoJo survive for so long, but there are certain elements of the long-running franchise that frustrate the fandom. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been around long enough that it’s developed certain habits, for better and for worse, but some are more egregious than others.

One of the reasons that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has resonated so much with audiences is that Hirohiko Araki is able to indulge in his interests, so the series feels like a singular vision from the mangaka. Certain real-world fascinations work their way into JoJo.

As such, it’s not unusual for there to be random science lessons on the biology of rats, birds, snails, or stag beetles. These digressions are entertaining for a lot of the audience, but for some, it’s grating to get a primer on meteors or physics instead of action.

There’s something to be said for properly building suspense and making sure that a villain’s reveal carries the proper weight behind it. That being said, it’s also easy to go too far in this regard and leave the audience uninterested by the time the antagonist finally comes to light.

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It’s become a growing issue in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure where there’s a more extensive buildup to the villain’s debut. This is at its most egregious in JoJolion. There’s a better balance to be found here.

Another pattern that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has fallen into is that the respective “JoJo” from each season is the one who’s responsible for taking out the big villain. This is more a problem with the shonen genre as a whole than a specific issue with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but it still leads to some valid frustrations.

JoJo establishes such compelling supporting characters that occasionally feel slighted by the end of a season. Audiences would be much more surprised if someone like Koichi or Narancia helped deliver the finishing blow.

There’s an inherent level of variety that’s baked into JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure through its generational structure where each new story focuses on a different member of the Joestar lineage. There’s a substantial range across the Joestars and what drives them, but there are also plenty of similarities that speak to how they’re all part of the same family.

There’s an arrogance that’s present in each Joestar, especially during the beginning of their respective stories. Johnny Joestar and JoJolion’s Josuke are attempts at more passive characters, but they eventually feel like every other “JoJo.”

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure establishes some convenient rules to its universe where Stand users seemingly attract other Stand users, but this becomes a foregone conclusion as the series continues. There’s initially some suspense in the earlier chapters of JoJo in regard to who will wield a Stand and have this potential for greatness.

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As JoJo airs for longer, it becomes more obvious that any significant character who shows up is a Stand user. This isn’t necessarily a problem as it streamlines the storytelling on some level, but it’s decidedly less suspenseful.

Pacing is a crucial element in any piece of storytelling and it’s always frustrating when a compelling narrative becomes diluted through a shoddy structure. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is fairly careful in this regard and breaking its larger franchise up into smaller stories is definitely beneficial in the long run.

However, each story begins with a large amount of episodic material while the new arc finds its footing and narrative drive. Questionable pacing is at its most egregious in Steel Ball Run and JoJolion, the latter of which ran for over a decade.

A properly intimidating villain isn’t an easy thing to establish and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is quite fortunate that its initial foe, Dio Brando, is a successful antagonist. Phantom Blood and Stardust Crusaders lean into the generational conflict between DIO and the Joestars, but his defeat by Jotaro feels like a fitting end for his character.

JoJo goes on to create some even more interesting villains, but it also routinely returns to DIO. JoJo includes DIO through his illegitimate children in Stone Ocean and through the alternate universe version of him that appears in Steel Ball Run, Diego Brando.

Over the course of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, there have been hundreds of unique Stand abilities that have been explored. Stand powers can basically do anything at this point and literally reshape reality. Despite the infinite possibilities that lie within Stands, there’s a running trend for the ultimate villains in JoJo to possess time manipulation Stands.

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It sets a precedent in the series that time-based Stands are the most powerful, which can lead to repetitive showdowns that come down to similar strategies. These fights aren’t disappointing, but they could be even more diverse and subversive.

It’s only natural for a series to change and evolve over time and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure would ultimately restrict its storytelling if it never allowed its original Stand principles to further develop. JoJo has just become such a complex entity that certain Stand rules can be in flux whenever it facilitates the situation at hand.

JoJo never completely abandons the established Stand fundamentals, but it’s at least shown that certain ideas aren’t as permanent as previously indicated. It’s difficult to get invested in a battle strategy when new concepts can suddenly change everything.

One of the biggest selling points of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has also gradually become the series’ most frustrating trend, even if this is ultimately a testament to its writing and characterization. It’s a major disappointment to spend dozens of episodes with a group of characters, only for them to ostensibly disappear when the new story saga begins.

Granted, there are exceptions where certain characters do crossover or return later on, but they’re few and far between. It’s helpful to keep the series so fresh, but fans also want to spend more time with characters like Giorno Giovanna and Jolyne Cujoh.

Daniel Kurland is a freelance writer, comedian, and critic, who lives in the cultural mosaic that is Brooklyn, New York. Daniel’s work can be read on ScreenRant, Splitsider, Bloody Disgusting, Den of Geek, and across the Internet. Daniel recently completed work on a noir anthology graphic novel titled, "Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Noir: A Rag of Bizarre Noir and Hard Boiled Tales" and he’s currently toiling away on his first novel. Daniel's extra musings can be found @DanielKurlansky on Twitter.

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