I’ve really enjoyed your writings on JJBA. You got me to see characters like Dio and Jonathan in ways I never thought of. If you’re still up for Bingo, I’d love to hear your thoughts on Giorno
Thank you! I still want to keep doing these, now that my JoJo hyperfixation is back and won't leave me alone for the time being.
I've always really, really loved Giorno, even back when he was pretty universally-panned in fandom circles as the default worst JoJo. The bad scanlations of Vento Aureo and how they butchered the Western popularity of that part are a story everyone's familiar with by now but, honestly? I don't think the fixed scans are what did it for Giorno. I don't even think it was the anime on it's own. I'd argue the main thing that changed Giorno's reception would be the change of voice actor for the anime.
Because for the longest time the main problem fandom had with Giorno was the idea that he was boring, that he was too dispassionate and unemotional and devoid of personality, and for a long time the only frame of reference they had for the character was the manga scanlation, that really did butcher everyone’s dialogue and personality, and All-Star Battle/Eyes of Heaven, with Daisuke Namikawa doing a decent job as the character but not doing much to dissuade people’s perception of Giorno as monotone. In the aftermath of the anime setting the record straight with Kensho Ono’s performance, and especially those goddamn beautiful WRRYYYEAHs he’s doing, that no longer seems to be as big of a complaint as it used to be. I’m not saying the anime “fixed” Giorno, not in the slightest, the anime basically just adapted what was always there for a much bigger audience, and so people got to see more of Giorno’s sides. Most crucially how emotive and expressive he is, and how funny the 15-year old revolutionary gangster can be.
I’m certainly not saying every criticism levied at Vento Aureo was unfounded, I still need to sit down and reread/rewatch it entirely, but consistently I always thought Giorno ruled. He’s got one of my absolute favorite powersets in the series and one that Araki really, really squeezes versatility out of (to the point I’d still argue Requiem really wasn’t that necessary to defeat Diavolo), I like that he’s built to thrive just as much when he takes a backseat to the action and acts as the planner / support for other characters to rally around and find their own strength, I love all of his dynamics within Bruno’s Gang. I love that he’s scary, actually fucking scary, even besides the whole cosmic horror GER brings to the table, even besides the fact that his normal powerset involves pulling snakes and scorpions and insects out of thin air to hurt and kill people.
He’s the most cutthroat JoJo by leaps and bounds, one who actively grew up wanting to be not just a criminal kingpin, but THE criminal kingpin of his country, one who would employ said resources for the betterment of society. One of the very first battles he’s in, he defeats a villain by going behind his associate’s back and tricking said villain into eating a gun and blasting his brains out. He lies, he bribes, he maims. He has a beetle eat the brain of a serial killer right after turning back on his promise of leaving said killer alive, he even suggests killing civilians if they get in the way of the mission. His selflessness is just as terrifying too, he unhesitatingly chops off his limbs and dives neckfirst into razor blades to assist his partners and eventual friends. He risks death over the prospect of leaving anyone behind, he’s driven to extremes caused by his rage and disgust over innocents and children being victimized by the drug trade, his plans are mind-boggling and brutal and powerful, matched only by his capacity for rallying morale and inspiring others. He’s DIO’s son with Joestar spirit, someone who takes after both, a Noble Champion of the Sun as much as he’s Evil Charisma. The next step in DIO’s evolution.
Giorno kinda feels to me like Araki going back to not just DIO the bedazzling immortal megavillain who rules the world, not even just Dio Brando the enfant terrible turned scourge of humanity, but Mashonen B.T, Araki’s early manga love letter to Sherlock Holmes about a charismatic genius bad boy who uses trickery and underhanded tactics to outfox and defeat opponents, mostly known nowadays for being Dio’s direct prototype in almost every way right down to the design, poses, clothing, etc, a short-lived character who was too controversial a protagonist for Shonen Jump at the time. Araki’s gone back to Dio a lot over every part exploring the facets of his existence and Giorno is one of them, one that allowed him to go all the way back to the initial bad boy protagonist he had and redo him accordingly. A Dio who wasn’t born Evil Incarnate, who didn’t grow up to become this century-wide bloodline cancer and embodiment of fate and gravity center of all that is evil and bizarre, who got to once again apply his talents and smarts against those worse than himself.
And this is kind of related to why I think Giorno loses a lot of what makes him important and thematically interesting when he’s made out to be the son of Jonathan as well, even though it’s an idea I do like. Because Giorno’s whole deal is that he’s the son of the Ultimate Evil who grows up into something much better. Part 5′s big theme is people dealt with bad circumstances breaking free, breaking free from the chains of fate and the burdens imposed on them, with Giorno as the one who did it first and then went on to help Buccellati and others do the same.
Jotaro Kujo, the protagonist of the third series Stardust Crusaders, leavesfor his journey already accepting the bond that links him to his grandfather and his grandfather’s great-grandfather (Jonathan’s father) – there are six generations between them. In this case we can affirm that Dio Brando, the enemy, represents Destiny and Fate.
While i was writing the fifth series, Vento Aureo, i asked myself how the simple fact to be born could have been something to be sad of for someone. Men can’t decide to be born or not. Just like some might be born in happy families, others grow up in awful environments.
