Well, that kind of adventure, at least… 
Finished this week’s reading. First of all, I totally forgot that the final chapter has one of the best/worst panels ever (Jonathan on page 179), was laughing sooo hard when I got to it. How that panel got into the real release is beyond my comprehension. Aside from that, these chapters were intense, the reveal of the Chinese merchant and his relationship with Dio was awesome, it’s one small bit I wish was shown in the anime. Also, George finally comes to his senses to trust Jonathan, just so we can see some action with Jonathan in Ogre Street to get the antidote to the poison. It was satisfying to see Dio get caught in a lie and try to get himself out of the corner Jonathan trapped him in, so to speak. We’ll excuse Jonathan’s inability to deduce the reason why Dio was eager to join the family, for seven years. The establishment of Ogre Street was interesting and the carriage driver’s resistance to Jonathan venturing to it was funny.
I’ve been searching for quotes that I’m having trouble understanding so I can start conversations about those, but reading this has been smooth sailing for me. These last few chapters of volume 1 are grammatically simple, in my opinion. Volume 3, I notice becomes much more difficult, so by then I’ll probably have a looot of grammar questions.
Anyone have a favorite chapter so far? Mine is 愛しのエリナ, the kiss scene coming right after Jonathan’s development of a connection with Erina was gnarly.
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Sooo, life happened and I fell behind. I will never be able to catch up I just want everybody to know that I’m still alive and still reading Jojo’s! Currently four pages a day.
I like the story so far, even though Jonathan’s father seems… well, pretty heartless 
Now I’ll get back to reading. Looking forward to discussing stuff that has already been said about a month ago 
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I still need to read to last chapter for this week but reading the next to last chapter Dio felt more human than in the anime. He did kill his father but he was an abusive drunk man, and Dio seemed to care about his dead mother. I do not remember getting the same impression of him from the anime.
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Totally agree. Even his intense desire to get the Joestar fortune seems like such a human motivation. I’m really curious how long it takes for him to let go of that humanity!
It happens to the best of us, I’m glad you’re still interested in reading along. What chapter are you on right now?
Probably in a few chapters. 
This is definitely my favorite so far as well. It really amps up the psychological abuse for Jonathan and shows Dio is willing to hurt anyone to get to him.
I finished the readings a few days ago, but wanted to re-read a second time before really posting about it.
過去から手紙ぞの２
It’s not at all surprising that Dio is trying to kill old-man Joestar, but somehow I was surprised that Dio did his own dad in (even though I’ve seen the anime! guess I forgot).
It might be because we, the readers, have seen more of Dio’s psyche than Jonathan, but Dio’s attempts to convince JoJo that he’s wrong about the poison and his manipulative appeal to their “friendship” are incredibly transparent. But it seems like there is a part of Jonathan isn’t 100% convinced that Dio is the evil villain we know he is.
Those who already know the full JoJo story will know the Chinese merchant’s fortune is an interesting bit of foreshadowing for Dio.
石仮面その１
This cover is the most “Jojo” the manga has looked so far, between the pose and Araki’s fashion sense starting to come through!
[Part 2 Spoiler] This is almost more of a sassy Joseph look than a Jonathan look 
George is a bad dad, and this moment got me almost as much as it got JoJo:
I had totally forgotten that it’s Jonathan who discovered the secret of the mask, and that Dio only found out about it thanks to his research.
The cat jumping past Jonathan with a dead puppy in its mouth as he enters Ogre Alley is a brilliant piece of atmosphere-building, and our second piece of evidence that Araki hates dogs. 
There’s a few sentences I couldn’t quite parse, but I’ll post about that separately. Can’t believe we’ve already made it through one volume. I’m excited for the next!
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I figured out most of the parts that I had trouble with after a second reading. But I’m still having a little trouble following Jojo’s exact logic after he says, “There’s just one way to test Dio’s feelings!”
My best shot at this panel is “In accordance to my terrible deduction that Dio is poisoning his own father, he’ll surely show some sort of reaction! No! He can’t take an oath because that conflicts with his prideful personality!”
もし (If)
僕の恐ろしい推理どおり（In accordance to my terrifying deduction)
自分の父親を毒殺しているなら (Poisoning his own father)
何らかの（Some sort of)
反応を見せるはず（Will show a reaction)
彼の誇りに対する性格から（Conflicting with his prideful personality)
誓いはできないはずだ（He won’t be able to vow)
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Volume 2 starting tomorrow! There will be a new thread for each volume discussion, so stay tuned. Anyone have any final commentaries about volume 1? Poor dog on Ogre Street…
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I guess my only additional commentary for this volume is that it’s probably my favorite in the part, and I love the time they spent on characterization for Jonathan and Dio. It’s a shame that the anime cut quite a bit of stuff out, if I can recall correctly. This volume has been a bit challenging for me Japanese-wise due to the sheer amount of text to decipher in each panel, but I’m learning a lot. I have been trying to study some extra grammar on the side while reading in order to not bog down the thread with grammar questions… On to volume 2, where the bizarre adventure really kicks off!
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I’m sorry, I didn’t notice your comment!
I’m so slow :'D Trying to handle a bunch of homework at the same time. I’ve finally reached chapter 3!
Dio has just kissed Erina… noo, why did he have to do that… 
And I have a few grammar questions as well:
(Sorry, I don’t remember the page number for this one)
大人になる頃にはヤツが相続するジョースター家の財産までおれのものにしてやるッ！
I understand the rest of the sentence but what exactly does the まで do here?
(Page 70) 父さんはディオとぼくを比較してヘマやるとすぐムチでぶつし！
I understand the first half of the sentence, “my father is comparing me and Dio”, but I don’t have a clue about what’s going on in the second half. I don’t even know whether the ム belongs there 
And I’m not sure if it’s a small or a normal tsu.
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まで can also mean “as far as” so my guess is this is expressing that the plan is to get to the point to seize Joestar family’s wealth.
I’m not sure about the second half of this sentence either. I know that ヘマやる means “to commit a blunder”, so Jonathan is griping about how he messed up to get to the point where Dio is getting most of the love from George, but I can’t get a precise translation.
I know that you’re very behind and reading all the way up to where the club is may be too hard, so you could watch the anime and stop at the plot point we’re at. We’re at what’s covered in episode 3 of the anime, I just don’t want to leave you in the dust.
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I know y’all have been done forever, but I’m so excited to have finally caught up on my other reading, so now I can add JoJo to my active reading. At home, I usually jump around due to either referencing images or scenes. If I read at work in my spare time though, I’ll actually go in order.
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Awesome! We never actually finished (the book club kinda just died), so feel free to post any grammar troubles here!
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Welcome to Jojo! Reading Phantom Blood was a ton of fun. The good news is, our book club discussion I think continued until there was only one or two weeks remaining anyway, so we’ve got plenty of posts for part 1 of Jojo you can follow along with. Let us know if you have any tough spots. Some of the exposition was pretty difficult.
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Thanks! I’m really looking forward to it. 
Was there ever a vocab list made?
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We didn’t make a group vocab list, but I did create a list of unfamiliar vocab for myself in Yomiwa dictionary app. Here’s an exported text file and importable yomiwa file.
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Thank you! I appreciate it
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