Battle Tendency

Battle Tendency (戦闘潮流) is the second story arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump between 1987 and 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 precedes Phantom Blood and spans a total of 69 chapters.

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 adorned 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 and Speedwagon travel to Rome, where three more sleeping "Pillar Men" have been discovered, and where they meet Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli; a trained Ripple user near Joseph's age, grandson of William Zeppeli. Caesar disagrees with Joseph, arguing that his grandfather Jonathan caused William's death through his incompetence. The group is driven by Caesar's friend Mark, a Nazi soldier, to the site of the Pillar Men's slumber.

The group is confronted with the three awakened Pillar Men, Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars; before Mark is horrifically killed on contact with Wamuu. Conversing among themselves, they state their primary objective to locate and obtain the Red Stone of Aja, which when used with a modified Stone Mask will turn them into "ultimate life forms".

Caesar and Joseph challenge Wamuu. Both are defeated, but before he is executed Joseph is able to bluff with Wamuu, claiming that he would be able to defeat him after one month of training. Intrigued, Wamuu and Esidisi plant their "wedding rings" in Joseph's body; designed to dissolve and release a fatal poison within one month. Caesar finds respect for Joseph for his heroic resistance.

Joseph and Caesar travel to Venice, both entering a month of intense, specialized Ripple training with Caesar's teacher, the masterful and beautiful Lisa Lisa.

Before Joseph's month is quite over, Esidisi finds out that Lisa Lisa has the Red Stone of Aja, and comes to take it. Joseph uses his new skill and inherent ingenuity to defeat Esidisi. Esidisi's nervous and circulatory system survives, and he invades Suzi Q's body; stealing and loading the Red Stone onto a postal boat bound for Switzerland before launching a final unsuccessful attempt to destroy the group.

In Switzerland, Joseph is reunited with Stroheim, who has been rebuilt by German scientists as a powerful cyborg; but Stroheim's machine body is quickly cut in half by Kars in the first demonstration of his fighting style, "Light Mode", involving shining, chainsaw-like blades growing from his arms.

In nearby St. Moritz, the group discovers Kars' base, a mansion. In anticipation of Wamuu's arrival, Caesar breaks from the group, fighting in disagreement with Joseph before entering alone.

Caesar's sensitivity is explained by Lisa Lisa. His father disappearing during his youth, Caesar grew up alone, as a thug. Fortuitously spotting his father in Rome, eager to punish him, Caesar follows to the base of the Colosseum where the Pillar Men slept. Inside, Caesar reaches to touch a gem embedded in a wall, before his father suddenly pushes him away; quickly consumed by the flesh of the monsters in their dormant form; leaving Caesar the final message to tell Lisa Lisa that they will awaken soon.

Caesar is greeted at the entrance of the mansion by Wamuu. Fighting, it appears that Caesar has the advantage, nearly destroying Wamuu with the refracted sunlight of his Ripple bubbles; but Wamuu is able to counter with his Holy Sandstorm, incapacitating Caesar. Wamuu, satisfied, prepares to leave, before Caesar jumps and tears out his lip piercing, containing the antidote to Joseph's poison ring. Caesar uses a final Ripple to create a bubble of his own blood containing both the antidote ring and his headband, just before he is crushed by a stone slab dropping from the ruined ceiling. Wamuu respects Caesar's gesture on the basis of his valiant fight, allowing the bubble to reach Joseph and Lisa Lisa when they eventually arrive. Joseph vows not to drink the antidote until he has defeated Wamuu.

Joseph and Lisa Lisa meet Wamuu and Kars before they arrange for respective one-on-one fights. Wamuu selects the Skeleton Heel Stone, a stone chariot racing track centered by a bonfire at the foot of Piz Bernina, as the arena of his fight with Joseph. A chariot race super-powered by vampire horses ensues, and inside two laps the pair utilize hammers and steel ball crossbows in damaging the other's chariot and person. Ultimately Joseph is able again to anticipate his opponent's actions and, defeating him, he honors Wamuu for his principled nature.

The final showdown against Kars begins. First, keeping his promise, he fights 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 until Stroheim, resurrected as a machine once again, 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, 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 life-form 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.

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, explaining that after falling back down from the sky he ends up in Italy where he is helped by a local fisherman. After finding and marrying Lisa Lisa's assistant, Suzi Q, he returns to America and his friends.

An account is made for the remainder of the lives of the cast before the story ends with the now post-middle-age Joseph at a Japanese airport, preparing to visit his daughter in Tokyo, Japan.

Chapters
Battle Tendency consists of 69 chapters, compiled into Volume 5 to 12 of the Jump Comics collected editions. The left column uses the titles from the bunkoban edition released in 2002. The right column uses the titles from the original serialization in Weekly Shonen Jump. The volumes use the Weekly Shonen Jump titles.

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.

Trivia

 * In its original publication, it was referred to as.
 * Like Part I, Part II appears to derive some influence in its characterization of the human body from the manga Fist of the North Star.