Stone Ocean may be the most divisive and strange part within Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s always been somewhat of a black sheep for the sharp difference in tone and writing from Golden Wind, the complexity of the story, and the battles being far more experimental. In any iteration of its release, it’s had its detractors and hardcore fans.
It’s only fitting that a part as strange as it has some of the most experimental Stands in the series — for better or worse. Some Stands end up confusing or hard to understand, resulting in underwhelming fights, whereas others end up as some of the best in the series and insanely memorable. So, rather than focus on the bad, let’s going to look at the best Stands in Stone Ocean!
10/10 Bohemian Rhapsody
Part of what makes Stands work so well for fights is their limits; Stands are small and confined in what they can do, and those limitations make fights interesting. Bohemian Rhapsody shows the opposite side, however, and the pros and cons there. Bohemian Rhapsody is a Stand that affects the whole world, making fictional characters come to life and forcing people to reenact stories they enjoy, even if it leads to their death.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a spectacle of a Stand, being incredibly memorable for just how wild the arc is with the references and how entertaining it is. But, in terms of being an actual fight, the wide range of what the Stand is leaves it feeling unfocused and barely like an actual fight, just being something that happens, albeit an entertaining something.
9/10 Kiss
Sometimes Stands have concepts that don’t seem great but are amazing in execution, but other times the execution can hamper an otherwise amazing concept such as with Kiss. Kiss is a Stand with the ability to put small stickers on objects, causing them to split into two duplicates and only come back together and break if the sticker is removed.
This is a perfect ability for a main character; very simple to understand yet versatile to keep fights flexible and unique. Sadly, Kiss suffers from being somewhat sidelined by other main character Stands like Foo Fighters and Stone Free, not to mention being involved in fights that don’t compliment the ability so well. But, it’s still a fun concept.
8/10 Underworld
While experimentation can sometimes result in something too wild or strange to be enjoyable, other times that strangeness can pay off with something special — such as with the mind-bending Underworld. Underworld is a Stand that can create a strange underground space and then unearth memories that occurred near there, forcing others to live through those memories.
While it is a hard Stand to understand at first, it presents a fascinating way to fight as it has to use these events it can cause in creative ways such as summoning a football team to distract the heroes. Though, it’s another Stand with an incredible concept that doesn’t go too far in its use which is a real shame.
7/10 Yo-Yo Ma
Every Jojo part has its oddball Stands, the ones that flip the script and barely feel like a regular fight due to their strange ability. While Part 6 has several of those, Yo-Yo Ma is easily the best. Yo-Yo Ma is an automatic and sentient Stand that pretends to be friendly to its targets, but in truth finds ways to slowly kill them with its acidic spit.
The thing that separates Yo-Yo Ma from other Stands is the fact that it’s both indestructible and refuses to directly fight back. This changes the dynamic of the fight, leaving our heroes stuck with this unstoppable force that will slowly kill them and which they have no hope of stopping. The strange horror of this fight is unlike anything in Jojo’s.
6/10 Foo Fighters
Sometimes a Stand doesn’t have the most interesting ability or even fight, but it still manages to draw you in through the user themselves… Though, that gets more complicated with the case of Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters is a strange Stand that has given life to a colony of plankton, allowing them to both think, shape-shift, and regenerate.
While it is interesting, the ability doesn’t prove that interesting in battle as it really only uses the minor shape-shifting to basically shoot bullets. But, the sentience and intelligence is what makes them interesting as Foo Fighters is their own user, disguising as a human and becoming one of the main characters after their fight, an excitable and curious woman who is hard to not love.
5/10 C-Moon
A villain’s Stand is almost always one of the best in the part, and Part 6 treats us by giving its villain, Pucci, three Stands throughout the part with C-Moon being the second. C-Moon is an evolved version of Pucci’s Stand, now having the ability to manipulate gravity by making everything repelled away from its user as well as being able to turn objects inside out.
C-Moon is a simple Stand but perfect as a terrifying fight before the finale, the gravity ability making it dominate the battle and forcing others to play by its rules. The sheer power of its inside out ability makes it feel less like a fight and more like just trying to survive this unstoppable force — a perfect precursor to the finale.
4/10 Jailhouse Lock
Jojo has always been more about the mind games of combat than the actual action, and while certain Stands have focused on that, Jailhouse Lock takes it to a more literal degree. Jailhouse Lock is a Stand that once used on someone will cause them to only be able to remember three new things after it was activated, forgetting the first memory if they learn something new.
While this Stand effect is simple, it turns the fight into a true puzzle as the heroes have to find a way to track down and beat the user without being able to focus on more than three things to do complex tasks. The tricks used to get around the ability feel really clever and overall it makes for a thrilling and mind-bending encounter.
3/10 Stone Free
The main character’s Stand is always the most important one to get right as it’s the set of abilities that will be showcased in the majority of fights, and thankfully Stone Free nails it once again. Stone Free grants the user the ability to unwind their body into string, able to use this to form their Stand or for other uses.
Stone Free takes the aspects that made Star Platinum and Crazy Diamond great and takes it to its maximum, having a single simple ability that can be used in so many creative ways. It allows it to always interact in fun ways with enemy Stands without taking the spotlight away from them.
2/10 Made In Heaven
It’s a running theme throughout the Joestar story for the villains to have some final ability to do with time, whether it be freezing time, reversing time, or erasing time. Part 6 completes this with Made In Heaven. Made in Heaven is the final form of Pucci’s Stand, granting it the ability to accelerate time on all non-living things and eventually reset the universe.
Made In Heaven is perhaps the most powerful Stand in Jojo’s due to its sheer speed, able to out maneuver any Stand and cut through them before they can even react. C-Moon was an unstoppable force, but Made In Heaven takes it to another level, with the entire world breaking down around the heroes as Pucci circles them like a vulture, the sheer terror of the fight is incredible to watch.
1/10 Whitesnake
Yet, while C-Moon and Made In Heaven are both excellent Stands, neither truly captures Pucci’s character and position in the plot quite like Whitesnake. Whitesnake is a Stand with the ability to extract both a person’s memory and Stand in the form of disks, able to give others these memories or Stands by giving them the disc.
After 3 whole parts of growing used to and learning about Stands, having a Stand that is able to duplicate other Stands makes for quite the intimidating villain. And although it doesn’t get too much creative use in battles, Whitesnake still makes for a great omnipresent threat by supplying us with most of the Stands we see in Part 6.
