Easter vacation took a toll on me, and I forgot to read last week’s chapter… 
I’ll be catching up tomorrow! 
Yes, idk why it didn’t register with me that a new week had started.Will read this past week’s tonight!
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Yeah, considering the current events I’d imagine people would forget a bit. I’ll start the next week tomorrow. To be honest, I finished this week’s readings just last night, things have just gotten so hectic.
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Finished reading last week’s chapters this morning. Man, you’ve got to give it to Zeppeli-- the guy has major style! I don’t have much to say about the history of Zeppeli’s involvement with the mask/Jonathan’s (very short) training session, but the ill-fated ride through the tunnel and the gruesome horse reveal was a lot of fun. Zeppeli is heading into this fight with such swagger, I’m pretty excited to see how he’s going to take on Jack the Ripper! You know, in that famous historic battle: Will Zeppeli vs. Jack the Ripper.
Also, I guess the Chinese merchant became a vampire at some point? He was weak-sauce.
And, Jonathan probably should have told Erina why he was leaving. She’s got more reason to hate Dio than anyone else in the series other than JoJo. I think she would have understood, and honestly… she might be more useful in a fight than Speedwagon. 
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Welcome to week 3! This week’s chapters are:
恐怖を我が物とせよ
北風とバイキング
Week 2’s chapters were pretty verbose, so if you got through it swimmingly, congratulations to you. Between Zeppeli’s backstory and Dio’s monologue, my reading comprehension was definitely tested. Don’t remember what this week’s are like, guess we’ll find out. Hope y’all are enjoying life.
Regarding Zeppeli’s backstory: Feels bad, man. I had totally forgotten that of the excavation team, the guy that took advantage of the stone mask was his own father. And after the massacre, it’s bloody amazing that Zeppeli survived in the Atlantic ocean long enough to reach land. I think a lot of sentences flew over my head when I first bought this manga.
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Alright, finally caught up! Zeppeli’s backstory was a doozy to get through. And now we’re off to the Windknight’s Lot!
Which I actually have a bit of a question about…
When describing how to get to Windknight’s Lot, in my version it says:
“ロンドンから馬で西へまる一日”,
I translated it as “A full day south from London by horse.”
However, the official Viz Media translation says “Take a day’s journey by horse to the south of London.”
This might mean exactly the same thing, I struggle with directions and such, but doesn’t the Viz version imply that in order to reach Windknight’s Lot, you have to travel to the south of London, while the original version implies that you have to travel south from London? Or is my translation wrong? 
Aside from all that, in this week’s chapters, we got a really cool fight! I like how creative it was. I also forgot just how darn gory this fight is too. Ouch. One thing that was interesting, was how Zeppeli talks about the Norwegian proverb:
“北風が勇者バイキングをつくった”
“The northern wind created the brave Vikings”
Lemme tell you, I’ve never heard this one before in all my years of living in Norway… I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but Google doesn’t return any results no matter which language I searched in. But it’s been awhile since I’ve read anything about Vikings, so if anyone can correct me, please do. If Araki made it up, cool! 
It was thematically relevant and sounded neat!
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I assumed the same translation you did. I wouldn’t think Viz would get something like this wrong, so I don’t really understand the difference shrug
Yeah, I was wondering if this was a real proverb. Upon a quick google search, I found some viking stuff with a few JoJo results scattered in. Seems like it’s a real expression, can’t say I care enough to do more investigating. Sounds bad-ass in the context of this manga, though.
I totally forgot about the story Zeppeli tells Speedwagon, about the guy who cuts off part of his leg to escape a capsized boat and evades the shark. I don’t think this part made it into the anime, so it was like reading something entirely new here. Also, lot of words in these two chapters that I don’t know yet, so there will be a lot of jisho’ing to do. I like seeing words I recently picked up from Wanikani as I’m reading this.
It’s Wednesday, so welcome to week 4!! Start reading these two chapters:
罠への招待
地も凍る仮面力
Make sure you don’t spill any of your drink.
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Just an update, I just finished chapter 22-23 and still need to read last week’s chapters. So I’m about a week behind. Trying to catch up! 
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I figure others are behind as well. I’m not sure what to do with pacing with this club anymore, because it seems like more people are behind than caught up. I don’t blame anyone considering the pandemic, though. Life happens and this is just for fun. I’ll start the next club week tomorrow, if that helps at all. If these circumstances mean I’m just re-reading JoJo along with 2 other people, that’s fine by me.
