Dio Brando

Dio Brando (ディオ・ブランドー) is a fictional character from the manga and anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. He is the primary antagonist of Parts 1 and 3, although he is also considered to be the main villain of the entire series, as his actions affect the JoJo universe long after his death. Dio's son, Giorno Giovana, is the protagonist of Part 5.

Dio's full name is a homage to both actor Marlon Brando and heavy metal icon Ronnie James Dio.

Series 1: Phantom Blood
Series 1 takes place in England, where Dio is the son of Dario Brando, an alcoholic and abusive father. Back when Dio was just a boy, he was brought into the household of George Joestar after the mysterious death of his father, so as to repay the debt he owed Dio's father for saving his life. But soon Dio's personality caused trouble for George's young son, Jonathan Joestar. Even more of a sociopath than his father, Dio was resolute to shatter Jonathan's spirit and take his place as the favored son, even going so far as to arrange for Jonathan's dog Danny to be burned to death.

Initially, Dio is able earn the trust of the patriarch of the Joestar family through deceit (and at Jonathan's expense). However, his plans of taking over the Joestar household were discovered by Jonathan when he discovered that not only had Dio poisoned his biological father to death, he was doing the same to his adoptive father, all to take the Joestar estate for his own.

Determined not to be stopped, and understanding the potential to enjoy power over all things instead of just the Joestar estate, Dio wears and activates the Stone Mask, becoming a nearly unstoppable vampire. His seemingly supernatural abilities are similar to the Mythical powers of the Mayan blood gods. He is able to walk on walls, and regenerate his body faster than fire can consume it. He is able to pressurize liquid in his eyeballs and then create small openings on pupils, eventually creating two fluid jets powerful enough to slice stone and kill living things. He is also able to vaporize his body fluid rapidly enough to freeze anything he touches. However, this is at the expense of having his body be sustained by sheer willpower alone, rather than vital energy. A sufficiently powerful vital force—specifically, sunlight or the Hamon force—will negate the sustaining force's presence and disintegrate the long-unliving body. Like all JoJo vampires, Dio sucks blood through tentacles in his fingers and has been seen at least once drinking blood from an unnamed girl.

At the end of Series 1, Dio's body was destroyed, but his severed head managed to kill Jonathan Joestar and together they sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Series 3: Stardust Crusaders
The anime series and video game are based on this third arc, which occurs about 100 years later. At the bottom of the sea, Dio's severed head reattached itself to Jonathan Joestar's lifeless body (giving Dio the same star birthmark as the members of the Joestar family ). Dio's casket is recovered by fishermen, who are implied to have been killed by Dio as he awakened. He finds that he is now in the year 1985. After he returns to land he develops a Stand (a sort of ghostly bodyguard), giving him vastly powerful new abilities on top of his vampiric powers. For most of Series 3, Dio is out of scene and in the shadows, and the question of exactly what his Stand "The World" can do is a mystery. Jonathan Joestar's grandson, Joseph, identifies Dio as the nemesis of the Joestar family whom he and Jotaro are destined to fight.

In Series 3, many of Dio's offensive vampiric abilities do not appear, though he displays a new ability described as "evil implants"; parasites generated in his hair that attach themselves to and brainwash victims, finding early success with Kakyoin and Polnareff (in the fighting game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure it is the vector of attack in the move called "Charisma"). Dio's Stand "The World", as a sort of brother power to "Star Platinum", possesses great speed, strength, and crucially, is able to stop time, making Dio appear to teleport or move at impossible speed. Dio's ambition is to create a perfect world for himself and his servants. In the interim, he seeks to drain for himself the blood of the Joestar lineage, which will help him to fully fuse with Jonathan Joestar's body and take better control of The World. Once he does this, his powers will gradually increase, until he is able to stop time for as long as he likes.

In the beginning of the story arc Dio's World, Dio mainly battles Kakyoin and Joseph. Kakyoin succeeds in leading Dio into a vast barrier created by his Stand, trapping him. Dio uses The World to stop time, allowing him to ignore the barrier and approach Kakyoin to deliver a fatal blow. Before dying, Kakyoin deduces The World's time-stop ability and uses his last strength to give Joseph this message. Joseph then warns this to Jotaro before he is also killed by Dio.

