Battle Tendency


 * For the Anime adaption, see JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Animation.

"Joseph! You will likely meet "him" soon. You will probably understand "his" identity and the meaning of evolution! Like destiny handed down by God..."

- Straizo, Chapter 52

Battle Tendency (戦闘潮流) is the second story arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from November 1987 to March 1989. Originally titled 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), the arc is preceded by Phantom Blood and spans a total of 69 chapters.

Taking place in 1938-39, the story follows the misadventures of Joseph Joestar (a.k.a. JoJo), grandson of Jonathan, as he masters his innate Ripple abilities in order to combat hostile, ancient super-beings named the Pillar Men, creators of the Stone Mask that plot to become the ultimate lifeforms.

New York's JoJo


In the winter of 1938, having became a wealthy businessman, Robert E. O. Speedwagon, and his Speedwagon Foundation has discovered a Mexican pyramid where they found various Stone Masks along with a man integrated into a stone column. Fearing the worst, that the horror he and his old friend Jonathan Joestar have thwarted 49 years ago may resurface, Speedwagon contacted Straizo to meet him in Mexico for his aid in destroying the masks and the mysterious figure before he awakens. But Straizo suddenly kills Speedwagon's associates before badly injuring Speedwagon himself. Fascinated by the youthfulness and vigor the Stone Mask granted Dio, Straizo uses the spilled blood to activate the Mask and transforms into a Vampire while explaining he intends to eliminate any who know of the Masks.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Jonathan's grandson Joseph Joestar defeats a pair of police officers for brutalizing a pickpocket named Smokey Brown and demonstrates his ability to utilize Ripple. Joseph befriends Smokey as he and his grandmother Erina Joestar make the boy feel welcomed. Joseph is soon informed by a mobster of Speedwagon's presumed death at the hand of Straizo.

Later after sunset, Joseph is confronted outside a cafe by a vampirized Straizo who intends to kill him before he becomes an actual threat. But Joseph expected the vampire and, after a heated battle, Straizo is defeated. Straizo reveals that after he became a vampire, he was forced to dump Speedwagon and his victims into the river to prevent the spilled blood from reviving the figure in the stone column. The Vampire finally self-destructs by breathing the Ripple into himself.

In Mexico
Disturbed by Straizo's final words, Joseph travels to Mexico and learns from an assassin named Donovan that the Nazis under the command of Rudol von Stroheim have taken Speedwagon prisoner. Stroheim and his forces are revealed to have extracted the Pillar Man and proceed to revive him for research purposes. Once the being, dubbed "Santana" by Stroheim, is awakened, he demonstrates fantastic, super-human abilities as he kills most of those present. But Joseph, having infiltrated the Nazis' base, intervenes.

The battle against the superhuman Santana pushes Joseph to his limits and Stroheim is forced to trigger a grenade against his chest to stop the creature. Nonetheless, Joseph manages to expose Santana to sunlight Once storing Santana's remains at the Washington Branch of the Speedwagon Foundation, Joseph, who has learned from Stroheim that a trio of Pillar Men are sleeping in Rome, is sent to meet a certain ally.

Rome
Once in Rome, Joseph cross paths with Speedwagon's contact in Italy: Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, grandson of Will A. Zeppeli. The two youths don't get along well as Caesar blames Jonathan for his grandfather's death and called Joseph's win against Santana dumb luck. Unbeknownst to them, the Pillar Men are already awakening under the Coliseum.

When Joseph, Speedwagon, and Caesar arrive at the underground cave where the Pillar Men are. However, the Pillar Men going by the names of Wamuu, Esidisi and Kars, have already awakened and killed the Germans. Joseph and Caesar confront the three Pillar Men, but the three are already familiar with Ripple users and have developed counters. It only takes Wamuu to easily defeat both Caesar and Joseph. Yet, as Wamuu prepares to deal a mortal blow to Joseph, the latter promises with that with a month of training, Joseph can make a worthy adversary. Because Wamuu loves to battle, he accepts, but implants a Wedding Ring of Death on Joseph's aorta to keep him from running away. He explains the ring will dissolve into a poison within 33 days while revealing the antidote to be inside his lip ring. Esidisi, also places his own ring around Joseph's wind pipe to seal his death, with the antidote in his own nose piercing. The Pillar Mens' leader Kars passes on the game as the trio take their leave to find the Red Stone of Aja. Caesar finds respect for Joseph for his heroic resistance.

