Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is unique and, well, bizarre even in the realm of oddities that is anime. It isn’t excessively common to see such a diverse amount of stories all framed within the many generations of one family.
Typically, when I do anime recommendations for a show, I have a pretty standard format I like to follow in order to get the most apt recommendations to fans. However, the question between me and Jojo has always been if I do recommendations for this weird and wonderful series as a whole in one article, or split them by Parts into many recommendation articles. I decided to split the baby and do one article that is split into recommendations by Parts.
Let’s get started.
Anime Like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
Part 1: Phantom Blood Anime Recommendations
Gankutsuou – The Count of Monte Cristo
In the year 5053, French aristocrats Viscount Albert de Morcerf and Baron Franz d’Epinay attend Carnivale on the moon. While Franz wants to have fun, Albert is looking for something more fulfilling. However, after catching the eye of the Count of Monte Cristo at the opera, he finds more than he bargains for. Albert introduces him into French society, but the Count has vengeance on his mind as he seeks to ruin those who wronged him.
While Gankutsuou takes place on the moon in the far future, it still maintains the classic European setting of the literature it is based upon. Furthermore, both Gankutsuou and Phantom Blood follow a mysterious and charming man that worms his way into the life of a young noble for their own means.
Moriarty the Patriot
William Moriarty is the second son of the noble Moriarty family. During the day, he is a mathematics professor, but at night he uses his keen mind in order to work as a consultant for individuals with a particular need for his intellect. He has dedicated himself to revenge against nobility in order to crumble the crushing social hierarchy that oppresses much of England.
While Moriarty the Patriot and Phantom Blood share the same Victorian-style setting, it also details an interesting game of cat and mouse between two men. While Moriarty isn’t quite as sinisterly motivated as Dio, he is a devastatingly charming villain. As this series follows criminals enacting their own form of justice, it is also applicable to fans of Golden Wind as well.
Berserk
Gutts has been a mercenary for as long as he can remember, caring for nothing but moving to the next battle. One fateful battle puts him at odds with the rapidly rising mercenary group, the Band of the Hawk. Their charismatic, idealistic leader Griffith soon makes him join by force, but the bond he forms with the Band of the Hawk may very well mean the end of the world.
While Berserk is more medieval in setting, the story details the friendship, rivalry, and fall of two men. It is their relationship that ends in constant clashes with each other, though Berserk fleshes out the tale in a more interesting way.
Rage of Bahamut – Genesis
Thousands of years ago, ancient dragon Bahamut terrorized the world. However, when gods and demons allied themselves to prevent the world’s destruction, they sealed him away, splitting the key among them so he would be eternally imprisoned. After the dragon was sealed, humanity returned to normal. However, things are about to get very abnormal for bounty hunter Favaro when he meets a mysterious women that holds half the key to Bahamut’s seal.
While Rage of Bahamut is more medieval in setting and set in a fantasy land with a variety of creatures, the similarities here lie in the main characters. While Rage of Bahamat is working an overall plot, like Phantom Blood, that plot is carried out by a charming rogue and the straight-laced pinnacle of gentlemanhood that is trying to unravel his plans.
Black Butler
Young Earl Ciel Phantomhive is a noble in the service of Queen Victoria of England. Not only does he handle the business affairs of his family’s toy business, but he travels around solving mysteries that irk Her Majesty’s kingdom. However, he doesn’t do it alone. After the death of his parents and in his darkest hour, Ciel formed a pact with a demon to help him get revenge on those that wronged him in exchange for his soul afterwards. Now this demon poses as his butler, Sebastian, a man with superhuman abilities.
While Black Butler and Phantom Blood share a setting in Victorian England following young noble lords, perhaps the biggest similarity to each other is their shared passion for odd characters. Of course, Black Butler has its oddest characters appear as demons, but there are other eccentrics as well.
Requiem of the Rose King
In the Middle Ages, the English Crown has been hotly contested in a civil war, dubbed the War of the Roses. The Duke of York seeks to unseat King Henry VI in order to take the crown for himself. Among this, the Duke of York’s third son, Richard, has become reviled by his mother and even by himself for his body that possesses the characteristics of both sexes. Furthermore, he is plagued by visions of England’s old enemy, Joan of Arc who taunts that he will bring only ruin to his family.
