Bodhi Jordan / Staff reporter
As of April 4th 2021 popular anime series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has announced that the next part, known as Stone Ocean, is being animated. With this, many fans of the anime are beginning to get excited for this next season. However, some fans believe that perhaps the series should pull from other places first.
The creator of the manga series that the anime series is based on, Hirohiko Araki, also wrote many separate spinoff series apart from the main story. The most popular of these was Dead Man’s Questions, a spinoff story about the afterlife focused on the villain of the fourth part of the series Diamond is Unbreakable. As well, Araki in tandem with the animation studio David Productions also worked on another set of shows known colloquially as the Rohan Original Video Animations (known as OVAs for short), based on a minor antagonist from the fourth part of the series.
The Rohan OVAs were added to hit streaming platform Netflix in January of 2021, despite the part of the series it was based on not being on the platform yet. This speaks to the popularity of these side-series, and also shows that perhaps more animations of the side series should take place.
While the 6th part of the series being animated is exciting, it also brings to light the issue of its popularity. Among many fans, Stone Ocean is seen as the worst part of the series, with weak character arcs and confusing abilities. While some fans are looking at the anime as a potential way to get more people into the series, others are concerned that the series will become more confusing with the release of the next part so soon after the last one ended.
Overall, I believe that Part 6 should be delayed because it will likely make it a better part as well. The longer the fans of the show wait for it to come out, the more time the production team has to perfect it. Instead, a few more OVAs should be released to compensate for the fans’ time while waiting for the full series.
List of sources:
Why I’m So Excited for Stone Ocean
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan Gets Netflix Release Date