JoJo Part 2: Battle Tendency

Years

1987–1989

Run

Chapters 45–113

Roster

15 characters

Battle Tendency picks the saga back up in 1938. Jonathan's grandson Joseph Joestar — louder, lazier, and far more cunning than his ancestor — is dragged into a much bigger threat than the Stone Mask: the Pillar Men, the ancient beings who created the Mask in the first place. The Part is where Hirohiko Araki settles on the tone he'll use for the rest of the series: confident dialogue, escalating stakes, fights won by reading the opponent rather than out-punching them, and protagonists who openly enjoy being clever. Joseph trains in Venice under Lisa Lisa, teams up with the Italian Hamon user Caesar Zeppeli, and crosses paths with the Nazi cyborg Stroheim. Battle Tendency is the part most fans recommend to skeptical newcomers — short, punchy, and built around the kind of bluff-and-callback fight choreography that became Araki's signature.