Set further back in English history than Phantom Blood, Requiem of the Rose King shares Phantom Blood’s love for inter-family intrigue. Both shows have constant backstabbing where the noblest of characters are often the easiest to push over. Furthermore, like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure as a whole, Requiem of the Rose King is kind of a lovably bizarre show.
Part 2: Battle Tendency Anime Recommendations
Baccano
In the early 1930s, the transcontinental train, Flying Pussyfoot, starts a legendary journey across the country that will leave behind a trail of blood. During this same period, the ambitious scientist Szilarf and his unwilling assistant Ennis investigate missing bottles of immortality elixir in New York. This can be traced back to 1711 where the alchemists creating this elixir learn the real price of being immortal. Among these mysterious events, a Mafia war heats up. Follow this intricate tale of alchemy, immortality, and survival as it weaves together many seemingly unrelated events.
Both Baccano and Battle Tendency share a passion for characters who aren’t exactly the pinnacle of honor, as well as are set in a similar sort of era. What they most share in common is that they start off about seemingly normal characters, but rapidly dive deep into supernatural, mythical, and magical sort of plots.
Kaiji
Kaiji Itou is a thug in the truest sense. With his days spent drinking and stealing hubcaps, his world is turned upside down when a co-worker tricks him into taking on a huge debt. In order to pay it off, Kaiji takes up a shady offer to participate in illegal gambling on a cruise ship that is filled with even worse scumbags than him.
Joseph is kind of the scummiest of the Joestar clan, in the best way. Kaiji, although a show about high stakes gambling, also shares a main character that is a bit of a lovable scumbag. If you enjoyed how Joseph occasionally cheats his way out of trouble, Kaiji is for you.
Golden Kamuy
After surviving the brutal Russo-Japanese war, Sugimoto gained the nickname “the immortal”. However, he now seeks the promise of gold to the north in Hokkaido in order to provide for the blind wife and infant son of his comrade who died in the war. Yet, during his hunt, he hears the tale of a hidden stash of gold belonging to criminals with a map made out of human skin. Dismissing it as a tale at first, he soon finds that the man who told him the story has those very same map-like tattoos. Now on a race with a native Ainu girl whose father was murdered for the gold, they try to make it to the stash before the criminals.
Both series feature main characters that take a more lackadaisical approach to the constant stream of trouble that life throws at them. While Hamon and Pillar Men add in a bit of supernatural, Battle Tendency is still one of the most grounded Parts of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Golden Kamuy is even more grounded action while still being an amazingly fun adventure in its own right.
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Vampires, fishmen, supersonic monkeys – They are all normal residents living alongside humans in Hellsalem’s Lot, formerly known as New York City. When a gate between Earth and the Beyond popped up there three years ago, old NYC became dominated by monsters, and now Libra, a secret organization, is tasked with keeping it in order. After hobbyist photographer Leonardo Watch obtains the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods, he finds himself recruited into Libra.
While Blood Blockade Battlefront follows a whole organization, it, like Battle Tendency, is about people who get into a series of battles, each more grand than the last, for the sake of the world. As you follow their tale, they encounter a number of unusual and powerful enemies.
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders Anime Recommendations
Hunter X Hunter
Twelve-year-old Gon Freecss is determined to become a world-class Hunter, a skilled individual that performs all manner of dangerous tasks, just like his long-absent father. However, Gon finds that the path to achieving his goals is more challenging than he could have ever imagined, but in order to overcome it, Gon recruits some powerful friends.
Hunter x Hunter starts off as a much younger seeming series, but like Stardust Crusaders, things get much more brutal as their journey continues. What both series have most in common is that sense of adventure. The characters travel, and in each new place, there are new people to fight.
