Is This a JoJo Reference?

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Part of a series on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. [View Related Entries]

About

"Is This a JoJo Reference?", also known as "Is That a JoJo Reference", is a rhetorical question often used ironically by online commenters in response to pictures that include allusions to the manga and anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Origin

The earliest known use of the expression "Is this a JoJo reference?" was posted on September 13th, 2009 in a thread on 4chan's /a/ (anime & manga) board in response to the statement "FUCK YEAH NAGARSUMI!",^[1] while one of the earliest ironic uses of the "jojo reference" expression comes from a 4chan's /a/ thread on December 9th, 2009.^[2]

Background

Being one of the longest running series of the comics run by Shueisha and standing amongst the greatest-selling titles of Weekly Shonen Jump, the series is often referenced in other mangas and animes, whether it may be a sudden change in style, characters doing one of signature poses, or other kinds of shoutouts. Some famous video game characters, such as Guile, Rose, and Juri from Street Fighter, and Benimaru from The King of Fighters, are considered to be respectively based of Rudol von Stroheim, Lisa Lisa, Jolyne Cujoh, and Jean Pierre Polnareff.

Spread

On April 22nd, 2015, Redditor SamuraiDDD submitted a post asking "Name an anime that has a good JoJo reference" to /r/stardustcrusaders,^[9] which received several sarcastic replies about references to the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in other media. On September 22nd, 2016, YouTuber Mundano XXXIII uploaded a video titled "How JoJo's fans see Eevee Z-Move," featuring a clip from the game Pokemon Sun & Moon with music from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure dubbed over the background audio track (shown below).

On November 3rd, a thread featuring a screenshot of 4chan's /vp/ (Pokemon) board header was submitted along with the question "Is this a Jojo reference?" to /vp/ (shown below, left).^[6] On November 17th, a picture captioned with "not everything is a Jojo's Bizzare Adventure reference you fucking weeaboo" written in Expand Dong lettering was posted in a thread on /vp/ (shown below, right).^[10]

On November 24th, the Jojo's Meme Adventure Facebook^[5] page posted the message "is this a Jojo's reference," garnering more than 430 reactions and 50 comments over the next two months. On November 30th, the "Is This a Jojo Reference?" Facebook^[7] page was launched, garnering upwards of 10,300 likes in the next two months. On January 15th, 2017, DeviantArtist^[8] TheSteveYurko uploaded a Jojo's-Pokemon crossover illustration titled "Is this a JoJo reference?!" (shown below).