JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and stands as a power system
Hunter X Hunter’s nen diagram
To all of my fellow anime watchers/manga readers, whether or not you watch it, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of JoJo’s bizarre adventure. Naturally, when you hear about JJBA, stands come to mind. This is why in this article, I’ll be talking about my opinions on having “stands” as a power system.
So first off, what do I mean by a “power system”?
Basically, power systems are just a way of giving special abilities and powers in a way that makes sense. A story wouldn’t make sense, or it would just be downright bad without a consistent power system. You can’t just have some guy who can freeze stuff or a guy who flies. There has to be some way to organize it. Some examples of a power system are naruto’s chakra, imperial arms from akame ga kill, and quirks from MHA. I specifically chose stands for this article because they’re one of my favorites, next to hunterxhunter’s nen, and alchemy from Fullmetal alchemist.
“What exactly IS a stand? What can it do?”
A stand, by definition, is just a physical manifestation of your mental energy, and they don’t really come in a set form or state. If I had to choose the most common appearance, they generally come in a humanoid form. They also don’t seem to have a set range in which their powers come. They’re pretty much just random abilities based on the personality of the user. This means that a stand will sometimes have broken abilities like stopping time, or downright stupid abilities, such as making people angry. However, they DO have a few ground rules, and they are:
- Only stand users can see other stands
- Only another stand can harm other stands
- All damage that a stand takes will also be damage that a user takes (ex. stand get leg cut, you get one too)
- A person can only have one stand at a time
Either way, this makes for some interesting encounters. For example, rather than fights being based on the person being the powerful one and fighting, they rely on the physique of the stand. This doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s actually entertaining once you get into it. Just take a look at the video.
In conclusion, I think stands are probably one of the best and most creative power systems ever created, and that you should give JoJo’s a try if you haven’t already.
That was my view on stands as a power system, and thank you for reading.
