Summary
For a shōnen/seinen series,Jojo’s Bizarre Adventureisno stranger to horror.Part 1:Phantom Blood, had zombies, vampires, and abominations. ThenPart 2: Battle Tendencyintroduced body horror with the freaky nature of the Pillar Men. Then the series only got freakier oncePart 3:Stardust Crusadersintroduced the punch ghosts known as Stands.
Any living creature can get one, be they human, animal, or plant, and they can come in many forms. Stands aren’t always as benign as Crazy Diamond and its healing ability, or Stone Free’s string-based tactics. Some can take control of other people, mess with their minds, reduce them to a fleshy mess, or even wipe them out of existence. These are just some ofthe scariest Stands inJojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
10Heaven’s Door
Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable
Given his popularity inhisThus Spoke Kishibe Rohanspin-off, its live-action and animated adaptations, and his inexplicable return inPart 9: The JOJOlands, it’s easy to forget Kishibe Rohan was originally a bad guy. In his debut, he tricks Koichi Hirose into a trap, where he falls victim to his StandHeaven’s Door. It turns the victim into a living book Rohan can read to learn their life story and their darkest secrets.
He can also write onto their pages to make them do whatever he likes, or rip pages out to use as ‘reference’ for his manga, wiping their memory temporarily in the process. Though Koichi managed to survive, it’s suggested these repeated page rips would’ve made him gradually waste away as each rip halved his weight. It took Josuke thrashing him within an inch of his life to make him the anti-hero fans enjoy today.
9Civil War
Part 7: Steel Ball Run
InPart 7: Steel Ball Run, US President Funny Valentine would stop at nothing to retrieve the parts of the Saint’s Corpse. This included sending a host of agents after leads Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli, each with their own Stands. One of the more horrific ones wasCivil War, a Stand borne from User Axl RO’s own guilt at letting a town and his allies fall to enemy forces in the US Civil War.
The Stand would use his opponent’s guilt against them by forming objects or people from their memories, which would then strike at them from the shadows. Then they’d smother the opponent with both the weight of their conscience, and with a membrane that would gradually constrict around them until they were crushed to death. Only the most cold-blooded could survive its effects, as Civil War only needed the slightest hint of guilt to work.
8Jail House Lock
Part 6: Stone Ocean
Some people don’t need a Stand to directly manipulate others. They can mess with their brains in more insidious ways, like Miuccia Miuller did withJail House Lock. It reduces a person’s short-term memory until they can only remember three things at once. If they have to remember a 4th thing, they’ll forget the first memory, and the 5th will replace the 2nd, etc.
It’s not asoutwardly scary as some other Stands,but it can be horrific in practice. Miuller used it on Jolyne, then bombarded her with new information in a bid to gaslight her. If the constant memory loss didn’t drive her insane, she’d make her forget about Lock’s incoming attacks to land a few blows. It might’ve worked too if Jolyne hadn’t taken the direct approach by beating Miuller into submission.
7Limp Bizkit
Series creator Hirohiko Araki set up the rules for how Stands work just to find ways to break them. For example, killing the Stand User also kills the Stand 99% of the time, but there are a few cases where this doesn’t work. Like when Ermes Costello killed Sports Maxx in revenge for murdering her sister Gloria. This just made things worse for her and everyone else, thanks to his Stand,Limp Bizkit.
It brings the deceased back as zombies, whether they’re recently killed like Sports Maxx himself, or died ages ago like the stuffed animals in Green Dolphin Street’s prison. They’re stronger, can crawl on walls, are completely invisible, and grow increasingly bloodthirsty and aggressive. En masse, they could devour their victims until there was nothing left. However, they can be “re-killed” with enough force, and if someone can find a way to make them visible.
6Highway Star
Highway Staris a curious Stand, as its User kind of cooled off its fear factor. Yuya Fungami was a biker punk with a sharp nose who barely survived a crash that left him bedridden in hospital with just his groupies for company. It contrasted considerably with his Stand, which took the form ofan inescapable purple humanoid. When it wasn’t luring its targets into range with illusions, it would stalk its targets by sniffing them out and chasing them down.
