After a ten-year run, JoJolion, the eighth and latest part of Hirohiko Araki's 34-year-strong epic, has reached its grand finale. For reference, David Production's anime adaptation of the series started with Phantom Blood a year later and has since managed to catch up on twelve years of material from the manga, with more on the way.

If you've not read that far, JoJolion takes place in an alternate version of Morioh from Diamond is Unbreakable and stars an amnesiac with four testicles who wakes up wearing nothing but a sailor hat, found in a hole in the ground by a girl named Yasuho Hirose. He's soon given the name Josuke and adopted by the Higashikata family of fruit sellers, who are trying to stave off a curse where the firstborn child of each generation turns to stone. With Yasuho's help, Josuke helps the Higashikata family find a way to end the curse, winding deeper and deeper into a conspiracy surrounding a miraculous fruit pursued by an organization of enemy stand users.

What makes JoJolion significant is that it marks the first full part to be released on a monthly schedule in Ultra Jump, rather than a weekly release in Shonen Jump like the first six parts, making it the longest-running part in the series. Part 7, Steel Ball Run, started as a weekly shonen, but moving to a monthly seinen magazine after the first few chapters caused a remarkable increase in quality for both the art and the narrative. The fashion model-esque character design of the more recent parts looked much cleaner while the storytelling developed a better sense of pacing, exploring more mature themes with more complex characters than the previous parts. Whether JoJolion is truly JoJo at its peak is up to you, but it definitely shows Araki's unique style at its full strength.

Araki had already mentioned a potential Part 9 in the past, but nobody expected the madman to announce it as soon as JoJolion ended. He's taking a well-deserved break before we can get our first look at JoJo Lands (name is subject to change), which could possiby wrap up the entire series. 

But that's not all; there are decades of quirky and memorable characters that could be revisited, even by other artists. Kouhei Kadono, author of Boogiepop and Others as well as the Purple Haze Feedback Part 5 spin-off novel , is writing a spin-off manga about the odd pairing of Part 4's Josuke and Part 3's Hol Horse. No Guns Life artist Tasuku Karasuma will be illustrating, making it the first JoJo spin-off not to be written or drawn by Araki. 

Between the upcoming Stone Ocean anime, JoJo Lands and the Josuke/Hol Horse spin-off, it's a great time to be a JoJo fan right now. Maybe there'll be another video game or attempt at a live-action movie soon, but for now we've got more than enough to look forward to.

Have you guys caught up with JoJolion? What are your Part 9 predictions? Sound off below!