Cartoon Sunday: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood & Battle Tendency Music References

{This Cartoon Sunday blog was previously published in 2017. As of 2021, videos containing the following music references have recently been updated.}

How's it going lurkers? It appears that more musicians from the 1980's were name dropped in last night's episode of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency. 

Lately, more musicians from the '80s are being referenced to in Part 2 of this series. Hirohiko Araki's characters are named after many groups (mostly Rock bands) and singers in general.

It has been about several months, since I last mentioned the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise. 

Recently, I learned that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is considered to be a "multi-generational" franchise and the first 2 parts of the franchise are combined into Season 1.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood was only Part 1 of the franchise. It had a Dark Shadows, Gothic Horror Soap Opera tone and was set during the 19th Century in England, when the ORIGINAL protagonist (Jonathan Joestar) was learning how to use Hamon.

Hamon is supposedly a form of Martial Arts, which uses the sun's energy.

Will A. Zeppeli taught Jonathan how to use Hamon to fight his sinister, adopted brother, Dio Brando and Dio's minions of vampires. Part 2 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is Battle Tendency.

Now that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency premieres on Adult Swim's Toonami block, the franchise takes place, during the 1930's with Jonathan Joestar's grandson, Joseph Joestar (in the picture above) in America. Lately, there have been a lot of 1980's singers being named dropped.

Last week, the character "Lisa Lisa" was introduced. There was also a song sample of Yes' "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" being used, when Joseph was doing Hamon training.

In Battle Tendency, Joseph Joestar trains to defeat The Pillar Men. The Pillar Men are members of an ancient vampiric race. Last night, he managed to defeat Esidisi. Esidisi is named after the Hard Rock band, AC/DC.

Even though the illustrations of these characters look like dated characters from the 1980's, watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is quite an entertaining franchise for a Seinen Supernatural Thriller Action Anime. 

Then again, Hirohiko Araki created his Manga during the 1980's, which explains why some of his characters are named after Lisa Lisa, Wham!, REO Speedwagon, Dire Straits, The Cars, etc.

The characters being namesakes of celebrities, songs, albums, etc. add to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise's campiness. Whenever watching this particular series, I usually laugh because they are namesakes.     

Rather than sharing the usual animation, I thought it would be better to learn more about the names of the characters from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise for Cartoon Sunday.

1) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood Music References (2021)

2) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency Music References (2021)

Suddenly, I have Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" stuck in my head.