Battle Tendency
- For the Anime adaption, see JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Animation.
Battle Tendency (戦闘潮流, Sentō Chōryū) 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, JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Dai Ni Bu Josefu Jōsutā Sono Hokoritakaki Kettō), 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.
Plot Summary
New York's JoJo
In the winter of 1938, having became a wealthy businessman, Robert E. O. Speedwagon, and his Speedwagon Foundation have 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 the man himself. Fascinated by the youthfulness and vigor the Stone Mask granted Dio, Straizo uses the spilled blood to activate the Mask and transform 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.
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.
Ultimate Warriors from Ancient Times
Once in Rome, Joseph cross paths with Speedwagon's contact in Italy: Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli, grandson of William Anthonio 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, ups the ante by placing his own ring around Joseph's windpipe, 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.
Lisa Lisa, Ripple Coach
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.
Young Caesar
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. Stroheim, who has been rebuilt by German scientists as a powerful cyborg based on Santana's stats. But Kars proves to be the stronger opponent as he cuts him down to size before 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 booby trapped, The Joestar's words provoking Caesar before he decides to go alone with Messina following him. 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 reached the San Mortiz, he and Messina are attacked by Wamuu, who is using streams of moist air to both protect him from the sunlight while appearing ghost-like. Wamuu drags Messina into the hotel with Caesar chasing after him, revealing the Bubble Cutter technique he developed from his grandfather's Ripple Cutter to overwhelm the Pillar Man. Caesar then uses a series of refractive bubble lenses to redirect the sunlight inside the hotel to pin down Wamuu to land the death 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.
Wamuu, satisfied with the fight, prepares to leave, before Caesar gets back up with the Pillar Man telling him their battle is over now. But Caesar musters the strength to tear out Wamuu's lip ring, explaining that accepted his death but intends to die for another's sake as his father and grandfather had done. With that, Caesar uses his the last of his Ripple to create a blood bubble containing the piercing and his bandana to reach Joesph before being crushed by the collapsing ceiling. 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. Finding Messina's unconscious body, they realized Caesar died and mourned him before they venture further inside hotel, defeating a Vampire named Wired Beck. 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, taking Lisa Lisa as insurance while allowing Joseph to fetch the stone and meet them at Skeleton Heel Stone at the foot of Piz Bernina by midnight. Whilst retrieving the stone, Joseph finds a picture of Erina from fifty years ago and questions Lisa Lisa about it once arriving to the arena. Lisa Lisa reveals that she was the baby that Erina rescued on the day of Jonathan's death, raised by Straizo while taught to use Ripple. 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 was destroyed in the process.
Knowing Wamuu's disembodied head will die soon from exposure to his Ripple, Joseph gives him some of his blood to ease his passing as a sign of respect, similar to the respect Wamuu showed Caesar. When the vampires suddenly attack Joseph, Wamuu uses the last of his strength to kill them for their dishonorable attack. Upon Wamuu's request, Joseph drinks the antidote and salutes as the Wamuu passes on with no regrets. With the first match over, Kars begins his match against Lisa Lisa.
The Ties that Bind JoJo
The final showdown against Kars begins. While Kars first appeared to be fighting Lisa lisa one-on-one, he is revealed to have used a vampire as a body double to distract her so he can mortally wound her and take the Super Aja from her. Kars then sends his vampire army after the weakened Joseph, who is extremely furious of the underhanded scheme. However, he is rescued by Stroheim and his men, along with Speedwagon, Smokey and the Speedwagon Foundation Special Forces, who use ultraviolet lights to fight off the vampires whilst JoJo goes to face Kars who uses uses Lisa Lisa to force JoJo into a vulnerable position. It is here that Lisa Lisa is revealed to be Joseph's biological mother Elizabeth Joestar was forced to go into hiding after avenging her husband, Joseph's father, who was killed by the last of Dio's zombies.
While at a huge disadvantage against Kars, who does not take the human seriously, Joseph manages to save Lisa lisa while knocking Kars into the sharp crystals below with a Ripple-infused punch. Stroheim and his men attempt to finish off Kars with multiple blasts of ultraviolet beam, but the Pillar Men placed the Super aja-augmented stone mask on his face, using the Nazis' UV lights to undergo his evolution into the Ultimate Life form.
The Ascendant One
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 grabs the Super Aja makes a strategic retreat in a German airplane to lure the revenge-driven Kars after him. Joseph theorizes he may be able to beat Kars if he drops him into a volcano and heads towards a volcanic island off the Italian coast. With help from Stroheim, Joseph manages to force Kars into a magma pit as he sinks while melting. But Joseph's victory was cut short when Kars manages to developed a defense against the magma and digs his way out while slicing Joseph's forearm off.