Training in Venice
Wanting to teach Joseph to master his Ripple, Caesar takes him to Venice to meet his mentor: the masterful and beautiful Lisa Lisa. Lisa Lisa, assisted by her servant Loggins and Messina, harshly train Joseph and Caesar and manage to shape them into Ripple masters in three weeks. Near the end of their training, Lisa Lisa reveals to Joseph and Caesar that Kars is the one who created Stone Masks like the one that caused their grandfathers' deaths. She also reveals that Kars is seeking a flawless Red Stone of Aja, the Super Aja in her possession to perfect the Mask and use it to become the ultimate life-form.

With a week left until the rings inside Joseph dissolve and kill him, Lisa Lisa pits Joseph and Caesar against Loggins and Messina respectively for their final test. However, when Joseph reaches his destination, he finds Loggins has been killed by Esidisi who has learned of the Super Aja's location. Joseph proceeds to battle Esidisi, but the Pillar Man's wits are a match for Joseph's. The Ripple warrior still manages to use sleight of hand and binds Esidisi with rope of woolen strings, dealing a seemingly fatal blow to the Pillar Man and getting rid of Esidisi's ring.

In truth, Esidisi has survived. Infiltrating Lisa Lisa's island and possessing her servant Suzi Q, the Pillar Man sends the Super Aja to his allies through the postman. Esidisi threatens to kill Suzi Q, but Joseph and Caesar cooperate to finish him off. Lisa Lisa uses hypnosis on Suzi Q and learns that the Stone is aboard a train headed to Switzerland. Thus Joseph, Caesar, Lisa Lisa and Messina drive off to catch the package before it reaches its destination.

In Switzerland


Reaching the Swiss border, Joseph and his group find the train had been stopped by customs as the Nazi retrieved the package. The leader of the Nazis who appears familiar with Joseph invites the group to a log cabin up ahead. Later on that evening, Kars attack the cabin to retrieve the Super Aja. The nazi leader revealed to be Stroheim rebuilt as a cyborg matching Santana's power, is easily defeated. However, Stroheim manages to make Kars drop the Stone, which is sliding toward a cliff. A struggle then ensues between Joseph and Kars for possession of the Stone, ending in Joseph managing to snatch victory. Kars, expressing a deep-seeded hatred towards the human for sensing him as Esidisi's killer, allows the human to hold the Red Stone a little longer.

The next day at St. Moritz, learning the Pillar Men are taking residence in the San Moritz hotel, Caesar wishes to ambush Kars during the day before Wamuu returns. But Joseph objects as it might be a trap. A fight ensues, and an angry Caesar accompanied by Messina decide to go to the hotel without support. Lisa Lisa tells Joseph of Caesar's tragic past, having assumed his father Mario left the family before he died to save him from being devoured by the resting Pillar Men. The story convinces Joseph to follow after Caesar.

However as Caesar reach the San Mortiz, he and Messina are attacked by Wamuu, who is using streams of moist air to both protect him from the sunlight. Wamuu manages to drag to fight inside the hotel, but Caesar corner the Pillar Man by using bubble lenses to direct the sunlight to him. In a moment of anger, Caesar jumps toward Wamuu to deal the final blow. But Wamuu takes advantage of the split-second of Caesar blotting out the sunlight to counter with a point-blank Divine Sandstorm that fatally injures Caesar. Caesar is defeated but as a last defiant act, steals Wamuu's lip ring for Joseph and secures it before a piece of the ceiling crushes him. Wamuu respects Caesar's last gesture and the basis of his valiant fight, allowing the bubble to remain for Joseph and Lisa Lisa as they eventually arrive and mourn Caesar's death. The two of men decide to venture further inside the building. Despite having Wamuu's lip ring, Joseph vows not to drink the antidote until he has defeated the Pillar Man and avenged Caesar.

The Wind, the Chariot, and Wamuu
Joseph and Lisa Lisa eventually find the Pillar Men, finding themselves greatly outnumbered by their hundred vampire minions. Lisa Lisa manages to hold off their attack with a bluff that she rigged a time bomb to destroy the Super Aja if she and Joseph are unable to return or it, suggesting two one-on-one matches to settle things. Kars grudgingly accepts; the next night, Joseph, Lisa Lisa, Wamuu, and Kars meet at the Skeleton Heel Stone at the foot of Piz Bernina. Putting on Caesar's bandana, Joseph engages Wamuu in a chariot race super-powered by vampire horses. Ultimately, despite his opponent gouging his own eyes out for an edge, Joseph is able to defeat Wamuu whose body is destroyed in the process. Joseph takes the time to honor Wamuu and drinks the antidote before his head, then salutes him. Only remains Kars.

