This is the final volume in the first arc of the long-running and hugely influential JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. Jonathan Joestar faces numerous foes in thrilling battle after thrilling battle, climaxing with his final struggle with Dio. 

The first fight in the last volume of Hirohiko Araki’s Phantom Blood has a surprising amount of heart and suspense. It pits JoJo against the recently resurrected knight Blueford. A lesser mangaka would have made the zombie-like Blueford cannon fodder. After all, there is a huge body of literature and film where zombies are only dangerous due to numbers—much like biblical locusts with almost as little personality. But Araki Sensei is a master of the comic medium. He knows that if you name a character and spend many pages pitting him in single combat with your hero, he'd better have personality.

And when Blueford finally talks, his personality is one that makes you want to root for him! And what a fight! The pseudo science that explains Blueford's hair powers is both well thought out and based on a real plant! I really love that kind of thinking. It adds a layer of believability to this utterly fantastic story. 

After the conflict with Blueford is resolved, a new battle starts with Blueford’s partner Tarukus. Tarukus is a very interesting character in the JoJo’s universe. In this story packed with handsome, well-spoken bad guys, Tarukus is an ugly, ill-mannered ogre right out of a fairy tale. But unlike Blueford, or even the handsome Dio, Tarukus actually does some serious harm to JoJo’s allies. Once again, I like talking about this story so much, I DON’T want to have to skate around spoilers! I WANT to tell you everything about it! Sadly, my editor wants me to sell volumes, so I will just say this fight costs JoJo a lot...

One of my favorite characters so far in this arc is Zeppeli. As a big fan of many American comic books (and pre-comic book comics), I got a chuckle out of Zeppeli's backstory. Zeppeli, an Italian named after an English rock band, goes to Tibet to gain magical powers. Just like the Shadow did all the way in back in 1929! I guess the comic-book Tibetans aren't too strict who they teach magic to.

In the last third of the book, JoJo gets some new allies in Tonpetty, Dire and Straizo. While Tonpetty is surely a good guy, and in fact one of the least violent people in the in the whole story, his head looks like one of the Easter Island statues. A strange visual for the heroic guru in a story where the evil comes from a stone mask!

The end of the adventures of Jonathan Joestar is not an unceasing tide of happiness. Let's just say the battle is over, but the war is not. Plus, the cost of victory is high. It is the kind of ending that brought American readers of my generation to manga in the first place, and I totally enjoyed it. Rather gleefully exclaiming, “They don’t make them like that anymore!” 

So why should you read THIS edition of a 25-year-old manga? Aside from the amazing story, characters and art—it is a nice edition! The kind of hardcover VIZ rarely does. And it comes with color pages and fancy endpapers. Also there is an afterword by Araki Sensei that explains something that has bothered me for a while—why the heck in a story about a bad guy having a magic mask does Dio Brando so rarely WEAR the mask? There is an answer! But I am not going to tell you, you'll have to read it yourself!

You can find out why Dio rarely wears the mask by picking up JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 3! 

by Rob McCarthy