Appare Ranman
After drifting in the sea between Japan and America, socially awkward genius Appare and cowardly yet wise samurai Kosame hit land. Without any money, they decide to enter the Trans-American Wild Race so they can go back to Japan. With their steam-powered car, they must overcome bandits, challenges, and just plain weirdos in order to get from Los Angeles to New York.
While this will be switched to Steel Ball Run when it gets an anime, both Appare Ranman and Stardust Crusaders are, in their bare bones, road trip anime series. They follow very long races against time and others in order to reach the goal. Furthermore, while not as over-the-top as the Stand-wielding characters in terms of power, Appare Ranman’s characters are also Jojo-levels of creative and diversely designed.
Fist of the North Star
After being betrayed and left for dead, martial arts master Kenshiro now wanders the post-apocalyptic world looking for his rival Shin, the man that kidnapped his fiancee, Yuria. Trained in the Hokuto Shinken school of martial arts, Kenshiro uses his martial skills to defend the weak from those that roam the wasteland. As new challenges and even stronger enemies continue to present themselves, Kenshiro puts all his skills to the test in order to bring Shin and his disciples in the Nanto Seiken school of marital arts to justice and get back his beloved.
Stardust Crusader is the most manly entry in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and, even with the introduction of Stands, is about rapid punching. As such, it is only natural to put forth Fist of the North Star with its bulging manly bodies and rapid fist fighting action as a recommendation.
Toriko
In this world, happiness is measured by what you eat. As such, people are always on the hunt for ultimate ingredients that are gotten from powerful monsters. Those who battle these monsters for ingredients are Gourmet Hunters. This story follows Toriko, a Gourmet Hunter and his chef friend Komatsu. Toriko aims to cook the perfect meal while Komatsu wants to reach the level of master chef.
While Stardust Crusaders plays its innate silliness with an absolute straight face, Toriko knows what sort of beast it is. It creates wildly masculine fighters with unique powers that allow them to fight stronger enemies than the normal human. The big difference is that Toriko is about obtaining food ingredients.
Takt Op. Destiny
After a meteor fell to Earth, the D2s invaded a large portion of the United States. In order to prevent angering the D2s who hate music, all music was banned. Despite this, D2 attacks aren’t uncommon. The only defense against them remains Musicarts and their Conductor companions. Takt, a piano prodigy, finds himself transformed into a Conductor after his friend Cosette is killed and transformed into his Musicart named Destiny. Together with Cosette’s sister Anna, they travel to New York City in hopes of stabilizing their pact.
Both series are essentially road trip anime series. An event happens that forces the main character to take a trek across the country (or the world) in order to save a person that is threatened. Along the way, they meet various characters and, of course, battle massive enemies.
Baki the Grappler
As the son of Hanma Yuujiro, Hanma Baki trains intensely every day in order to finally beat and surpass his father. However, at this very moment, five of the world’s most dangerous and deadly criminals are breaking out of jail. They all seek out one thing – Baki. They all crave the taste of defeat and hope Baki can grant it to them. However, in this dangerous fight, Baki is not alone.
Despite the introductions of Stands in Stardust Crusaders, it still maintains a strong emphasis on fist fighting thanks to Star Platinum, and Baki is all manly face beating. Both shows are about men with big muscles beating each other bloody.
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable Anime Recommendations
Erased
Recently, the detached, struggling manga artist Satoru Fujinuma finds himself going back in time to just minutes before tragedy strikes around him. He has saved many lives with this power of “Revival,” but when he is wrongly accused of murdering someone close to him, Fujinuma finds himself sent back to his childhood. As he discovers, the recent death in his life is somehow connected the kidnap-murder of three children in the area that is about to happen. This time, he may be able to use his power to save more than just one life, easing his past regrets in the process.
While Erased doesn’t have that Jojo-style flair to it, it shares a similar plot with Diamond is Unbreakable. Both series focus in on small neighborhoods where a series of murders have started. It is up to one kid and their friends in that neighborhood to stop it. However, Erased is played as a grounded murder mystery with only a touch of supernatural in that it has some light time travel.
