JoJo Part 1: Phantom Blood

Years

1987–1988

Run

Chapters 1–44

Roster

19 characters

Phantom Blood is the origin story. Late-Victorian England, a wealthy English estate, and the day a homeless boy named Dio Brando is adopted into the Joestar family. The Part is half family drama and half supernatural action: it introduces the Stone Mask that turns its wearers into vampires, the Ripple (Hamon) breathing technique used to fight them, and the rivalry between Dio and the rightful Joestar heir, Jonathan. The cast is small by later standards — Jonathan, his friend Speedwagon, the Hamon master Will A. Zeppeli, and Dio's growing entourage of undead — and the tone is the most classically gothic of the entire saga. Phantom Blood lays down the rules that the next eight Parts inherit: the Joestar bloodline, the long shadow of Dio, the idea that an ordinary person can fight monsters with the right breathing, and the willingness to skip generations between stories.