Battle Tendency

Battle Tendency (戦闘潮流) is the second part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump between 1988 and 1989.

Taking place in 1938, the story follows the misadventures of Joseph Joestar (a.k.a. JoJo), grandson of Jonathan, as he masters the Ripple in order to combat hostile, ancient super-beings named the Pillar Men; creators of the Stone Mask.

Plot Summary
The story opens in Mexico as Speedwagon arrives to Straizo, both aging friends to the late Jonathan Joestar, at the report of new evidence related to the Stone Mask which corrupted Dio before.

In New York City, defeating a pair of police officers in the process of brutalizing a boy named Smokey, Joseph Joestar demonstrates an ability for the Ripple. With his grandmother Erina Joestar, Joseph learns that Speedwagon was killed in Mexico; and soon he is attacked by Straizo, who, having chosen with the Stone Mask to become a vampire, reveals that he murdered Speedwagon.

Defeating him, Joseph travels to Mexico, where he discovers Speedwagon alive in an underground facility managed by the Nazis, including Major Stroheim; as they work to revive what appears to be a partly-living man trapped in a stone pillar for 2,000 years. When Santana is awakened, he demonstrates fantastic, super-human abilities as he kills most of those present. Joseph and Stroheim battle Santana and manage to defeat him, though Stroheim is apparently fatally wounded.

Joseph heads to Rome, where three more "sleeping pillar men" have been discovered. Joseph meets Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, a trained Ripple user near his age who is supposed to show Joseph the ropes. Before they can do anything besides arguing (Caesar Zeppeli is a descendant of the top hat wearing, wine drinking mentor of Jonathan Joestar. Caesar blames Jonathan Joestar for killing his grand father with his incompetence), they find themselves present when the three sleeping men awaken after their 2,000 year nap. These creatures are something like vampire gods; it turns out that they created the stone mask that turned Dio into a vampire. These three are named Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars, and their goal is to find the "Red Stone of Aja," which, used with a stone mask, will allow them to become ultimate life forms.

They are extremely powerful; untrained Joseph doesn't stand a chance. Luckily, he manages to talk them out of killing him. Wamuu and Esidisi both end up giving Joseph "wedding rings" which are internal time bombs set to release poison into his blood if he doesn't defeat them within a month. Joseph realizes that he'll have to train or he's going to die, and Caesar introduces Joseph to his master, the beautiful (and extremely talented) Lisa Lisa.

However, before the month is up, Esidisi finds out that Lisa Lisa has the Red Stone of Aja and comes to take it. Joseph uses his new skills to defeat Esidisi, thus earning the wrath of Wamuu and Kars (who previously thought of him as an amusement rather than a threat).

While on pursuit Joseph is reunited with the supposedly-deceased Stroheim, who has been rebuilt by Nazi science as a powerful cyborg, but Stroheim's machine body is quickly cut in half by Kars, who uses the "light mode" (a blade that extends from his arm spins so fast that it reflects light in irregular fashion giving the illusion of a glowing sword). In Switzerland the group discovers the location of Wamuu and Kars. Knowing Wamuu and Kars' vulnerability to sunlight, everyone is eager to face them during the day except JoJo. Caesar can't accept this and Joseph and Caesar fight.

Apparently Caesar's father disappeared during his youth, growing up as a thug hating his father, he later finds him. Caesar is eager to kill his father who has abandoned him, but to his surprise Caesar's dad didn't go out to enjoy himself. Following his father to the base of the Colosseum where the three monster sleep, Caesar tries to touch a gem that is embedded in the wall. To his surprise, his father pushes him out of the way and saves Caesar from the wall's trap. Caesar's father is quickly consumed by the flesh of the monsters in their dormant form and leaves a final message to him, telling him to inform Lisa Lisa that the three monsters in the wall will awaken soon.

Disregarding the warnings Caesar approaches the mansion where Wamuu and Kars are residing. Caesar is soon greeted by Wamuu and they fight. It appears that Caesar has the advantage as he nearly fries Wamuu with Ripple and refracted sun light, but Wamuu quickly counters his attack with his "holy sand storm" and Caesar loses his ability to use the Ripple. When Wamuu, satisfied with the victory, tries to leave, Caesar jumps up and tears out his lip piercing that contains the antidote to JoJo's poison ring. Before he dies from being crushed by a stone slab, Caesar uses his final Ripple to make a bubble out of his blood containing the antidote ring. Wamuu sees this but, respecting Caesar as a valiant warrior, he lets the bubble float away. When Joseph and Lisa Lisa arrive too late JoJo finds the bubble and vows not to drink the antidote until he personally has beaten Wamuu.

Joseph then defeats Wamuu in a deadly chariot race and the final showdown against Kars begins. First, keeping his promise, he fights the beautiful Lisa Lisa and though he promised to fight her one-on-one, he lies and sacrifices one of his weaker Vampires and is able to defeat her. Angered by Kars' trickery, Joseph then challenges Kars who looks upon Joseph as a weak Ripple user and not even worth fighting seriously. It all seems to be over in this fight against Kars until Stroheim(who has once again been brought back to life because of Nazi Science) and the Nazis, Speedwagon, and Smokey arrive to help Joseph. It is here that the reader also finds out that Lisa Lisa is also the biological mother of Joseph. After using the powers of Ultra violet rays of light it seems that Kars has been killed and the world has been saved. But all is not as it seems. Kars was not only able to place on a stone mask that he had been hiding on his person, but fused with the powers of the Red Stone of Aja, Kars becomes the Ultimate Life form. Now Joseph and the group are frantically trying to think of a way to be this so called Unbeatable lifeform and it seems that victory has once again arrived in Joseph's hands when he is able to send Kars inside an active volcano. But the fight was still not over. Kars was able to cover himself in an armor made of rock and protect himself from the molten lava. It looked like this would be the gruesome end of not only the Joestar's but the world itself, until the volcano erupts and sends both Joseph and Kars flying. Kars is sent into space and though he tries to fly back down to Earth to finish the job, a defense mechanism of his kicks in, freezing his body solid making him unable to travel back to Earth. The battle was finally over and Joseph was able to save the world from Kars' evil.

Weeks later the group of Erina, Lisa Lisa, Messina, Smokey, and Speedwagon pay their respects as they have a funeral for the assumed to be dead Joseph Joestar, but to their surprise Joseph wasn't dead! After falling back down from the sky he ends up in Italy where he is helped by some local fisherman. After finding and marrying Lisa Lisa's assistant, Suzie Q he returns back to America to find his friends. (Though he is annoyed to find that Suzie had not send them the message that he was still alive.) After all the loose ends are accounted for and the lives of the characters are explained, Part 2 ends with the now aged Joseph at a Japanese air port which leads us to the next part in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Series.

Like part one, part two is heavily influenced by the manga Fist of the North Star.

Trivia

 * In its original publication, it was referred to as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2 Joseph Joestar: His Proud Lineage (ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 第二部 ジョセフ・ジョースター ―その誇り高き血統).