So, what should these people do, if Destiny and Fate are something that someone else, like a God or some Great Law who rules the universe and the stars, had already decided for them?
This is the main theme that revolves around Vento Aureo and the same theme that the protagonists and their enemies must deal with.
Giorno, Buccellati, Fugo, Narancia, Abbacchio and Mista. Each one of them grew up or if we want to be more accurate, was forced to grow up, against their will, at the margin of society. I think its the same for Trish, the daughter of the Boss.
Will they (Giorno & Co.) be able to fight Destiny and Fate and to change them? While i was working on this series i kept thinking about it. - Vento Aureo post-scriptum
Giorno is DIO’s ultimate legacy, like Pucci, tuned in a completely opposite direction. He grows up to become like DIO, but better. He is a brilliant, skilled genius, who applies his intelligence towards helping others and working for the betterment of society in a way neither Dio nor the Joestars ever really did. He is someone who is able to convince others to lay down their lives for him without a moment’s hesitation, because he makes friends and partners and unhesitatingly lays down his life for their sake in return. He is charming, attractive and charismatic, traits that make him a great leader and one who allows others around him to thrive and find their own strength. He heals himself and others efficiently without using vampirism. He creates life instead of consuming it, he fights with nature instead of perverting it. He stands proud in the sunlight instead of cowering from it. He is terrifyingly determined, and applies said horrific determination for far greater purposes than just stripping flesh from the weak and flexing over cadavers.
He caps this off by attaining the actual strongest Stand in existence, with no equal to oppose him, and by taking command over the world’s largest criminal empire. He is DIO, but better, and not just morally. Him being the son of DIO who goes on to inherit many of his father’s traits, and apply them for the sake of good, is a powerful statement of intent right out the gate and sets the tone for all the big ideas Vento Aureo’s playing with. His moral greyness, the ways in which he shows us how good he is at lying and cheating and killing, and his abject refusal to endanger innocents and children and cross certain lines, are instrumental to what makes the character work.
Which is something you don’t really get to that effect, if he’s the son of Jonathan. If he’s directly a Joestar, you don’t really get the idea that he was someone born to a terrible fate who was able to turn this fate around for the better, instead it becomes more like he was a JoJo tainted by DIO’s intrusion into the bloodline, and that his DIO-isms serve to make him lesser rather than be instrumental to what makes him better than his father. It makes his existence tied up in DIO’s transgressions against the Joestars, rather than DIO as an entity and bottomless wellspring of evil in his own right, and it places Giorno in a kind of unwanted place almost as a bastard of two families at once.
I do understand where it comes from in that, it’s sorta like that trope you see in fantasy for young adults or children sometimes where a character raised by neglectful or abusive parents eventually discovers their “true” heritage, like some great hero dad that couldn’t be around for them or a saintly mother who died before they were born, and this becomes sort of a catalyst for their own rise into heroism. I think it’s kind of like that, when people think of Giorno as Jonathan’s son or someone whose real father is Jonathan.
That desire for Giorno to have something like a proper family, to have someone he takes his heroism from (rather than just a vague Joestar spirit), to make it so that he doesn’t have to be the son of a wretched disease of a man (and the implication that being so makes him lesser). I truly do understand parts of where this fantasy comes from, the idea that Giorno should be able to disown DIO and have a real father who’s not, well, DIO, but I truly do like that Araki avoided this route and that he never had it be ambiguous that Giorno is DIO’s son, Joestar spirit or not.
Giorno’s story is that he was born into awful circumstances, mistreated and abused and neglected by everyone around him, and undergoing ensuing death of personality as early as the age of 2 that put him well on his way to either being dead, or being rotten to the core like his father, before a random stroke of fate gave him the chance to rise above and let his soul shine as he’d found a dream to believe in. He’d go on to provide this kind of assistance towards others around him, including a girl who herself was born from a vastly powerful ultimate villain. Giorno would go on to defeat and dethrone said ultimate villain and usurp his reign, and in the process, achieve exactly what DIO spent the past century and a half striving for. He’d surpass his fate, surpass his bloodline, and become number one, and he ends his story seated on a throne, waiting patiently as the world lines up to bend the knee before him
While I don’t think of Giorno as Jonathan’s son (not that he doesn’t have Joestar in him), I do think he goes a long way towards proving something that Araki established all the way back in Phantom Blood and would continue to play around with in the other parts, and Vento Aureo especially with the ways Diavolo contrasts Giorno: That evil, true evil, is not just selfish, petty and self-destructive, but also pointless. Useless Useless Useless, as it were, because Dio could have achieved everything he’d wanted, all of his dreams big and small, had he worked with the Joestars instead of against them. That part of the tragedy of what went down between Jonathan and Dio is that, together, they really did make for an excellent team, that they could have achieved anything and overcome whatever came their way.
In Phantom Blood, it was ultimately a tragedy that these extraordinary halves representing mankind were set against each other, that fate set these two on collision course forevermore. But with Vento Aureo, we get to see what happens when said halves work in tandem to achieve the extraordinary, and break the chains of fate that define them. You get Giorno, who breaks the chains of those around him, breaks the paradigm by which the series had been adhering to, and breaks the curse to forge his own future.
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