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Yeah, time just kindof all runs together now and it’s hard to notice a week going by. I took the last hour to catch up though!
I don’t remember the Zeppeli/Speedwagon “teaching moment” from the anime. I’m curious how Zeppeli’s assessment of who can and can’t use hamon holds up for the rest of the series (well through the hamon parts anyway). He acts like it’s personal discipline and fortitude forged by hard circumstances that make you suitable for harnessing hamon, but if you’ve seen/read Battle Tendancies it seems more like it just runs in families and the Joestars/Zeppeli’s are special. I definitely attribute this more to hamon not being the most well thought out fighting system and Araki just making things up as he went along. Seeing Zeppeli in action has been super fun!
There are some really epic and iconic Dio panels i want to call out:
You can tell he has a blast drawing Dio.
Did anyone else crack up at all the HUGE forearms in this final sequence?
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This week is the last two chapters of this volume. Introduces the very cool Bruford and Tarkus, and the fight is sick. One of these knights is a very underrated character imo.
For this week:
暗黒の騎士達 ,
過去からの復讐
Not sure when I’m going to start reading for volume 4. I guess I could wait for everyone to get fully caught up to discuss volume 3 and then proceed. Not sure. Life’s a mystery now.
Gosh, some of the panels look really good in color. What app are you using to read this? I’ve been reading this via physical tankobon copies, while people, understandably, say that it’s best read in color. And yeah, that shot of Dio’s forearm was hilariously bad. The bubble economy produced some crazy manga, my understanding is the meathead, Greek mythos-bodied hero was very popular at the time, as opposed to late 90’s onward where the whimsical, somewhat naive kid became a staple of manga/anime. I appreciate a lot of manga art from this time, some of it is timeless. Early JoJo, though? My two cents: Araki’s inspiration (Tetsuo Hara) did it much better:
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Whoops, lost track of time and mixed up the days! Anyway, finished last week’s chapters. Not too much happened, but as @teenprez mentioned, there were some really cool panels. We also encountered yet another meme: “How many loaves of bread have you eaten in your life?” Or rather, “おまえは今まで食ったパンの枚数をおぼえているのか？” 
Although I’d say 99,9% of JoJo memes are terribly worn out, it’s still fun to encounter the original text when reading in Japanese.
Yeah, I’ll agree with you there! Araki had some really wonky-looking anatomy during the first parts of JoJo. And it was really clear that he was very much inspired by Hara’s work before he eventually grew into his own style. The ultra muscular heroes like Kenshiro from FotNS were a 90’s staple, so it’s not surprising that Araki also went down that route. Although shonen protagonists of today are more emotionally complex and developed, I’m not going to lie, I really miss the 90’s realistic-ish style. Well, I say realistic, but obviously those giant muscles were the very definition of power fantasy.
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Completely agree! One of the fun parts of Jojo is seeing Araki develop into an incredible artist with a really unique style. He definitely did not start out there. One of the reasons I love Jojo so much is that it’s very cool to see such an incredible example of someone working hard, honing their skills over a long period of time, and eventually developing into something so iconic and unique. At this point, his anatomy can be really odd and it’s clear he’s heavily influenced by other’s art.
I’m reading the colored versions from Shueisha’s Digital Colored Comics edition. They’re available on a ton of platforms including amazon (jp) kindle. There’s a list on this page of places to download. I tried reading the black and white at first, but Jojo is such a colorful story, I love seeing it in color.
Edited to add the amazon/kindle link to this edition in case anyone wants to pick it up!
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Well, the wait would be good for me, since I have no way to get volume 4 at the moment
(I mean, I could buy it as an ebook, but that’s pricey… 
)
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I just managed to catch up. I have to admit I did not fully understand Zeppeli’s backstory and I have probably not understood some details here and there but I understood the most part of this volume, that is good enough for my taste.
Now that hamon has been introduced and they are fighting Dio the story has become way more interesting than the first 2 volumes. Even tough I had watched the anime I had totally forgot the two knights even existed therefore it will be interesting to see them fight again.
To see Speedwagon try to walk on water and fall into it was quite funny .
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I can’t believe we’ve finished volume 3! I think there are only 5 volumes in this part, we we’re more than halfway through.