Persona 4 The Animation
Yuu Narukami is the new kid to Inaba. At school he hears a rumor that if you look at a blank TV screen at midnight, you will see the face of your true love. However, when Yuu watches it, he sees a woman getting killed. In an attempt to watch it again, Yuu finds himself able to enter the TV world, a place filled with shadows that can only be fought by personas, awakened manifestations of the user’s true self.
It has often been said that Personas are just Stands, and it really is true. Both series feature people who can summon fighters from within themselves. While this is applicable to all Stand-using Parts of Jojo, what makes the Persona 4 anime most similar to Diamond is Unbreakable in particular is that its plot surrounds a murder mystery in the neighborhood.
Bakemonogatari
After surviving a vampire attack, high school student Koyomi Araragi finds he has several supernatural side effects that remained after being cured including the ability to rapidly heal. While trying to live a normal life after the event, he ends up catching a classmate, Hitagi Senjougahara, as she fell down some stairs. As he catches her, he discovers that she is near weightless after being inflicted with a curse. After enlisting the help of the easy-going wandering Shinto priest that helped him with his vampirism, Araragi finds himself embroiled in not just Senjogahara’s issue but several different supernatural events afflicting those in his town.
There are two things that tie Diamond is Unbreakable and Bakemonogatari together in similarity. The first is that both series take place in a rather small neighborhood that just happens to be flush with oddballs. Leading into that, the second similarity is that both shows have a passion for absolutely unique characters.
Durarara
Tokyo’s downtown district of Ikebukuro is awash in strange rumors, everything from colorless color gangs to a headless rider roaming town populate the rumors. For Mikado Ryuugamine who just moved there from the countryside, he is but one witness to the district’s slew of strange events.
Both Durarara and Diamond is Unbreakable follow mysteries that happen in a small neighborhood. Both anime series tend to tell individual character stories in that neighborhood that will ultimately lead into the bigger plot tying them together. However, the mystery in Durarara isn’t necessarily a murder mystery.
Arakawa Under the Bridge
Kou Ichinomiya, as the son of a wealthy businessman, has vowed never to become indebted to anyone. However,when he falls in the river under Arakawa Bridge, someone dives in to save him, thus he owes his life to this person. She is a homeless girl named Nino who wants only one thing – to fall in love. In order to pay her back, he accepts her offer to be her boyfriend, thus moving out of his home and starting a new life under the bridge.
It is said that Diamond is Unbreakable is the “slice of life Jojo,” and that is true to an extent. As such, Arakawa Under the Bridge is similar to that. It follows the daily antics of a community that has an unusual amount of unique characters. However, Arakwara Under the Bridge isn’t just abstract comedy, there is a rather interesting plot to it.
Part 5: Golden Wind Anime Recommendations
91 Days
Set during Prohibition, a man named Avilio returns to Lawless, a town famed for brewing illegal liquor, after the murder of his family by the mafia. A mysterious letter prompted him to return and infiltrate the Vanetti family to get his revenge. This anime tells the story of 91 days leading to the tragic end between Avilio and Nero Vanetti, the Don’s son.
Both series are innately similar in that they are mafia stories. Furthermore, they are mafia stories about infiltrating the organization and changing it from within. However, the “change” in 91 Days is completely bringing it down.
Gungrave
Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowel grew up on the streets together and both turned to crime in order to get by. However, when their activities are noticed by the eyes of the expansive Millennion mafia syndicate, the pair find themselves brought under their wings and rising through the ranks. Things go well until one fateful day that changes it all. Years later, Brandon Heat is brought back from the dead to fight Millennion and its new leader, Harry MacDowel.
Both series are mafia stories following boys plucked out of a difficult life by that organization. From there, Gungrave becomes more a tale of betrayal and revenge, but it does share a similarity in that the characters are more powerful than your standard mafioso as things go on.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out. Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning. As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
While not as immediately apparent, both Golden Wind and Bungou Stray Dogs are about an organization staffed by gangsters who are trying their best to help people instead of harm them. While Bungou Stray Dogs seems like a supernatural mystery solver at first, it eventually abandons that to be more about grand fights between those with unique powers.