After a long battle between Dio and Jotaro, Jotaro finds his own ability to stop time just before Dio drops a steamroller on him, proceeding in time-stop to break Dio's leg. Jotaro's intention was for the two to end the fight with a final blow once Dio's leg had healed. Dio, determined not to lose, squirts blood from his open leg into Jotaro's eyes. Dio then attempts a final kick with The World, which Jotaro blindly counters with a punch from Star Platinum. Star Platinum's hand breaks on The World's leg, but the punch sends a fissure through The World and through Dio, shattering Dio completely above the waist. Jotaro and doctors from the Speedwagon Foundation (an oil and medicine company loyal to the Joestar family) transfer the blood from Dio's lower half to Joseph Joestar, reviving him. Later, they lay Dio Brando's remains in the Sahara Desert to evaporate with the rising sun.

Legacy
In Part 6, it is revealed to the Joestars that his re-emergence was planned to create a perfect world when the moon reached a certain angle and time. He stumbled upon Enrico Pucci not long before Part 3 and "healed" his disfigured foot for him. After piercing Pucci with a Stand arrow, the two spent considerable time together, plotting and scheming. He questioned Pucci's loyalty to him, wondering why he didn't use Whitesnake to remove The World from him. Pucci had explained that he loved Dio as he had loved God, and thus worshipped him too much to betray him. Ensuring that he wouldn't completely fade, he left one of his bones in Pucci's care. Dio's presence continues to haunt the series, emerging in flashbacks and his disfigured sons. His bone played a vital plot element for the first half of Part 6, an odd green baby inheriting a Stand to merge with it.

Personality
Dio Brando's treacherous, sadistic nature may be partially explained by his abusive upbringing at the hands of an alcoholic father, whom he later killed by a slow poisoning over time. He is also ambitious, narcissistic, arrogant and megalomaniacal. He will do anything to get what he wants, even if it means trampling people, like he did to Jonathan Joestar when they were young, and relinquishing his humanity in favor of becoming a vampire. However, Dio shows a good side to those who are good to him. In particular, he has shown favorable attitudes towards Enrico Pucci and Vanilla Ice, who also showed unending loyalty in return. Dio also has a passion for reading, as he is found in the library of his Egypt mansion many times.

Unless provoked or deemed an obstacle, Dio will normally not attack anything or anybody (although probably more out of regarding them as of no consequence, and so not worthy of attention, than anything akin to kindness, as he had no compunctions about killing people who were merely standing in between him and Jotaro). He will first try persuading people to work for him, then fight them, if they oppose.

Diego "Dio" Brando
Main antagonist and Dio's alternate universe counterpart in Part 7 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Steel Ball Run. Even though the effects of Made in Heaven altered history, Dio still exists in the new world, under the name of Diego Brando (commonly referred to by his nickname Dio by other characters). He is very similar to the "original" Dio in both looks and personality, however, Diego is a famous professional jockey from England participating in the Steel Ball Run race across North America. He was raised among a group of homeless people, after his mother saved him from drowning in a river when he was still a baby. He was later adopted into nobility when his talent as a jockey was discovered. Although he was raised with much love, he is cold-hearted and will do virtually anything to win. After he loses the first stage of the Steel Ball Run to Gyro Zeppeli, he gets mad and considers Gyro his personal enemy from that point onwards. Later in the series, after losing another round to Gyro, he joins the President of the United States, who is searching for the bodyparts of "The Saint", which are said to grant great powers. By doing so, Diego hopes to find a way of defeating Gyro.

At the age of 20, Diego married a rich, 83-year-old woman who died six months later, letting Diego inherit her wealth. It is rumored that he murdered her.

Scary Monster
At a later point of the race, Diego meets Gyro and Johnny again in a small village in the mountains. He appears to be friendly, but just as the two heroes think he won't harm them, he suddenly transforms into a Velociraptor and attacks them. It turns out that the meeting was a trap set up by the bounty hunter Dr. Ferdinand.

Ferdinand's Stand power can turn living beings into dinosaurs. He uses this ability to create dinosaur "bodyguards" in his hunt of The Saint's bodyparts. Even Diego was turned into one of his soldiers when he was attacked by him earlier. Gyro manages to defeat Dr. Ferdinand by fusing with one of The Saint's eyes that Ferdinand possessed and receiving the Stand ability "Scan". Even though Ferdinand was killed and all his dinosaur minions turned back into humans, Diego escaped with the second eye of The Saint, making him able to keep the transformation power and turn into a raptor whenever he wants, even though he initially can't control it very well.

