Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a much-loved and long-running anime and manga series, starring a procession of heroes known as JoJo. From the gentlemanly Jonathan Joestar to the moody Jotaro Kujo to the young mob boss Giorno Giovanna, these heroes also have friends by their side and many terrifying foes to face. From Part Three onward, JoJo features stands or supernatural beings that aid their users in battle. Stands can be tiny, huge, humanoid, or even act as clothing.
Heroes and villains alike wield stands, but not all stands are created equal. Some of them are tough humanoids with incredible power, and others are creatures with creative abilities. Some can shake the world... and others are so useless or silly they feel like sheer filler. A JoJo viewer will soon sort out the cream of the crop from cheap monsters of the week.
Update April 18th, 2020 by Louis Kemner: The world of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is packed with fascinating villains and creative action sequences, and even if you don't count the manga series, there is an impressive pantheon of fighters to be found in this bizarre adventure. A list of ten doesn't feel quite long enough to describe the best and worst stands around; let's expand it to fifteen, and add three more great stands and two more iffy ones to the list.
BEST: The World
Dio is one of JoJo's biggest villains, and this blond, aristocratic vampire survived the 19th century to terrorize the Joestar family once again in the 1980s. And unlike in Victorian England, this time Dio (or DIO) has a juggernaut of a stand: The World. This gold humanoid is not only a brutal melee fighter, but it has the incredible power to pause time for a few seconds.
This allows for some easy assassinations, and with it, Dio can get out of nearly any situation. And as the final battle progresses, Dio learns to extend the time freeze even more. Jotaro was helpless against The World's time freeze until he learned to do it himself on the fly.
WORST: Khnum
This is one of a few stands that are a part of their user's body. Oingo can use this stand to morph his face into anyone else's, and even mimic their scent and hair. This is useful for spying or even assassination, at least in theory. But based on Oingo's performance, Khnum ranks low among shapeshifters.
It doesn't change Oingo's clothes, and he doesn't get the person's memory, either. Oingo nearly gave away his trick multiple times during a car ride, and his assassination attempt was easily stalled with minimal effort from Jotaro's gang. Not the scariest assassin.
BEST: King Crimson
It may not seem possible, but Golden Wind introduced an upgraded edition of The World, known as King Crimson. The mysterious Passione mob boss known as Diavolo (Italian for "Devil") appears late in Golden Wind and decimates Giorno's squad with it.
This terrifying stand can not only freeze time, but erase a snippet of time up to 12 seconds long and gain the upper hand in battle. Several of Giorno's allies fall victim to King Crimson, and it took the god-like power of Gold Experience Requiem to put an end to this monster.
WORST: Cheap Trick
This stand is indeed a cheap trick, but nothing more than that. Appearing in Diamond is Unbreakable, this peculiar (and ugly) stand is an assassin... with a silly method of killing. It clings to a person's back and urges them to show their back to someone else.
Anyone else who views the user's back will become its new host, and the current user will drop dead in a gruesome fashion. But that's a lot of work just to kill one person, and it's not even fun to watch. And the victim can block this power merely by pressing their back against a wall, as Rohan does.
BEST: Killer Queen
The chilling serial killer, Yoshikage Kira, wants to blend into everyday society and "live a quiet life." That is, in fact, his stated goal as a villain. But in battle, Mr. Kira has some flashy powers with Killer Queen.
This vaguely feline stand can turn any object into a bomb with a touch, and detonate these improvised explosives with a twitch of the fingers. Kira claims a number of victims this way, and his powers grow only further from there. Once he learns Bites the Dust, he creates an explosive time loop that very nearly did in Josuke and his friends for good.
WORST: Super Fly
This is truly a bizarre stand, even by JoJo standards. It makes for an amusing spectacle, but in any other regard, this stand is simply awful. It takes the shape of an electrical pylon, and to its credit, Super Fly is nearly indestructible, as Josuke soon learns.
What does it do? Trap the user inside that pylon. And... nothing else. Why should this stand even exist at all? The user has to lure someone else into the pylon, and they become the new prisoner as the current one leaves. Good luck convincing anyone to step into an electrical pylon, of all things.