Strangely, the last chapter from this week’s reading was actually the first chapter of Volume 4 in the digital version I am reading, even though it’s listed as the last chapter of Volume 3 for every print edition in the wiki.
There was a lot of strange vocabulary here, I guess because we got into the backstory of Tarkus and Bruford. In case anyone was wondering, from what I could find, Tarkus and Bruford have no basis in reality (although Mary Stuart and Elizabeth obviously existed). According to Internet, these are both musical references: Bill Bruford is the drummer of Yes and King Crimson and Tarkus is the name of an Emerson, Lake, & Palmer album. (look at this cover!!! the album is also very good)
Those who have seen the anime probably know that the Yes song “Roundabout” is used as the extremely iconic 1st Jojo ending theme! Is this the first major musical reference we’ve gotten in Jojo so far, or am I forgetting something obvious? Going forward the musical references are probably one of Jojo’s defining features as a series and one of the Araki’s personal stamps on his manga.
Things of note for me this time around:
More hilariously huge forearms!
I was really going to make fun of Araki for the proportions in this one, until Speedwagon commented on how the sword even made Jonathan look tiny despite his height:
And let’s not overlook Speedwagon USING HIS BARE ABS to heal(defrost?) Zeppeli’s (frozen?) arm!!!
And finally, there’s a phrase in the last chapter that really caught my attention. Tarkus and Bruford are pissed that rumors are flying around that Mary murdered her husband, and Tarkus says 根も葉もないことを！ which I interpreted as something like “There’s neither roots nor leaves!”
It didn’t seem to have any literal meaning, so I assumed it was an idiom. I couldn’t find it in my idiom dictionary, but I did find this. It seems to mean something is a completely baseless assumption or accusation, which is pretty much what I thought based on the context.
I remember thinking in the anime that the fights with Bruford and Tarkus did not live up to how cool their backstory/introduction is, very excited to see how it plays out in the manga.
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What do you mean, Bruford is obviously a reference to @Bruford!
Jokes aside, this is actually the 4th major music reference. Dio means “god” in Italian, but it’s also a reference to Ronnie James Dio, the vocalist of the band, well, Dio. Robert E.O. Speedwagon is a reference to the band REO Speedwagon, and Zeppeli is a reference to Led Zeppelin.
Yep, this is right! I love it when reading exposes us to Japanese sayings. 
And if anyone’s interested, Tarkus was straight up referenced in the game Dark Souls, where there’s an NPC knight named Black Iron Tarkus. Now that’s what I called reference-ception!
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Oh my god, how could I totally forget poor Speedwagon, the most obvious reference! Thanks for bringing me back into the light. I have never recognized Dio or Zeppeli as references, I guess because they are more normal sounding names. Thanks!
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Classic quote through and through. As soon as I saw the 食ったパン part, I instantly knew what Dio was saying. It’s hard to translate this one without making it sound silly.
Hmm yeah, everyone needs access to the next two volumes (thinking about calling it quits after volume 5, dunno) to get started. And I don’t want to make you buy an ebook…Is there not an app or site that offers raw manga in its entirety for free? A Japanese friend was telling me about an app her and all her friends use, sadly I forgot its name. I feel like finding the raw volume online shouldn’t be hard, given that it’s mainstream as far as the anime scene is concerned. Let me know if you find anything, because I’m with you on being reluctant buy an expensive ebook.
This. I can’t be stressed with catching every detail in my Japanese reading. I’m sure I miss a lot of puns, idioms, and Japanese in-jokes, but I’m satisfied with understanding the crux. Doubt I can reach a point of fluently reading something like this.
Not a Dark Souls fan, but IIRC there’s at least one other JoJo reference in the series. Didn’t know about the Tarkus thing though.
I don’t know how the digital version is collected, but part 1 is only 5 tankobons:
These are the last 2, I think Joseph is introduced in late volume 5, but this is basically the first Battle Tendency volume:
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There’s one that comes to mind, but it is, as one might expect, not legal. It got closed multiple times for copyright infringement. I just checked and sure enough it seems to have resurfaced yet again as recently as last month. I’m still not touching that, though.
In the meantime, you triggered my memory, and it seems that there are apps for renting manga (ie you only get access for like 24h or something), so assuming it’s the same price as physical rental, I could resume my reading of one volume at a time
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