Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is a strange series to describe due to having so many moving parts throughout it. You go from a globe-trotting adventure to a slice of life, to a mafia thriller, to a prison escape, to a wild west story — it’s hard to sell it with a single thing. But, Jojo’s does have one concept holding all of these parts together: Stands.
Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, was the introduction to this concept: strange manifestations of a fighter’s spirit that all have a crazy and unique ability to have to work around and solve. The concept allows for interesting and bizarre fights throughout the series, but with Part 3 being the test run of Stands… They’re a lot worse than they become later in the series, but even here, there are still some amazing abilities and fights.
10 Anubis
While Stands may seem like companions at first glance, they don’t often have a personality to call their own, but 'personality' is what Anubis has in spades. Anubis is a strange Stand, being a fully sentient Stand that instead controls whoever wields it by picking up the sword it inhabits.
While Anubis is a far more basic Stand than others in Stardust Crusaders — being just a sword with the ability to cut past objects — but its sentience is actually what makes it extra deadly. While users may come and go, Anubis will remember every fight and learn from its mistakes, making it so that no one can truly escape it unless they fully destroy the sword itself.
9 Silver Chariot
A problem with some of the early Stands was how they could be rather basic and one note, usually just being something with a basic combat ability, and Silver Chariot is exactly this. Silver Chariot is a humanoid Stand taking the look of a knight, able to use its sword with extreme speed and accuracy.
Silver Chariot is one of the more basic Stands, as it is one of the first ones created for the series, with only a few more tricks than something like Star Platinum. But this ends up working for it being one of the cast’s Stands — the simplicity making it easier to use in fights and far more flexible than the more esoteric Stands.
8 Thoth
The second half of Stardust Crusaders was really where the series began to experiment with Stand abilities, leading to more memorable fights than the simple fighters of the first half, and no Stand shows this better than Thoth. Thoth is a small comic book that allows the wielder to see into the future, and these predictions are 100% accurate and cannot be changed.
Thoth is a more lighthearted Stand as part of the hilarious Oingo Boingo arc, and its very nature makes it so it can never be used for a real fight. Instead, by trying to follow the predictions the book gives, it ends up making it so Oingo and Boingo make the prediction backfire on themselves in hilarious ways. It’s a unique Stand for Part 3 and one of the most memorable.
7 Star Platinum
A main character’s abilities can make or break a battle anime like Jojo’s, so it was important that it was nailed here. Despite the flaws, Star Platinum managed to make quite an impact. Star Platinum is a humanoid Stand meant for close range combat, its strength and sheer speed being its main attributes.
Star Platinum being this plain and average honestly does work for a main character Stand as the simplicity allows fights to focus more on the opponents abilities rather than keeping track of the main characters as well. Part 3 sadly doesn’t fully commit to this as Star Platinum sometimes pulls out abilities from nowhere just so Jotaro can win a fight, lowering the enjoyment quite a bit.
6 The Fool
With something like Stands, the silliest of ideas can turn out to be some of the most memorable such as with Iggy and The Fool. The Fool is a simple but very flexible Stand, being able to manipulate and take form through sand, able to control it freely, and shape-shift into whatever it wishes.
The Stand’s strength and intrigue comes from how versatile it is, and while it sadly doesn’t get too much use, it’s still memorable in the few fights it does get used for. It’s more-so memorable for the user, who is a literal dog. Iggy may be a joke at first, but much like his Stand, he is full of surprises and ends up as one of the most memorable and impactful parts of Part 3’s second half.
5 Geb
Stands can sometimes be surprising with their abilities, as some that sound useless at first can end up being insanely powerful and scary to fight against — such is the case with Geb. Geb is a Stand that lets the user control a small being made of water, able to materialize different forms to do battle.
But Geb turns out to be a terrifying opponent as it can hide among the desert sands and strike with extreme speed and power, turning the tables on the gang so they have to stay defensive. It’s only made more terrifying due to its user being able to track opponents perfectly by sound, making it so that if even one move is made, Geb can kill them in a second.
4 Osiris
Sometimes Jojo fights are carried less by crazy abilities or strange concepts and more-so by the conditions of the fight and the opponent themselves — D’arby and Osiris are a perfect example of this. Osiris’s ability is quite simple: If anyone loses a bet against the wielder, their soul is stolen and stored.
While this is worthless in a straightforward fight, the user makes this into a deadly ability by not fighting directly and instead using his expert gambling and cheating to turn it into a battle of wit. This results in one of the best fights in Jojo’s, with several tense confrontations that leave the viewer on the edge of their seat more than any brawl would have, showing the true strength of Jojo’s Stand fights.
3 The World
The final fight is always important to get right in a story like this, so Dio’s Stand had to be the most powerful. But, how do you do that with so many OP abilities already? Well sometimes simplicity is the key. The World is a Stand with the same abilities and strength as Star Platinum except with the ability to stop time for a few seconds.
While this power may seem simple, it ends up proving just how strong it is by allowing Dio to counter any big move thrown at him and set up instant victories. He was able to take down nearly the whole team with just this, and it was only able to be defeated because Star Platinum gained the ability to stop time as well.
2 Cream
Throughout a shonen like Jojo's, despite the opponents having grand abilities, it never feels like there’s any true threat of our heroes losing… Well, Stardust Crusaders decides to shatter that assumption with the nightmare that is Cream. Cream is a Stand with the ability to send anything that enters its mouth and is also able to swallow itself to turn into an invisible wrecking ball of annihilation.
Cream manages to stand out for feeling like a truly impossible foe, even more so than Dio as he wipes out members of the team like it's nothing and shows no visible weaknesses. His arc is less like a battle and more like a struggle to just barely survive. Every single trick had to be used to even stand a chance, and that made the user finally turning to ash so satisfying to see.
1 Hanged Man
While they are what Jojo’s is known for, the mind games and puzzle to figure out a Stand’s ability is something that really isn’t used in Part 3… except for one Stand: Hanged Man. Hanged Man is a Stand that can move between and appear in reflective surfaces, able to attack and kill its enemies inside of them.
What makes Hanged Man so special is how it throws the viewer for a loop on how it could possibly be beaten, as its ability keeps it both terrifying to deal with as it can appear anywhere and also seems invincible. That is until the final eureka moment as they discover how the Stand truly jumps between surfaces, leading to a satisfying take-down of the user.