Black Lagoon
Average business man Rokurou Okajima found his life turned upside down when he was captured and held hostage by a mercenary group in Thailand called Black Lagoon. After learning how disposable his life was to his company, he decides to quit the salaryman life and join the very group of mercenaries that held him hostage. While he finds himself unexpectedly good at their various work, his ideals about the world vastly clash with those of his companions.
If you don’t necessarily need your criminals to have superpowers, Black Lagoon is an excellent show about characters that work by their own code as criminals. While not as unique as Jojo characters, the mercenaries in Black Lagoon are also some creative looking characters too.
Great Pretender
After life turned him down the path of crime, Makoto Edamura cockily thinks himself the best swindler in Japan. However, after trying to swindle a tourist only for the tourist to swap it back, he finds the police on his trail. Making his escape, he runs into this tourist again, a move that would take him all the way across the sea to Los Angeles. There, he learns that this tourist was in fact a man called Laurent Thierry, a successful confidence man, who wants to recruit him onto his team.
While Great Pretender follows an organization of conmen as they perform heists, both it and Golden Wind really highlight that the criminals are taking from bad people. Both groups aren’t bad people despite being criminals, and that is what makes them lovable.
Part 6: Stone Ocean Anime Recommendations
Nanbaka
Nanba is the most formidable prison in the world, built to house criminals that were just too slippery for even Maximum Security. In Cell 13 of Nanba are four of the most notorious criminals that have escaped every other prison. However, while planning their escape, they come to the realization that life in Nanba is actually way better than on the outside, and decide to stay.
If you made it to Part 6, then you will know exactly what I mean when I say that Nanbaka has Jojo characters. The characters within are extremely unique in design and overwhelming in power. Like Stone Ocean, this series takes place in a prison, but instead of being an action anime, it is comedy.
Rainbow
In 1955 Japan, delinquency is on the rise. For Mario Minakami and six other teenagers, they are not alone when they are sent to Shounan Special Reform School on criminal charges. Once in their cell, they meet the older inmate Rokurouta Sakuragi, a former boxer, who teaches them how to survive in their new harsh prison environment.
Both series take place in prisons and document how brutal the staff is to prisoners. However, while Stone Ocean has its fights and its plots, Rainbow fully dedicates itself to gritty drama and focuses on the bond between the prisoners that forms in those conditions.
Deadman Wonderland
When Ganta Igarashi got on a bus with his classmates for their class trip, it was gearing up to be an amazing day. They were going to Deadman Wonderland, after all, an amusement park where convicts perform death-defying stunts for their amusement. However, when Ganta’s class gets brutally murdered before his very eyes by a man in red, he finds himself the sole survivor as well as the suspect. Now he’s been sentenced to the same amusement park he was just enjoying.
Both series take place in a prison where the prisoners are both odd characters and incredibly powerful ones. Each show has a mystery going on within, but primarily you will just see prisoners fighting prisoners with interesting powers.
Evil or Live
With internet addiction becoming an epidemic, the Elite Reeducation Academy was founded to help those suffering become successful adults. However, the children placed within are more prisoners than students. When Hibiki considers just ending it all, he is stopped by a mysterious man named Shin.
If you don’t necessarily need your prisoners to be super powerful, but just like the setting, Evil or Live is like that. It documents the brutal conditions of young people locked up in a prison. There are no wacky Stands, just people being awful to each other.
Prison School
The Hachimitsu Private Academy has always been a prestigious all-girls school that is prized for its high quality education and rigid discipline. However, they are now accepting boys as well as girls. With a mere five boys in the schools, these boys think they are the luckiest men in the world. That is, until they get caught peeping and have their personal freedoms taken away in the brutal prison below the school.
While Stone Ocean has its moments, Prison School really puts the ecchi in the prison setting. The prison in Prison School also isn’t an official sort of facility, but inside you watch the prisoners form a bond so they survive. Furthermore, because it is so wildly ecchi, Prison School also shares a certain over-the-top nature with Stone Ocean. It just isn’t over-the-top in terms of violence.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure? Let fans know in the comments section below.
Sad that Toriko got rushed, had so much potential, imo