Phantom Blood

Phantom Blood (ファントムブラッド) is the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, published in Weekly Shonen Jump between 1987 and 1988.

The story follows Jonathan Joestar as he matures with and eventually combats his adoptive brother, the cunning, merciless Dio Brando.

Plot Summary
"Put simply, the theme of this work is 'living'. Through the two main characters, I want to examine two ways of living. It's all about singing the hymn of the battle between 'human' and 'non-human' ..." – Hirohiko Araki, author's note, Vol. 1

The story begins in Victorian England with young Jonathan Joestar (nicknamed JoJo) living at his father George's wealthy estate. Another young man, Dio Brando, is adopted by them having recently lost his father, Dario Brando, whom George falsely believed once saved him from an accident.

Jonathan attempts to befriend Dio, but Dio's plan from the start is to drive JoJo to madness and earn George's trust so that he can become the heir to the Joestar fortune. Dio violently beats JoJo in a boxing match, turns his friends against him, steals his girlfriend Erina's first kiss, and even burns his dog Danny to death in an incinerator. Meanwhile, he gains the trust of JoJo's father through his etiquette and manners.

Seven years later Jonathan's father falls ill. Dio is very attentive and brings him his medicine every day. Jonathan is suspicious as he is certain Dio is up to no good. Jonathan discovers an old letter written by Dario Brando on his deathbed requesting Lord Joestar care for Dio. In his letter, Dario describes his symptoms, which are identical to Lord Joestar's mystery ailment. Jonathan believes that Dio must have poisoned his own father and is now trying to do the same thing to Lord Joestar.

Dio discovers Jonathan with the letter and Jonathan accuses Dio of poisoning Lord Joestar. Dio decides that he must kill Jonathan before he is exposed.

In order for Dio to kill Jonathan, he puts on the Stone Mask that transforms its user into a vampire permanently. Fighting ensues and Jonathan is able to burn down their house with Dio inside. However, Dio survives, and takes off to plot his revenge.

At this time, Jonathan meets a man called Will Anthonio Zeppeli with a strange power called the Ripple (波紋 hamon) which is most effective against vampires. It is basically a martial arts technique that allows the user to focus bodily energy into other kinds of energy via proper breathing (obviously they focus it into the energy of sunlight, which is effective against vampires). After teaching Jonathan how to use the ripple they set out, along with Jonathan's good friend Robert E. O. Speedwagon, to seek out and defeat Dio. Their chase takes them to a village in Europe where most of the villagers have been turned into vampires by Dio. They fight their way to Dio; William Zeppeli loses his life in battle on the way. Zeppeli's master in hamon, Tonpetty, and his two disciples ,Dire and Straizo, then show up to help Jonathan and Speedwagon go on. Eventually, a fight between Dio's eye beams and Jonathan's ripple ends with a loss for Dio, but not before Dire is killed.

Somehow Dio's head is still intact, and when Jonathan is on a cruise ship for his honeymoon, he is ambushed by Dio and fatally wounded. Jonathan manages to sink the ship by using the last of his Ripple to manipulate the now dead corpse of Wang Chan and take Dio with him to the bottom of the ocean. Jonathan's young wife (who is pregnant) manages to escape, along with a baby she saved from the ship.

Chapters
Phantom Blood consists of 44 chapters, compiled into Vols. 1 to 5 of the Jump Comics collected editions.

Anime
An animated movie adaptation was released on February 17, 2007 in Japanese theaters.

The TV anime was announced in June of 2012, and the first episode was broadcast on October 6, 2012. It finished with a total of 9 episodes covering the entire arc.

Video Games
Phantom Blood, an action/fighting game by Bandai for the PS2, was released on October 26, 2006.

Included as playable in fighting game All Star Battle (PS3) are Jonathan, Zeppeli and Dio; with Dio's Mansion representing the Part I stage.

Trivia

 * This arc was originally titled JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1 Jonathan Joestar: His Youth (ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 第一部 ジョナサン·ジョースター ―その青春―).