JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Set 1 (Limited Edition Blu-ray) Unboxing

Amazon’s Black Friday sale offered the first set of JoJo so I finally went for it. It arrived earlier than expected but I wasn’t able to collect it until now.

Note: The photos in this unboxing have been updated on 25th June 2019, but the content is identical.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken) is a 2012 anime adaptation of the popular shonen jump manga series from Hirohiko Araki. The anime adaptation was done by studio David Productions and publisher Warner Bros Japan and had aired during 2012. The anime series adapts the first two parts of the long-running and on-going manga series; Phantom Blood, and Battle Tendency.

JoJo is quite literally a bizarre series in many ways. They have characters doing ridiculously over-the-top fabulous moves while also defeating enemies based on real-life music bands. The story for this series is also one of the rare occasions of being set outside Japan; Phantom Blood takes place in England while Battle Tendency takes place in both United States and Italy and also other areas along the way.

Due to music licensing restrictions outside Japan, numerous characters have had their names tweaked for localisation, though this doesn’t affect these two arcs that much. You still have iconic references like Dio Brando (named after Ronnie James Dio), Robert E. O. Speedwagon (named after REO Speedwagon) and the four Pillar Men from Battle Tendency loosely named after Santana, AC/DC, The Cars and Wham!

In terms of home video licensing, the show was mostly unlicensed though it did receive English subtitles with the Japanese home video release. Eventually, Warner Bros made an attempt to release the series in the west with pretty weak and cheap results. Then Viz Media stepped in and became the sole licensor for the English releases (with KAZE handling the European rights). Each JoJo set will cover at least 2 cour’s worth of episodes.

The US Limited Edition release for Set 1 contains all 26 episodes of the 2012 anime series across four Blu-ray discs in both English and Japanese audio with English subtitles. The discs are region locked to A, and the subtitles are locked during playback. The ending theme song ‘Roundabout’ by the progressive rock band Yes remains in-tact for this release.

The limited edition is available to order on Amazon US.

Blu-ray Specs:

Languages: English, Japanese
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Video: 1080p High Definition Native format with 16:9 ratio
Region: A
Subtitles: English, English Hard of Hearing
Locked Subtitles: Yes
Discs: 4

Plot Synopsis (via Viz Media):

“In the eternal struggle against evil, the saga of the Joestar family is legend! Based on Hirohiko Araki’s groundbreaking manga, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure follows the Joestars in a multi-generational battle to the death against the forces of darkness.

Set in Victorian England, “Phantom Blood” chronicles the origin of this tale of hope and slaughter. Jonathan Joestar lives a life of aristocratic privilege until his father takes in an orphaned boy named Dio Brando. Though they are rivals from the first, events turn darker when Dio discovers a mysterious Stone Mask that grants its wearer terrible power – at the cost of a vampiric curse! Jonathan must then realise his own latent powers to defeat his newly immortal brother.

“Battle Tendency”, set decades after “Phantom Blood”, follows Joesph Joestar, the grandson of Jonathan, after he learns a second Stone Mask has been found in Mexico. It now falls on his broad, muscle-bound shoulders to prevent an ancient evil from rising to conquer the Earth!”