BEST: Gold Experience Requiem
In a manner of speaking, this is two stands in one. Giorno Giovanna's Gold Experience is the master of living things and can sense life, enhance it, and morph objects into living things (and back again). But his back was up against the wall once he faced King Crimson, and Polnareff's discovery of Requiem opened the door to victory.
With this overwhelming stand, Giorno easily trapped Diavolo into an endless procession of deaths. From there, Giorno earned his place as the new mob boss.
WORST: Talking Head
Named after the '80s rock band Talking Heads, this stand poses a minimal threat to its victims. It appears in Golden Wind and acts in tandem with a shark-like stand, but alone, Talking Head does very little to slow down the heroes. Its effect is to get into the victim's mouth and twist everything they say out loud into the opposite. This only works on the heroes because they are unusually dense when they hear Narancia saying odd things. It should have been clear to them that something was wrong.
BEST: Crazy Diamond
At first, Josuke Higashikata's stand seems pretty staightforward. It's a rapid puncher like The World and Star Platinum, but this heart-studded stand can do more. It can fix anything nearby (except Josuke's body), and this has all sorts of applications. Josuke has learned that he can break an item, lure an enemy there, and reassemble the item to create a prison.
Or, he can break a wall, escape, and fix it behind him to block his foe. This stand can also track an object or person by breaking off a piece, then fixing it. The piece will rush to the original object to reunite with it, giving Josuke an edge during any pursuit.
WORST: Bast
Appearing in Stardust Crusaders, this stand is one that harnesses magnetic and electrical power. But for what? It can ultimately kill, but that sure takes a long time. The victim must first touch an electrical outlet that this stand creates, and their body becomes the victim of increasing magnetism.
Both Joseph and Avdol fall prey to this, but it takes a whole afternoon, and they were still able to defeat Bast in the end. And an enemy can avoid this stand entirely if they don't touch the magical electric outlet. So much for that.
BEST: Hanged Man
This is the stand ability of the vile J. Geil, an assassin in DIO's employ. Polnareff and Kakyoin fought this terrifying stand in the streets of India, and the Hanged Man proved itself a worthy foe.
The Hanged Man can manifest in any reflective surface, even in people's eyes, and strike at light speed with knives to dispatch opponents. Even the ultra-quick Silver Chariot couldn't keep up.
Worst: Empress
Here is the stand of another DIO assassin by the name of Nena. But unlike J. Geil, her stand ability is not quite so impressive. Her stand is called Empress, though it is hardly a queen.
This stand attached itself to Joseph's arm like a parasite, and slowly grew into a sentient being that refused to come off. The problem is that this ability takes an awfully long time to bear fruit, and Joseph defeated it rather easily once he found the right materials.
Best: Geb
N'Doul was one of the first stand users Jotaro ran across in Egypt, and he ranks among the deadliest, too. He is blind, but he can use sound and vibrations in the ground to sense a person's location.
This makes his stand, Geb, even more effective. Geb is cohesive water that can form sharp, cutting blades, or morph into a hand and attack someone. It claimed a few victims before Jotaro finally cornered N'Doul for good.
Worst: Atum
In the right hands, this would actually be a more impressive stand. But even with Atum's partial mind-reading abilities, D'Arby the Younger couldn't defeat Jotaro's gang, and it seems that this stand causes some serious overconfidence in its user.
More to the point, this stand only has an effect if the target admits defeat in a game with the user. If a person refuses to play against the user, or if the game is interrupted, Atum doesn't really do anything.
Best: Sticky Fingers
Sticky Fingers (localized as Zipper Man) is the humanoid stand of Bruno Buccirati, who appeared in Golden Wind and fights alongside Giorno Giovanna. It can deliver a beating with those fists, but its real power lies with zippers.
This stand can put a zipper on just about anything, in order to go through and create portals (and zip them back up just as fast). Sticky Fingers can also split a person's body apart with those zippers, and if it erases the pieces, that person is cut badly.