JoJo's Bizarre Adventure — Jotaro Kujo and Star Platinum with JoJo characters on colorful sunburst background

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

1986anime and manga seriesclassic

Published September 2, 2026

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a Japanese manga and anime series created by Hirohiko Araki that first ran in Weekly Shonen Jump in December 1986. Split into eight generational arcs (with a ninth, JOJOLands, launched in 2023), the franchise became one of anime fandom's biggest meme engines, spawning everything from To Be Continued edits to ZA WARUDO catchphrases.

jojos bizarre adventure memes anime manga catchphrase memes otaku culture memes fandom hype memes

Overview

The series follows a bloodline of protagonists, each nicknamed JoJo, fighting supernatural threats across eight main arcs, with Part 9, JOJOLands, added in 202313. Araki's art draws on Renaissance sculpture and high fashion, giving the cast exaggerated musculature, contorted JoJo poses, and runway-ready outfits3. From Part 3 onward, characters battle using Stands, spirit avatars often named after rock bands and Tarot cards.

The meme output stretches from Dio's shouted ZA WARUDO to the To Be Continued freeze-frame arrow, from the Duwang bootleg scans of Diamond Is Unbreakable to Jotaro's blank-stare reaction shots3. Urban Dictionary entries even describe the show in fan shorthand about vampires, electric kung fu and Roundabout by Yes7. The visual language, the shouted stand names and the mid-scene freeze frames turned JoJo into a shared reference kit for anime posters online6.

Origin & Background

Platform
Weekly Shonen Jump (manga) / YouTube and 4chan (viral spread)
Creator
Hirohiko Araki
Date
1986

The first chapter of Phantom Blood ran in Weekly Shonen Jump combined issue No. 1-2, released December 2, 19863. Araki plotted the manga as a multi-generational saga, letting him swap protagonists and settings every few years while keeping the Joestar bloodline as connective tissue. A 1993 OVA covered the back half of Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, and a second OVA batch in 2000 filled in the rest3.

David Productions' 2012 TV adaptation pushed the franchise into the meme era, giving Western fans a legible entry point into a 25-year-old manga they had mostly known through fighting games and MAD videos4.

How It Spread

Capcom's 1998 arcade fighter Heritage for the Future gave JoJo an early foothold on 2000s meme boards, where lines like Oh! You're approaching me? circulated as reaction clips5. CyberConnect2's 2013 title All Star Battle rebooted the fighting-game presence, and 2015's Eyes of Heaven followed on PS3 and PS4.

David Productions kept expanding the anime: Golden Wind (Part 5) began broadcasting October 6, 2018, after an announcement earlier that June3. Stone Ocean (Part 6) was announced during an April 4, 2021 livestream, with Ai Fairouz cast as Jolyne Cujoh; she said the role was a twelve-year dream that made her cry when confirmed (translated from Japanese)1. Stone Ocean launched on Netflix on December 1, 2021, breaking the franchise's TV-first tradition1.

Part 9, JOJOLands, was announced December 15, 2022 and began serialization on February 17, 2023, with Twitter user @RNovegicus posting a spoiler-free reaction thread that pulled 28 retweets and 165 likes within a day2. Alongside the official releases, fans still keep the Araki-is-immortal joke alive, riffing on how little the mangaka appears to age between arcs3.

Loading tweet...

How to Use This Meme

JoJo memes typically slot moments from the anime into unrelated footage. The most common convention is the To Be Continued cut: a video ends on a freeze frame with the pink arrow overlay and Roundabout by Yes playing over the credits. Other recurring formats include ZA WARUDO time-stop edits, Kono Dio Da reveal jokes, JoJo pose photo challenges, and Duwang panel captions like It was me, Dio!

Frequently Asked Questions