It could split itself up into footprints to slip through cracks and swing around obstacles, until it could touch its target. Then it would drain their nutrients until they became a lifeless husk, and then pass them onto Yuya. Highway Star took out Rohan, and almost took out Josuke the moment he found Yuya’s hiding spot. Though, like Rohan, once Josuke gave him a severe-enough beating, Yuya stopped using Highway Star to maim people and used it to help others instead.
5Purple Haze
Part 5: Vento Aureo
It helps that Stands usually remain under the control of their Users, but they need enough willpower to keep them tamed, and the strongest Stands need even stronger willpower to rein them in. Otherwise, the Stand could end up controlling the User, becoming more like a curse than a blessing. For example, Pannacotta Fugo’s anger issues produced the constantly angry and irritablePurple Haze.
Fugo has so much trouble controlling it that it appears and disappears on its own. That would be bad enough if it didn’t also produce a lethal virus that can liquefy anything it infects. It can spread it either by contact, or from shooting it out via bulbs on its knuckles. Giorno somehow managed to vaccinate himself against it, but no one else, not even Fugo, is immune to its effect. Their only hope is to keep their distance and let it depart like a storm.
4Cream
Part 3: Stardust Crusaders
Stand Users becoming good guys doesn’t help when their Stand is as uncontrollable as Purple Haze, yet some Users just can’t be turned. Through fear and/or charisma, DIO’s devotees inStardust Crusadersshowed no signs of switching sides, especiallyhis most devoted follower, Vanilla Ice. He’d sooner use his Stand,Cream, to lop his own head off than attack DIO, which he made good on until DIO put him back together.
Cream may be strong enough to rip people apart with a swipe of its hand, but its bite is more deadly than its strike. Its mouth is essentially a black hole that sends whatever Cream swallows into oblivion. Only Ice and Cream’s body can survive inside its mouth. The two use this to their advantage as, when Cream swallows its body, it becomes an invisible, undetectable ball that devours anything in its path, including swallowing people whole.
3Wonder Of U
Part 8: Jojolion
After making a series of villains whose Stand powers manipulated time, Parts 7 and 8 sawJojo’smain villains control the power of luck. The deadliest of the two wasPart 8: Jojolion’sWonder of U, an automatic Stand that can act on his own outside its user’s will. The Stand even developed its own career as Satoru Akefu, the Head Doctor at Morioh’s TG Hospital. But if someone tries to attack it, it’lldivert the flow of calamity towards them.
Ordinary bad luck becomes lethal, as trips can lead to broken bones, fresh food can become rotten messes, and rain can feel like a hail of gunfire. This flow of calamity can even be passed on to others by touch, as one guard found out when his neck randomly snapped after trying to stopJojolionhero Josuke. It’s enough to make pursuing Wonder of U the last and worst thing anyone can do.
2Gold Experience Requiem
The only thing keeping Wonder of U from the top spot is that it’s a passive ability. Toru can somewhat divert the flow towards his targets, but if people left it alone, the calamities wouldn’t affect them. In turn, someone would have to be a Diavolo-level villain to be on the receiving end of Giorno Giovanna’sGold Experience Requiem. Formed by the Stand Arrow, GER takes the Stand’s abilities beyond its original life-altering limits.
It still has the original Gold Experience’s power to turn minerals into living creatures and back again, but it also has the power to reset everything. Any event, be it someone attacking Giorno, or otherwise trying to get in his way, at best gets reverted, and at worst gets a fate worse than death. For example, it trapped Diavolo in a loop wherehe’d die over and over againin increasingly graphic ways for infinity because it kept resetting him back to zero.
1Made In Heaven
All of Pucci’s Stands could find a place on this list. Whitesnake traps its victims in an illusion as it slowly digests them. C-Moon can make people and objects fall up the street and turn them inside-out with a punch by manipulating gravity. But if Pucci wanted to achieve DIO’s dream, he had to go further than C-Moon and achieve godhood withMade in Heaven.
It’s the strongest of the time-controlling Stands, making Pucci fast enough to out-think Jotaro’s time-stopping Star Platinum. Then it can fast-forward time until the universe itself ends, where Pucci can reform it in any way he likes. Taking on Made in Heaven directly is like challenging one of Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones to a fist fight. The only hope the heroes' sole survivor Emporio had was that Pucci was still more vulnerable than his Stand.
