JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Genesis of Universe is for all intents and purposes exactly what it says to be: another two short encounters to add to the "stand of the week" formula of Stardust Crusaders manga. It doesn't really enhance the story or the characters in any way, but if you're just looking for more JoJo anything, this will work as your fix. As mentioned, thanks to the episodic formula of most of the plot of Stardust Crusaders, this novel doesn't have it hard to find a place on the timeline to fit in without disrupting the main story. The problem I have with it isthat it doesn't really feal like it was intended to fit in it canonically and feels more as just a fanfiction or at best as something out of anthology collection. It's usually the Jorge Joestar novel that gets called a fanfiction, but contrary to this popular judgement of it I disagree - the style of it's plot and storytelling fits really well with the crazier later parts of JoJo and overall with a little tweaking you'd have no problem to include it in a canon. While having no problem including it in the canon is also true for Genesis of Universe, it doesn't fit that much with it's plot. It's mostly minor details, but stuff like the names of not being named after tarot and not being a music reference either seems really odd (although the JoJo wiki argues that Dark Mirage stand is a reference to Mirage song by Tommy James, I'd call that quite a reach and probably not intention of the author of this novel). The stand abilities are also a bit too complicated for the Part 3 standards, this too adding to the odd, not belonging feeling. And keep in mind that this novel got published only a year after Stardust Crusaders manga ended, so it's not like it got influenced by the more tricky powers shown in later parts. The fight themselves also feel less interesting than those showed in the main story, but it's understandable as action is harder to portray in entertaining way in novel form. On the other hand what I liked about it is that we get more of a backstory and information about motivations for the minor villains. Well, mainly for the first part, the villain of second part of this novel is more forgettable, but the first one even first one even got a description of how Dio earned his loyalty, which is information I always felt was missing with most of the regular minor villains from Part 3. Overall it's the weakest JoJo novel I've read, but it's still a nice read if you need more JoJo content while waiting for another chapter of Jojolion.

Legitimately just 2 more JoJo episodes that fit right in with the rest of the canon. The Stand ideas are quite fun, and I especially liked the Absalom and Michal duo, since it's a dynamic you didn't see that much in SdC (but then again fights there had to be much shorter than this). If you just want to see more of the Crusaders, read this, just not the Italian version because dear god is that a bad translation. The 2nd story can also be found in Jump Novel #4 with a lot more artwork, and it's all coloured. ITALIAN TRANSLATION REVIEW: 2/5 The stories are actually quitedecent. They're literally "more JoJo", and in the same vein as the main content. There's no big character introspection or original main characters, it's just the Crusaders and 2 more fights on their way to DIO. Fights that would probably fit right in with the rest of the canon events. The Italian translation, however is very bad. I feel sorry for everyone who's read this version of the book because it's not just full of formatting errors, but also translation errors, and even some Italian errors, and, if all that weren't enough, some deleted paragraphs, and what I can only call "creative changes". Some examples: there's instances of switching around the speaking character. If it says 花京院, you wouldn't write down Abdul; likewise, Jonathan shouldn't randomly appear and start talking. There's some wild translation mistakes such as rock->storm, wallet->HANDBASKET (I thought I had lost my marbles when I saw Polnareff randomly moaning about his lost handbasket), strange->LEVITATING. There's paragraphs and paragraphs of Jotaro's POV that got changed into a narrator's POV? Some dialogue lines are changed into thought lines and vice-versa, some are broken into 2, making conversations impossible to follow. All of the onomatopoeias are removed, as well as most of the screaming, and while I understand why you'd do this, it still changes a lot of the feel of the book. Almost all Egyptian historical stuff is misnamed (it's Pinedjem in Italian, not PaNeJeM), as are the 2 villains of the first story (Absalom and Michal don't deserve this). All of Jotaro's 'yare yare daze's got translated into the most random stuff. There's a lot to it and honestly, reading this was a nightmare. Read the Japanese version. Or go find the fantranslation I helped to make. Really. If you want to spend your 12€ on this book just buy the Japanese one. It's prettier too.