Childhood
Dio's appearance in the first chapter. He has blond hair and a handsome face. Many fans who first see him may believe his hair to be white, due to the loss of details from the manga's black-and-white illustrations.

Shadow form
Dio does not have a visible face as an effect of the shadowy darkness of his mansion. He has white and flowing hair. He is topless, exposing Jonathan's muscular body (to which his head is sewn in place) and wears green pants with suspenders, gray clogs, black shiny cuffs on both wrists and heart-shaped knee guards. As of JoJo's Venture, his voice is also distorted (an effect created by the writers to add mystery). This form of Dio is also called "J'yaku no Kenshin Dio." (Evil Incarnation of Dio)

Fuku form
Just like the Shadow form, only his entire suit is now colored yellow. Dio's face is seen, his hair is blond, wearing a jacket with a wifebeater underneath. He now also wears a heart-shaped hairband, and rings for his cuffs. This is his form during the beginning of the Dio's World story arc.

Enraged/Armored form
Dio transforming into his ultimate form, after sucking Joseph Joestar's blood. The description is like his fuku form minus the jacket and the heart-shaped hairband (which had been destroyed during Polnareff's Silver Chariot's attack). He now sports a deranged and homicidal look and mannerisms, losing his cool touch, and his hair is now disheveled, mostly oriented upwards. This is his form during the later half of the Dio's World story arc.

Diego Brando
While his facial features and hairstyle are very similar to Dio, he has a younger, more slim look. He is usually seen wearing a checkered shirt, wide trousers and a jockey's helmet with the letters D-I-O attached to it. This is the form of Dio's Steel Ball Run counterpart Diego Brando.

Diego Brando (Raptor form)
Under the influence of Dr. Ferdinand's Stand, Scary Monsters, Diego turns into a big velociraptor with stripes spelling out the name "Dio" all over his body. His hair turns into spikes that end in round, ball-shaped tips on the back of his head. Traces of his checkered shirt are still visible on his chest. After being under the influence of the Stand for a while, Diego is able to turn into a more human-shaped form while still retaining sharp teeth, claws, dinosaur legs and a tail, with a deranged, mad expression on his face.

Stands
The World (世界 (ザ・ワールド) Za Wārudo), very similar to Jotaro's Star Platinum, is a Stand with phenomenal strength, senses and stamina - but is also faster and more accurate. It can also stop time (for a longer duration as well). He also has at least a measure of Joseph's psychic abilities (specifically, the ability to create a vision on a photograph). A possible explanation for the fact that The World has psychic powers that are only used once is that Hirohiko Araki (the creator of the manga) implied for it to have the power of all of the Stands, or possibly the power of the Stands of the Joestar lineage, due to Dio inhabiting the body of Jonathan Joestar.

It's implied in Part 6 that he wanted to use his Stand to create a perfect world for himself and a handful of subordinates. He enlisted Enrico Pucci as his living "conscience", in case he would go crazy and be "off track".

Shadow Dio
Even without an active Stand, he can deal a lot of damage with full offensive attacks. He also has a reversal move that helps this playstyle to be more effective, which can be used either for offense or defense.

Throw Knives, while not too fast for up-close attacks, can push enemies further back. The angle of the knives can be varied, and he can throw knives twice.

His eyebeam projectile can be charged to an incredibly powerful and unblockable level.

His Stand attacks are good for surprises, and for juggling. Combined with his own attack, he deals a lot of damage in a short time, more so within The World, when he stops time.

His Super Combo, Punishment, deals heavy damage, if it connects. However, it can't be incorporated into combos easily. His other Super Combo, called "Charisma" takes two levels of power, but the buds coming out of his hair are unblockable and home in on the enemy. The slow start-up animation of this move requires it to be a part of the combo, in order to be able to perform the move without being interrupted by the enemy's attacks.

In addition, his The World - Time Stop comes out faster than "regular" Dio's. If performed with 10 levels of power, a good player can easily drain the entire lifebar of the opponent.

Dio
In contrast to Jotaro, Dio is more effective with his Stand on. His Stand combos are effective at dealing a lot of damage to the enemy in a short time. As such, Dio specializes in quick disposal of the enemy.

His Blazing Strikes can be manipulated to hit low, where the enemy must guard low. This makes his attacks unpredictable, keeping opponents on their toes. His eyebeams, now with different commands, are now completely unblockable, though the animation is notably slower.

