Golden Wind was an interesting step for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, being a departure from the storyline of the Joestars to look at a strange off branch in a completely unrelated story. It gave a more simplistic story than the parts before and after it, deeper characters than before, and new improvements to the stands.
Whereas stands in Part 4 improved by becoming more experimental and strange in different ways, Part 5 pulled back and focused on a more minimalistic approach. The stands in Part 5 are all very simple to understand with much more basic abilities, all of which are designed with the fights in mind, this creates a roster of stands that are all finely tuned. Here are the best of this impeccable roster.
10 Beach Boy
As said before, previous parts played with more complex abilities meanwhile Part 5 keeps the abilities incredibly simple, instead crafting more creative fights around these simplistic abilities. No stand exemplifies this more than Beach Boy. Beach Boy is a stand taking the form of a fishing rod, being able to just catch and reel in people with the bonus of going through walls and having more sense through the line.
Even with those extra aspects, Beach Boy is literally just a fishing rod, yet it manages to create one of the most intense fights in the part through creatively using this. By using the environment of the arena, it turns the stand into almost a sniper, hunting around for the targets before taking them out by hooking their heart or head. It’s incredible that a stand that seems like a joke at first can be made so engaging.
9 Gold Experience
While most of the stands are quite simple in their powers once you understand them, there is one large exception to this rule with the main stand of Golden Experience. Golden Experience has a number of abilities mostly based on the idea of turning inanimate objects into living ones and overall putting life into objects.
While Golden Experience is host to a number of good moments, many of them being Giorno discovering new and creative abilities using it such as in Baby Face’s fight, the stand is a little hard to enjoy compared to other protagonist stands. This is due to just how many one-off abilities the stand has that never come back and makes it hard to really understand how Gold Experience will be able to interact in any given fight.
8 Black Sabbath
Part 5’s simpler stands work so well because the fights themselves are set up to use them perfectly, with creative arenas or interesting conditions to work in the stands favor, we get a taste of this with the very first stand: Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath is a stand with the ability to hide in and traverse through shadows, popping in and out with extreme speed to pierce people with an arrow in its mouth.
While the ability is incredibly simple, the conditions of the fight turn it into something much more interesting with having to race against a setting sun and draw it out into light. It makes for a simple yet tense fight that demonstrates how stands will be working throughout the part and that makes it incredibly memorable.
7 Metallica
A common theme in later stands in Jojo’s is how they like to play with certain scientific concepts and turn them into abilities whether it be magnetism, gravity, inertia, or more specific science such as with Metallica. Metallica is a colony stand that allows for the manipulation of iron into various objects, this includes the iron inside someone’s body which makes it incredibly deadly.
Metallica is a good example of more creative fights due to stand abilities, with its fight playing out more like a waiting game. Metallica slowly picks their opponent off with little objects, starving them for iron and waiting for them to die as they desperately search for where the user is. It makes for one hell of a fight and is certainly one of the more memorable abilities.
6 White Album
Stand abilities being made more simple doesn’t mean that Part 5 doesn’t bring us new ideas of what stands can be as some are still incredibly creative and innovative such as with White Album. White Album is a stand that takes the form of armor, making the user incredibly durable, along with granting them the ability to freeze objects.
White Album makes for a very frantic and fast-paced fight due to the most physical and one on one nature of it compared to other stands of the part. It does an amazing job of just presenting a more simple foe with a simple weakness and crafting an incredible fight around that simplicity. It’s a breath of fresh air after some of the more mind game-focused fights in Jojo’s.
5 Green Day
One stark difference between Golden Wind and previous parts is that most stands feel around the same power level with no truly overpowered stands like Cream, Hanged Man, or Killer Queen. So how do they make fights that overwhelming then? Well, Green Day is a perfect example. Green Day is a stand with the ability to spread corrosive mold to an area, the mold growing more based on the difference in elevation with Green Day.
Green Day itself isn’t the most powerful, being a bit situational and unable to fight great on its own, but Part 5 turns this into a terrifying stacked fight with a clever arena of a cliffed city and the user in a helicopter. It manages to use the stand to its full potential for a strategic and memorable fight that is one of the best in the part.
4 Sex Pistols
With how many stands there are throughout Jojo’s, it should be no surprise that sometimes they retread old ideas, but rather than just repeating them they always make sure to put a new twist on it or do the idea much better such as with Sex Pistols. Sex Pistols is a colony stand consisting of six little creatures who can ride on the bullets of a gun and redirect them in a direction.
The stand is a new and more balanced take on Emperor from Part 3 and it manages to balance the stand in a fascinating way, making it more vulnerable by not making it just the gun itself. It also adds a lot of personality to the stand itself, with them acting almost like excitable children, it’s one of the stranger stands but a very enjoyable one.
3 King Crimson
After the multi-abilities and complex Killer Queen, Part 5 goes back to the basics with a simple but deadly combo of two abilities for the main antagonist’s stand: King Crimson. King Crimson holds a somewhat confusing ability, having both the ability to see 10 seconds into the future and then also “erase” that segment of the time, locking the prophecy in yet giving him the freedom to react and get an upper hand.
While it can be somewhat difficult to understand due to its explanations, King Crimson basically allows The Boss to break from fate itself, making sure he always turns out with an upper hand at any moment. This makes for one terrifying stand that is nearly impossible to fight against despite being so simple, just like The World from Part 3.
2 Sticky Fingers
While Gold Experience may be a bit messy as a protagonist stand, the rest of the main cast picks up the slack in terms of having simple abilities that don’t hog the spotlight yet are incredibly versatile such as with Sex Pistols or Sticky Fingers. Sticky Fingers is a humanoid stand with the ability to add zippers to objects to open them up or open to a small pocket space.
While simple, the ability opens up so many creative uses such as opening up walls to escape, splitting themselves to avoid hits, splitting something to extend its range, or just splitting something to do damage. Sticky Fingers works perfectly as it never steals the show, yet it’s never boring in any fight it’s used in, perfect for a main character’s stand.
1 Notorious B.I.G
Remember how I said that no stand in Part 5 is truly overpowered? Well, there is one exception to this rule, and it is one of the unique stands in all of Jojo’s: Notorious B.I.G. Notorious B.I.G is an autonomous stand that activates when the user dies, creating a strange fleshy creature that will go after anything that moves.
What makes B.I.G something special is that the stand is unkillable with the user already dead and the stand impervious to damage, instead only growing more powerful from attacks. Combining that with the characters being stuck in a close space with it and the fight is one that plays out more like a horror movie than a fight, creating one of the most memorable stands in all of Jojo.