Starting in the Stardust Crusaders story arc, the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime was all about Stands, or the physical manifestation of someone’s fighting spirit. Stands could take all kinds of forms and wield all sorts of powers, with some being more creative, memorable, or dangerous than others. All of the Stands helped contribute to the excellent combat system in JoJo’s, including those that served as «monster of the week» opponents, but some Stands are still better than others.
The best-designed JoJo’s Stands have impressive and stylish visuals, or they might have unusual powers with cool strengths and meaningful drawbacks or blind spots. Some Stands also have wonderful design because of how they reflect their users’ personalities and lifestyle, including in ironic or weird ways.
10 Hermit Purple Replaced Hamon for Its Wielder in Part 3
Wielder: Joseph
Hermit Purple may rank last among the coolest and most memorable Stand designs, but it’s still a nifty tool in the events of Stardust Crusaders. Hermit Purple was an excellent example of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure rebooting its combat system, with Joseph Joestar going from Hamon and clacker balls to his Hermit Purple Stand by the late 1980s. After Joseph’s multi-decade time skip, he was due to get a new and cooler ability.
Hermit Purple can attack the enemy with thorny purple vines, and it can even allow Joseph to swing around like Spider-Man or catch his enemies. That’s kind of cool, but the main and better use of Hermit Purple is divination, to honor its tarot card inspiration. Hermit Purple can find information for Joseph on mediums such as camera film or even TV sets, which helped Jotaro determine DIO was hiding in Egypt somewhere.
9 Sticky Fingers Shows How Useful Zippers Can Be
Wielder: Bruno
There are several Stands in JoJo’s that serve both as humanoid melee fighters and as special powers beyond punching. Such is the case for Sticky Fingers, which appeared early in the Golden Wind story arc as a formidable challenger for Gold Experience. Sticky Fingers could deliver rapid punches on Bruno Bucciarati’s behalf, but that’s not the best part of what Bruno can do with his Stand.
Sticky Fingers truly shines when it’s used to create zippers, which is a much stronger ability than fans might believe at first. The quick-thinking Bruno can use Sticky Fingers to split up items or people with unzipped zippers that way, or he can make zipper portals on any surface to flee the enemy’s wrath or ambush someone. It’s a creative power that rewards resourceful thinking, such as the time Bruno unzipped his own heart to avoid getting detected by Beach Boy.
8 Foo Fighters Went From a Villainous Stand to a JoBro
Wielder: Itself
A few villains became JoBros in the anime, and remarkably enough, that included a self-moving Stand named Foo Fighters. Stands without users had appeared before, such as Anubis and Cheap Trick, but Foo Fighters was something entirely new when it appeared in the Stone Ocean arc. Foo Fighters originally took the form of a plankton swarm and thrived on water, but there’s more to Foo Fighters than that.
Foo Fighters went from a guard for the DISC to Jolyne’s and Ermes’ ally out of sheer gratitude after their initial battle. Foo Fighters became much cooler, funnier, and more likable by assuming a humanoid form, often seen drinking water to sustain herself as a plankton-like Stand. Such a charming transformation and redemption helped make Foo Fighters one of the better Stands in JoJo’s, even if her powers are unremarkable.
7 Stone Free Is Deceptively Useful With Its String-Based Powers
Wielder: Jolyne
Many of the Joestar heroes wielded some of the coolest, strongest, and best-designed Stands in all of JoJo’s, including Jolyne Cujoh in the Stone Ocean arc. Not long after ending up in prison, Jolyne manifested her Stone Free Stand, and Jolyne quickly figured out intuitive, resourceful ways to use it. Like most heroic Stands, Stone Free rewards resourceful thinking rather than having a narrow, specific ability.
Stone Free could deliver rapid punches as a fine melee Stand, and when Jolyne needs stealth or trickery, Stone Free shines even more. This Stand can unravel into strings that Jolyne can control, and Jolyne can even turn her own body into threads like that if need be. With those strings, Jolyne can slip in or out of any small space, spy on her enemies, tangle up the enemy in webs, and much more.
6 Heaven's Door Can Read & Overwrite Anyone Like a Book
Wielder: Rohan
While most of the coolest and best-designed Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure are designed with battle in mind, there is a delightful exception: Heaven’s Door. This is one of the best Stands in the Diamond is Unbreakable story arc, being the tool of the manga artist Rohan Kishibe in Morioh Town. Rather than harm the target, Heaven’s Door can open someone’s head like a book and access all the pages inside.