His Road Roller, though weak in JoJo's Venture, deals bigger damage in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. His Chi no Shoukan (Bloody Summoning) requires the enemy to be hit before he sucks their blood. The scene when he connects with the move is bloody, with a cutscenes of the enemy's face being punctured by Dio's fingers.

His main problem is that his super moves cannot be integrated into combos in such a way that they will chain together. However, his super moves have a degree of invincibility, which enables him to dominate in close-quarter battles, even though predictable. To be able to use him well, Dio players must have the reflexes to perform their super moves at the right moment.

His The World - Time Stop is deadly at 10 levels of power. He can deploy a lot of knives and perform a Road Roller before the power gauge goes below level 1. If the enemy is big in size, the more he will take damage from the knives. It is a gamble though to successfully perform The World against a human player, but the damage it inflicts is worth the effort.

In popular culture

 * Zephyr, one of the bosses in the video game Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin is based on Dio Brando. He bends over backwards, and has the ability to throw knives, as well as freeze time after saying Toki yo, tomare! ("Time, stop!"). He also faces the protagonist in a clock tower, similar to Dio Brando's fight with Joseph Joestar and Kakyoin in the first half of the Dio's World story arc.
 * Dio, along with Jotaro (and their respective Stands), appears as a playable character in the Nintendo DS video game Jump Super Stars and its sequel Jump Ultimate Stars.
 * Sakuya Izayoi from the Touhou series is likely to be a homage to Dio. She is not a vampire, but the servant of one, and her main power is manipulation of time - usually demonstrated by stopping it completely. Her spell cards use lots of knives, and one of her Super Moves is even named "The World". She also uses many of the same poses as Dio.
 * The characters Robo-Ky and Justice from the 2D fighter series Guilty Gear both make references to Dio's 'The World': Robo-Ky in the form of the "Muda" battlecry with a barrage of punches in an Overdrive attack, and Justice in the form of a "WRYYYYYYYYY"-like battlecry and stance in both her victory poses and her most powerful Overdrive attack, Gamma Ray.
 * Agito of the Dark from the doujin fighting game Big Bang Beat is based on Dio Brando.
 * In one of the chapters of the manga Mr. Fullswing, Saruno Amakuni (the main character) throws a barrage of punches at his friend while exclaiming "Useful! Useful! Useful! Useful! Useful! Useful!", an obvious parody of Dio's attack where he rapidly punches while repeating "Muda" (useless).
 * Hiro Nakamura from the show Heroes is an homage to Dio. His ability in the show is time manipulation, including The World's ability of stopping time. Hiro occasionally taunts his opponents by uttering Dio's catch phrase "Muda!" repeatedly.
 * Hanyuu Furude in the doujin game Higurashi Daybreak has a weaponset homage to Dio Brando, called God's World. If successfully pulled off Hanyuu cries "Mudamudamuda Nanodesu!"
 * In a meme on eRepublik, the online massive multiplayer social strategy game, Dio Brando is a god.

Vampire shriek
The eerie cry of "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" (ウリイイイイイイ) is a shriek given off by the vampires throughout JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. While all vampires in the series are prone to doing so, this noise is most commonly associated with Dio Brando.

A resurgence of popular interest in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure occurred when "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" began making the rounds as an Internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel imageboards. Sparked by a Flash movie called "mudah.swf" which features stick figures performing the signature attacks of five different characters from Parts 3 and 5 of the series (This was due to the fact that only Parts 3 and 5 had games at the time). Dio Brando's clip features his use of The World (often pronounced intentionally as "Za Warudo", to mimic how Dio pronounces it in Japanese) to freeze time, throwing a barrage of knives, and finishing his dying opponent off by dropping a steamroller on him, atop which he leans back and exclaims "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY". This proved to be immensely amusing to those unfamiliar with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Another phrase popularized by the animation is "Muda da" (which translates to "useless" or "futile" in Japanese) which is Dio's (not to mention The World's) battle cry (which he repeats multiple times when attacking with a barrage of punches, conversely like Jotaro's use of "Ora ora!").

The recent English publication of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (which begins at the start of the third arc) uses the spelling "WREEEEEEEEEE", to clarify the pronunciation.

In addition, it is interesting to note that in Part Five of the manga, Giorno Giovana is seen also screaming "WRYYYYYY" with an indefinite amount of Y's, and they continue beyond the page. This implies that the shrieking may be hereditary, since Giorno is not a vampire. He also adapted to saying "muda" as he delivers final blows to his enemies. At the end of his battle against the Boss, the "muda" carries over on several pages.