Joseph attempts to fight back, but becomes shocked to discover that Kars has also learned how to use Ripple with a high enough potency to melt human flesh. It seemed to be the gruesome end of not only the Joestar line, but the world itself, until Joseph instinctively used the Super Aja to intercept Kars's Ripple and transfer into the ground under them. This causes a massive eruption that sends the ground they are on flying. Distracted by Joseph, Kars is launched further into the sky by volcanic debris until he was forced out of Earth's atmosphere. Joseph loses consciousness as the chuck of Earth he is on crashes into the sea with Stroheim assuming the worse as he contacts Speedwagon. And on February 28, 1939, Joseph Joestar is pronounced dead.
The Man Who Crossed the Atlantic
Outside Earth's atmosphere, Kars attempts to return to Earth, but he only ends up drifting further away from the planet as his entire body freezes. His immortality now a curse, Kars could only beg for death as he eventually ceased thinking as his frozen body drifts into 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 whose funeral he decided to crash. After seeing his own name on the headstone, he explains 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 Suzi Q, he 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, an eternal bachelor and the last of the Speedwagons.
- 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, reprimanding a Japanese man 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; he hardly gets to see his own grandson Jotaro as a result. The story ends with Joseph heading on a plane bound for Japan, aiming to visit his daughter for some urgent business regarding Jotaro.
Characters in Battle Tendency
| Character name | Relationship |
|---|---|
| Joseph Joestar | Main Protagonist |
| Smokey Brown | Ally |
| Erina Joestar | Ally |
| Robert E. O. Speedwagon | Ally |
| Rudol von Stroheim | Ally (previously Villian) |
| Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli | Ally |
| Lisa Lisa | Ally |
| Loggins and Messina | Ally |
| Suzi Q | Ally |
| Donovan | Villiain |
| Straizo | Neutral at death (Villain) |
| Wired Beck | Villain |
| Santana | Villain |
| Esidisi | Villain |
| Wamuu | Neutral at death (Villain) |
| Kars | Main Antagonist |
Major Battles
Joseph Joestar vs. Straizo
Joseph Joestar vs. Caesar A. Zeppeli Joseph Joestar vs. Wamuu Joseph Joestar & Caesar A. Zeppeli vs. Esidisi (2nd Battle for Former) Joseph Joestar vs. Kars Caesar A. Zeppeli vs. Wamuu (2nd Battle) Lisa Lisa vs. Wired Beck Joseph Joestar vs. Wamuu (2nd Battle) Joseph Joestar vs. Kars (2nd Battle) |
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.[3][1]
| Volume 5: The Final Ripple! | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (最後の波紋！, Saigo no Hamon!) |
 August 10, 1988[2] |
978-4-08-851130-6 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 6: JoJo vs. the Ultimate Life-Form | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (JoJo |
October 7, 1988[3] |
978-4-08-851062-0 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 7: The Red Stone of Aja | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (エイジャの赤石, Eija no Sekiseki) |
December 6, 1988[4] |
978-4-08-851063-7 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 8: The Final Trial! | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (最終試練！, Saishū Shiren!) |
February 10, 1989[5] |
978-4-08-851064-4 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 9: Rushing Towards the Cliff of Death | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (死の崖へつっ走れ, Shi no Gake e Tsuppashire) |
April 10, 1989[6] |
978-4-08-851065-1 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 10: The Crimson Bubble | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (鮮赤のシャポン, Senseki no Shabon) |
June 9, 1989[7] |
978-4-08-851066-8 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 11: The Warrior Returning to the Wind | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (風にかえる戦士, Kaze ni Kaeru Senshi) |
August 10, 1989[8] |
978-4-08-851067-5 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon Titles | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
| |||||
| Volume 12: The Birth of the Ultimate Being!! | Release Date: | ISBN: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (超生物の誕生!!, Chō Seibutsu no Tanjō!!) |
October 9, 1989[9] |
978-4-08-851068-2 | |||||
| Bunkoban Titles | WSJ & Tankōbon 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. It was later dubbed and aired on Toonami in America from December 17, 2016 to April 15, 2017.
| Title | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episodes | Release Date | DVD Cover | Blu-ray Cover | Limited Edition | LE Bonus |
| Volume 4 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
|||
| Volume 5 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
|||
| Volume 6 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
T-Shirt | ||
| Volume 7 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
Strap | ||
| Volume 8 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
|||
| Volume 9 | |||||
.jpg)
|
.jpg)
|
.png)
|
|||
Gallery
- Volumes 1-29 Spine.png
Volume 1 through 29 spine art
Part 2 End picture
Battle Tendecy anime adaption poster
Battle Tendency Characters Scan
Part 2 Puzzle Spread
References
|