Heaven’s Door leads to some cool visuals in JoJo’s every time it’s used, and then the real fun starts. Rohan can use Heaven’s Door to not just view, but rewrite any information he finds in the target. He can force someone to stop attacking him, writing something to that effect in their pages. Visually, Heaven’s Door is quite distinct as a short, well-dressed humanoid with a clear top hat. Fans might interpret that empty hat as a space where all kinds of creative ideas for Rohan’s manga can be stored.
5 Crazy Diamond Makes Smart Use of Its Repair Powers
Wielder: Josuke
Crazy Diamond ranks in the middle among the best-designed JoJo’s Stands because of how remarkable its main ability is. Like Star Platinum before it, Crazy Diamond could throw some serious punches against other Stands in close-quarters combat, but if something is broken, Crazy Diamond gets even better. Of all things, Crazy Diamond is a fixer Stand, able to repair things and heal people with a strike.
Crazy Diamond is far more useful than it sounds when wielded by someone like Josuke Higashikata. Josuke can lure the enemy into a broken item and then fix the item around them to trap them, just to name one example. With Crazy Diamond’s fixer fists, Josuke can also break a wall to escape and seal it behind him, or even split up a vehicle to avoid an obstacle and then reassemble that vehicle a few seconds later.
4 Gold Experience Is Incredibly Flexible When It Creates Living Things
Wielder: Giorno
Similar to Stone Free and Crazy Diamond, the elegant Gold Experience Stand was a melee Stand with some extra tricks to it. Gold Experience was famously used to deliver a lengthy beatdown on the noxious villain Cioccolata, and it also defeated Diavolo in a death loop as Gold Experience Platinum, but its main theme is the power of life itself. Gold Experience can grant life to non-living things, and Giorno knows just how to use that ability.
Giorno can turn anything into a plant or animal, which has all kinds of applications with this flexible Stand. He was once seen turning a lamp into a snake to stealthily retrieve an item, and he even turned sidewalk stones into a tall tree to escape Koichi early in the Gold Experience story arc. Notably, Giorno can even turn things into chunks of human flesh to heal people, such as when he mended his own body after fighting the Baby Face Stand or healing Mista after facing Ghiaccio’s wrath.
3 Killer Queen Is the Ironic Tool of a Stealthy Serial Killer
Wielder: Kira
The slice-of-life story arc Diamond is Unbreakable featured the most ironic Stand in all of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Despite being a serial killer who valued stealth and secrecy, Yoshikage Kira ended up with an explosive Stand called Killer Queen. Killer Queen tended to make a huge racket when blowing people up, so Kira had to work twice as hard to elude the authorities in Morioh Town.
Such irony made Killer Queen one of the coolest Stand designs in the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime, and that’s not even counting the coolness of its own powers. It can turn anything or anyone into an explosive and then set them off with a gesture, making it deadly anywhere and against any foe. Later, Killer Queen became even cooler and scarier with its Bites the Dust time loop ability, ensuring no one could catch Kira as the Stand-using serial killer he was.
2 Death Thirteen Is Like a Horror Movie Monster
Wielder: Mannish Boy
One of the most memorable and nightmarish Stands of all belonged to the youngest known Stand user, a baby boy known as Mannish Boy. At first, Jotaro and the others thought nothing of Mannish Boy, only for Kakyoin and Polnareff to face that child’s wrath as the Death Thirteen Stand came to life. When used, Death Thirteen could trap its victims in a dream world where they cannot use their Stands.
The threat of Death Thirteen made it incredibly tense for the Stardust Crusaders to try and get any sleep, with Mannish Boy ready to strike anytime someone drifted off. Visually, Death Thirteen is a true marvel as a sort of jester/judge/reaper, with flowing purple robes, broad shoulders, fancy gold accessories, and a terrifying face with a smile but no humor. It even mocked its victims with its verbal tic of «Lali-ho!», making it sound oddly goofy while not at all subtracting from the terror.
1 Sex Pistols Is Six Stands in One & Has a Fun Personality
Wielder: Mista
The coolest, most creative Stand design in all of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is the Sex Pistols Stand, belonging to the heroic gangster Guido Mista in Golden Wind. Sex Pistols has a cool design for a few reasons, starting with the fact it’s six little creatures who function as a singular Stand, and they are liable to argue or annoy each other. Sex Pistols reflects Mista’s fear of the number four by being numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7, which is an amusing twist.
Sex Pistols doesn’t directly attack the enemy, which sets it apart from another gun-theme Stand, Emperor. While Emperor is the entire weapon, Sex Pistols is simply a guide for Mista’s bullets, sitting on the bullets and veering them toward the target with great precision. Few Stand users can avoid or block Sex Pistols’ attacks, with bullets reaching the enemy from strange angles all at once.
