JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is one of those shonen anime that go on to become cult classics and set a high bar for future anime. But JoJo would not be enjoying the extreme popularity that it does today had it not been for its unique anime power system, Hamon and Stands.
The author of the JoJo manga, Hirohiko Araki, has had a versatile sort of journey through different parts of JoJo in terms of writing and crafting a universe born out of his creative mind. But what is even more interesting is how these concepts developed by Araki work and how their technicalities make them a layered anime power system.
Hamon or Ripple or Sendo
Hamon is the first power system introduced in the first part and used in the early parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise. The first JoJo protagonist, Jonathan Joestar, becomes a Hamon user after learning the technique from Baron Zeppeli, a significant character in the JoJo franchise. The process behind Hamon is quite lucid, it is a kind of controlled breathing that allows the practitioner to store sunlight-like energy in their body and attacks.
As mentioned by Baron Zeppeli to Jonathan, only one in ten thousand people have the capability to become a Hamon user. Since, the early protagonists in the initial parts of JoJo include vampires, zombies, and pillar men, and the sunlight is their weakness to a great extent, the Hamon comes in handy. The most fatal Hamon move is the Hamon overdrive. Hamon was a decent power system in JoJo as far as the early parts are concerned, but it did not have much scope for further development to supplement the storyline of the JoJo franchise. Hence, Araki introduced and used a new and far more intriguing power system than Hamon in the later parts of the JoJo, the Stand(s). Hamon was replaced by the Stands in the later parts of the JoJo with Joseph Joestar being the last Hamon user in the franchise.
The Stands
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The Stand(s) is surely one of the best shonen anime power systems in the entire anime universe. The concept of Stands was unveiled for the first time in the third story arc of the JoJo manga series, Stardust Crusaders. A Stand is a psychic entity or avatar generated and used by its owner called, a Stand user. To a certain extent, the Stands are the reflections of their user's self-image. Every Stand has a distinct style and set of abilities that they can use to wreak havoc on their competition. Stands come in all shapes and sizes. The JoJo characters in the later parts of the franchise fight with each other through their Stands.
Stands are the manifestation or the evolved form of Hamon and comprised of it. The Stands is a heavily layered concept of power as the Stands possess various peculiar and intriguing characteristics like the very fact that the Stands are invisible to non-Stand users. The Stands age according to their users' ages. The storyline of the JoJo franchise from Stardust Crusaders and onwards revolves around the badass concept of Stands. In the franchise, the Stands find their origin when a meteorite containing an alien virus crashed on the Earth, and it infected the people who came in its contact and gave them Stands. Afterward, some old guy pounced on the idea of making a bow and arrow out of the material from that meteorite to bestow the powers of the Stand on anyone who was struck with that bow and those arrows. The Stand-making bow and arrows are first introduced in the Diamond Is Unbreakable part of the JoJo franchise.
Which Is Better Stand or Hamon?
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Without even an ounce of doubt, the Stands beat Hamon any day and that too by a big margin. Appreciating Hamon cause it helped in giving the fans the sensational first two parts of the JoJo franchise but had it not been for the Stands JoJo's future would have been doomed. It is the Stands that provide the franchise with the flexibility it was lacking when Hamon was the power system in JoJo. Besides that, Stand(s) gave Araki creative freedom to build a majestic and incredible world out of his beautiful mind which is the JoJo universe. Hamon could have been a useful weapon had it had other things in its arsenal besides the good old vanilla, Hamon overdrive.
The concept of Stands not only makes both the heroes and the villains go beyond the regular troupes of protagonists and antagonists but also adds more flavor to their intrinsic values of cunning and righteousness. The Stands are to thank for the breathtakingly spectacular fights that the viewers have witnessed and are still getting served with throughout the later parts of JoJo. The legendary fights that took place in JoJo like Jotaro Kujo vs Dio; Jotaro Kujo vs D'arby; Giorno Giovanna vs Cioccolata; Giorno Giovanna vs Diavolo; etc., were only made possible with the concept of Stands. It only makes sense that the Stands are better than the Hamon since the former is an evolved and more developed form of the latter, hence, Stand(s) trump Hamon fair and square.
All the episodes of the third and final part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean season are out to stream on platforms like Netflix worldwide.