And here we are! The first chapter of the new part of Jojo! We’re gonna do our best with this new part which very well could go on for many years like the last two did. Araki-sensei seems like he wants to keep making Jojo as long as he can. I guess we’ll be doing it as long as we can, too. This series has gotten pretty popular and as a result sometimes it can get pretty stressful because as the fandom gets bigger it tends to get more intense. We’ve had to deal with the series getting sniped by other groups in the past which really makes doing projects like this difficult which I talked about in detail in the FAQ. So ultimately we’ll keep doing our best on this but if it gets too stressful (Like say some group starts sniping the series and releasing it before the official release time in Japan or something) we might not be able to continue. This is first and foremost a hobby and most of us are adults with families and various life obligations so there’s a point you need to decide on when projects like this take up too much of your time and energy. And for a series like this that’s ongoing and we’re trying to get it out around the same time as Japan, it means everyone HAS to orient their schedule around when it comes out every month (Usually the 17th-19th) which can be difficult sometimes. But for now, things seem fine. Here’s hoping that continues.
Anyhow, for those not aware, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Or Jojo no Kimyō na Bōken as some call it) is a long-running action-adventure manga that started in 1986 and has been serialized ever since then. Here’s the history of its serialization laid out in a nice chart. (Source) It focuses on unique super-powered battles which say somewhat grounded in real life and society and has themes of the protagonists being pro-humanity while the enemies are the types of folks who control and destroy others to benefit themselves. We translated all of the previous part of this series, Part 8: JoJolion, which ran for 27 volumes. And before that I translated the last quarter or so of Part 7: Steel Ball Run with the group Jojo Project. I also translated the novels Over Heaven and The Book a while back. Also volume 1 of the spinoff series Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (As of now we’re not gonna be working on any more spinoffs). The series ran in Shounen Jump until 2005 when it moved to the young-adult-aimed seinen magazine Ultra Jump, which comes out monthly.
Jojolion ran for about 10 years and before that Steel Ball Run ran for about 7 years. Before that the series was weekly and one part came out about once every 3.5 years or so. The first 6 parts were done by a combination of Ignition One, Veggie’s Jojo Page, Invincible Trio, and Jojo’s Colored Adventure. Though as of this writing a lot of the earlier parts also have official releases which are pretty good (Though they have some weird issues with covering art with big black squares and not doing proper redraws and changing the names that are references to bands, but they’re generally fine). So if you haven’t read this series yet I’d encourage you to check those out first, it’s a good series the whole way through. But generally each “Part” has its own self-contained story and has just a few elements carried over from previous series. So you can probably start reading right from here but you’d probably enjoy it more if you read the whole rest of the series first. This chapter represents what would be volume 132 of the full series, though since Part 6 the numbering of the volumes has restarted at 1 for each part to encourage new readers. (Also our plan, same as before, is to do high-quality volume versions later down the line once those come out) Also this chapter was 70 pages long which was very exhausting to translate.
If you’re here just for Jojo, I encourage you to check out some of the other series we’ve done or are doing. A few of them like Takeshi, Toriko, and Gintama are also Jump series. And several are young-adult-aimed manga like Shima Kōsaku, Ikoku Nikki, 3-Gatsu no Lion, 81diver, and Innocent. Shima Kōsaku is a super long series that’s been running since the 80’s, too, and we’re currently working on volume 15.
Anyhow, enjoy everyone! This series generally comes out once a month. So we’ll see you next chapter! Should be the start of a fun adventure. Even a bizarre one, possibly.
Also, we have a new Discord! Come hang out and talk about manga. https://discord.gg/Nw45rfJYZF
Edit: We’ve edited this a couple time fixing minor issues since when we first released it.
The JOJOLands Ch. 1
Mega
Online Reader (Mangadex)
