Vampire
Vampires (吸血鬼, Kyūketsuki) are supernatural undead creatures featured in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Many vampires serve as antagonists in the first three parts of the series, Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency, and Stardust Crusaders.
Summary
Vampires were created by the Pillar Men with acupuncture techniques that they developed through the use of the Stone Mask. The purpose of the vampires were to become food for the Pillar Men and to explore human potential. This would then lead the Pillar Men to discover the Red Stone of Aja, which can be combined with the Stone Mask to make them perfect, granting them immunity to sunlight and allowing them to rewrite their DNA.
Vampires can be created in two ways. One way is to wear the Stone Mask while exposing it to blood. The other way is for a vampire to give a corpse some of their own blood. According to the dynamics of the arts of the Ripple and Will Anthonio Zeppeli, all living beings on Earth bear energy from the sun, but vampires are considered beings whose natural "flow" of energy has been reversed and perverted. As such, both the sun and the Ripple are capable of quickly destroying vampires, as they return this "flow" back to normal.
List of Vampires
Abilities
Vampires are known for their battle cry "WRY" (ウリイ, Uri) and numerous superhuman traits. Their most obvious abilities are their raw strength, regeneration, blood-sucking tentacles at their fingers and near-immortality. On top of that, many vampires are capable of manipulating their bodies in creative and unique ways. Some as skilled as Dio have created their own unique abilities.
Zombie Creation
A secondary undead, created by a vampire who dons the Stone Mask, is commonly referred to as a Zombie (
Basic Powers
Vampires are exceptionally strong beings. One weakened vampire could destroy a brick wall with one punch; Dio himself could lift a road roller and jump high in the air with it. A measurement of Straizo's strength set his finger pressure as 325 kg/cm2.
Vampires are very agile, their speed having been likened to that of a cheetah by Speedwagon. They are able to jump several meters up in the air: for example, a weakened Straizo could jump up to 4.22 meters in the air. Other demonstrations of agility include casually hanging from a ceiling and leaping great distances.
Vampires consume the blood of living creatures to sustain themselves. Unlike traditional vampires, they suck their victim's blood with their hands, digging the fingers directly inside the target to suck their blood. Blood consumption will strengthen a vampire and heal him if he was weakened before. In a weakened state, a vampire will instinctively crave blood and may attack any victim to regenerate.
Vampires can fully manipulate their own bodies, making a seemingly limitless number of special techniques possible. Wired Beck, for example, had the ability to form numerous spikes all over his body from his body hair; Nukesaku displayed the ability to form a second face on the back of his head with female features to deceive his opponents.
A vampire's body is able to live even after having vital body parts amputated, as it is able to regenerate or reattach its own body parts. Vampires can also control their detached body parts. For example, Dio is able to reattach himself after being sliced in half by Jonathan and Straizo regenerates after exploding into several pieces from grenades. However, this ability is significantly hindered should the vampire's brain be destroyed or heavily damaged, opening them up to be killed through other means.[1][2][3]
As part of their immortality, a vampire's body will forfeit natural decay, essentially preventing the host from dying of old age. Those transformed at a younger age will naturally preserve their looks, while those who are older will rejuvenate their bodies, taking on the appearance of someone in their 20s.[4] This characteristic allows DIO to retain his youth and survive at the bottom of the ocean for a century.
Bodily Powers
Vampires are capable of creating zombies from either living beings or deceased corpses by injecting them with a vampiric extract. Though zombies are also strong creatures, they are less powerful than their vampiric creator and will often obey them without question. In Stardust Crusaders, Dio perfected this technique, injecting others with his blood to sire other vampires.
Dio is able to vaporize the moisture in his own body, enabling him to freeze his own body parts and transfer the loss of heat by touch. This ability is able to cancel out the Ripple by freezing the blood in the Ripple user's body. Though initially he only uses the ability to freeze individual body parts, Dio is later shown to be able to freeze an opponent's entire body in an instant.
Vampires are able to graft parts of different organisms together. Dio displays this ability by creating animal-human hybrid zombies as pets, ultimately using it to graft his disembodied head on Jonathan's body.
Dio is able to hypnotize individuals into doing his bidding. Not much is known about this ability, besides that it may possibly be nullified by the Ripple, as Poco's hypnosis wore off after being hit by Jonathan's Overdrive.
Vampires are able to expel pressurized body fluid from their eyes. Though the resulting jets of fluid are strong enough to cut cleanly through a stone column, they can be redirected by curved surfaces such as wine glasses if infused with the Ripple.
A vampire can create flesh buds from their own cells and insert them into the brains of living beings, subtly making them more susceptible to the vampire's influence. Over the course of several years, the flesh bud gradually devours its host's brain; if the vampire who created the flesh bud dies, the flesh bud will fuse with the host on a cellular level, mutating them beyond recognition. If someone tries to remove the flesh bud, it will grow tentacles in an attempt to kill both the host and the one trying to remove it. Once created by a vampire, the flesh bud can be inserted and triggered by anyone able to manipulate life at a cellular level.
In the light novel OVER HEAVEN, it is stated that flesh buds reduce the host's Stand power.[6]
Others
The vampire Straizo, having previously learned the art of the Ripple as a human, was able to use the breathing technique after turning into a vampire. Doing so, however, was an act of suicide, as the Ripple destroyed his own body.
Like humans, vampires with unusually strong spiritual power can develop and control Stands, a physical manifestation of the user's spirit. As was the case with The World's timestop gradually lengthening as DIO's neck wound healed, the limitations of a vampire's Stand can be lessened or nullified over time.
Differences from Popular Culture Vampires
- Apart from sunlight, JoJo vampires are unaffected by traditional weaknesses such as crosses.
- Vampires are commonly converted when they are bitten by another vampire. In JoJo, vampires are created through the use of a Stone Mask or receiving blood from another vampire. A vampire simply sucking blood from a victim results in the birth of a zombie.
- Another myth of popular culture is that vampires can turn into bats, wolves or other animals, and are capable of squeezing through small crevices. In JoJo, though vampires can manipulate their own bodies in various inhuman ways, they show no indication of being able to use their bodies in either of the above manners. However, Kars, a Pillar Man and the creator of the Stone Masks, has been shown to be capable of such transformation after becoming the Ultimate Thing. Santana has also been shown to be able to break down his own body in order to pass through small gaps in a ventilation shaft.
- Normal vampires suck blood through biting the neck of their victims. JoJo's vampires are mostly seen sucking blood through blood vessels in their fingers. However, like traditional vampires, JJBA vampires are shown to bear fangs, and the anime implies that Dio can suck blood with his fangs.
- In some myths, vampirism is genetic. In those myths, cases of male vampires conceiving a child with human women result in the child being a Dhampir (a half-vampire). Dio Brando's sons show no indication of having inherited his vampirism, although Giorno sometimes uses the characteristic "WRYYY" battle cry of a vampire. It should be noted, however, that the circumstances behind their births were not straightforward, as Dio had not yet fully synchronized himself with Jonathan's human body.
- It is believed that a reflection in the mirror reflects a person's soul, so vampires are commonly missing reflections as they lack souls. However, DIO has a reflection in the cover of Chapter 130.
Gallery
Vampiric blood sucking, as seen in the manga
Kars and his vampire army
One hundred vampires under Kars's command
Vampire horses
References
- ↑ Chapter 23: Ripple Overdrive, Part 1
- ↑ Chapter 259: DIO's World, Part 13
- ↑ Chapter 264: DIO's World, Part 18
- ↑ JoJo 6251, p.105
- ↑ Chapter 260: DIO's World, Part 14
- ↑ OVER HEAVEN Chapter 10