The Bond That Binds Lisa Lisa and JoJo
The final showdown between Lisa Lisa and Kars begins. Unexpectedly, Kars uses a body double to distract Lisa Lisa and stabs her from behind, then unleashes his Vampires on an out-of-breath Joseph. All seems to be over until an upgraded Stroheim, the Nazis, Speedwagon and a corp of Speedwagon Foundation agents, and Smokey arrive to help Joseph. While the Vampires are distracted, Joseph confronts Kars. The devious Pillar Man used the unconscious Lisa Lisa as a shield, and forces Joseph to try to save her while Kars prepares to attack. It is here that Lisa Lisa is revealed to be the biological mother of Joseph, Elizabeth Joestar.

JoJo: The Final Ripple
It is also explained that her husband, Joseph's father, was killed by the last of Dio's zombie troops while posing as a high-ranking air force commander, but when Elizabeth killed the zombie, she was sighted by another unaware officer and forced to go into hiding as a fugitive, taking on the pseudonym "Lisa Lisa" for her own safety.

In the present, Joseph nonetheless manages to trick Kars and hits him with the Ripple, making the Pillar Man fall on the ground. The Nazis try to kill Kars while he's down with UV lights, but at the last moment, Kars dons a Stone Mask with the Red Stone of Aja embedded in it. Using the light to his advantage, Kars becomes the Ultimate Life form.

Kars the Ultimate Being Is Born
At first, Kars doesn't appear to have changed much, but he now disposes of an incredible ability to transform into any lifeform and is immune to the sun. All despair, but Joseph who makes a strategic retreat in order to lure out Kars, hungry for revenge. Joseph flies away on a plane, followed by Kars.

Joseph plans to lure the Ultimate Lifeform into a volcano, but as he closes on it, Kars manages to disable the plane. Joseph and Stroheim, who had been hiding inside the plane, manage to lure Kars into a bait and use the crashing plane to send him into the lava.

Final Chapters

 * Joseph's Final Gamble; The Man Who Became a God; The Man Who Crossed the Atlantic

Kars unexpectedly reemerges unscathed from the lava and severs Joseph's left arm with a sneak attack. Both Joseph and Stroheim realize that they cannot hope to defeat the Ultimate Lifeform and accept their deaths. Yet, when Kars prepares to deal the final blow to Joseph with a Ripple-infused punch, Joseph uses the Super Aja and empowers greatly Kars' blow. The surge of energy shoots through Joseph's hand and hits the volcano, which under the influence of the Ripple, begins to erupt, sending Kars into space.In the void, Kars has no way to reach back to Earth and a defense mechanism of his kicks in, freezing his body solid and making him unable to travel back to Earth. Damned with immortality due to his newfound powers, Kars eventually becomes brain-dead in the endless vacuum of space.

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 appears, alive and well, and unaware of whose funeral he decided to interrupt. After seeing his own name on the headstone, he explains that after falling back down from the sky he has landed up in Italy where he is helped by a local fisherman. After finding and marrying Suzi Q, he has then returned to America and his friends. Unfortunately, Suzi Q forgot to inform the group that Joseph was alive, hence the funeral. Enraged, Joseph chases his wife through the cemetery while his comrades celebrate his survival.

An account is made for the remainder of the lives of several key members of the cast:
 * Lisa Lisa, a.k.a. Elizabeth Joestar revealed her true identity to Joseph before moving to America with her family and marrying a Hollywood screenwriter in 1948.
 * Erina Joestar continued her work as a teacher until she died peacefully in 1950, surrounded by her friends and family.
 * Robert E. O. Speedwagon continued his philanthropic scientific & medical research before dying of a heart attack in 1952, he never married.
 * Despite the discrimination he faced as an African-American, Smokey Brown went on to major in political science in college, before becoming the first black mayor of a city in his home state of Georgia.
 * Major Rudol von Stroheim was killed leading the German retreat at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, "a fearsome example of the German science he always championed."

48 years later, an aged Joseph is seen at JFK International Airport, kicking a Japanese man in the knee who accidentally hit him with his luggage. Joseph voices his anger towards the Japanese, explaining that his own daughter moved to Japan after marrying a Japanese man and never came back; his own grandson doesn't recognize him. The story ends with Joseph heading on a plane bound for Japan.

Chapters
Battle Tendency consists of 69 chapters, compiled into Volume 5 to 12 of the Jump Comics trade paperbacks. Chapter titles often change between the original publication in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and the paperback graphic novels, so both are included below (left for volume, right for magazine).

Adaptations
The first episode of a TV anime adaptation of Battle Tendency, by David Production, aired in Japan on December 7, 2012; the last on April 5, 2013. It was later dubbed and aired on Toonami in America from December 17, 2016 to April 15, 2017.