Dio Brando

Dio Brando, known simply as DIO from Part 3 onwards, is the main antagonist of both Phantom Blood and Stardust Crusaders, and a posthumous character in Stone Ocean who is responsible for antagonist Enrico Pucci's descent into villainy.

Originally a man of low birth but peerless ambition, Dio is a villain of little conscience, vast cunning, and an insatiable hunger for power. After becoming a vampire and later a Stand user, Dio has gathered around him many minions and is responsible for many major events of the series, from the death of Jonathan Joestar to the Joestar Family's sudden acquisition of Stand power, and his legacy persists throughout the series.

Dio is the father of Giorno Giovanna, the protagonist of Vento Aureo, as well as a handful of other illegitimate offspring.

Appearance
When he first arrives at the Joestar Estate, Dio is seen wearing typical formal boy's attire from that era; a blue coat, white dress shirt, a tie, suspenders, breeches, and a pair of striped socks. He has blond hair and a handsome face. He also has 3 moles on the lobule of his left ear.

Aside from replacing his coat with a vest, Dio's attire hasn't had much change. However, his overall physique and height have increased significantly. During the events where Jonathan sets out to find the antidote for his father's illness, Dio dons a top hat and a new, flamboyant-looking cloak that has feathers jutting out of the shoulders.

Dio undergoes drastic physical changes upon using the Stone Mask to transform himself into a vampire. His formerly-clean hair becomes messy and unkempt, his eyes become sharper and adopt a darker outline, and he develops fangs. His clothing has changed quite a bit as well after his first battle with Jonathan; most noticeable is the scarf around his neck. He wears an ornate dual-colored shirt and matching breeches, a large pair of boots, vambraces, and two suspenders attached to a band around his waist.

IO does not have a visible face as an effect of the shadowy darkness of his mansion. He has shoulder-length blond hair and is topless, exposing Jonathan's muscular body (on which his head is sewn in place) He wears pants with suspenders, clogs, shiny cuffs on both wrists, and heart-shaped knee guards. In the game JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, his voice is also distorted (an effect created by the developers to add a sense of mystery). This form of DIO is also called "The Evil Incarnation DIO".

Revealed
Incorporating his previous outfit, DIO's dons a jacket with a tight tank-top underneath, as well as chaps with an exposed crotch. His face is now in full-view, and on his head is a heart-shaped circlet to match his knee guards. This is his form during the beginning of the DIO's World story arc. In most depictions of him, DIO's outfit is tinted orange or yellow.

He also wears a necklace covering his neck scar and heart motifs above his feet and on his pant legs, but he quickly stopped sporting them after his first stairway confrontation with Polnareff.

When pursuing the Joestar group, DIO donned a cloak that he had discarded during his confrontation with Kakyoin.

Empowered
DIO nears his physical peak after draining Joseph Joestar's blood. His appearance now is similar to his revealed form, minus the jacket and the heart-shaped headband that was destroyed by Star Platinum's attacks. He now sports a deranged and homicidal look and mannerisms, having lost his suave touch. His hair is now disheveled and mostly oriented upwards, while his lips are darker and seem adorned with lipstick. This is his main form during the latter half of the DIO's World story arc, often called his 'High' or 'Awakened' form.

Personality
Dio is consistently manipulative and violently domineering, and has repeatedly shown a lack of conscience and empathy.

Dio's most recognizable characteristics are his boundless ambition and his love of power. Abused by his father and having lived in the most miserable living conditions, Dio set for himself the goal of becoming the richest, then the most powerful being on Earth. To do so, Dio used anything or anyone that he could in order to further his goals, disregarding any kind of morality that would restrain the range of actions available to him. Using either manipulation, seduction, or plain violence, Dio constantly sought to become more and more powerful. Dio enjoys being in a position of power and has repeatedly stated how great he felt being in a dominating position. On the contrary, Dio never tolerated that someone could stand up to him or equal him in power, and was several times enraged and deeply disturbed at the thought.

Throughout his life, Dio has tended to surround himself with witless cronies and later minions, who were attracted by his natural charisma. Not thinking much of them at first, he then selected those he deemed as particularly evil, claiming that an evil person wasn't bound by rules such as honor and thus were stronger mentally. This belief culminated in including the absorption of 36 souls of sinners, or, as he claims, particularly strong souls, to unlock a power greater than that of his Stand, The World.

Naturally, Dio is an incredibly-selfish person, only looking over his own interest and overlooking those of others at best, trampling them on the ground at worst. Due to his composed nature, Dio can and will openly offer himself to any gender, using any method, as long as the person suits his present desires. Since he is selfishly interested in their capabilities, however, Dio is the type who is incapable of loving another person wholeheartedly. The only people he can be said to have held some type of affection for were his mother, Jonathan Joestar, and Enrico Pucci; Dio recognizing Jonathan's worth as equal to his own, and having been friends with Pucci. Still, Dio stole the former's body and his friendship with the latter was nonetheless merely a part of a grander plan to further himself.

When interacting with someone, Dio will constantly try to manipulate them and sway them into his side, using a veneer of gentleness and his natural charm to make people admire and like him. For instance, he acted the model son and popular charismatic friend to Jonathan's father and entourage to better isolate him, and as a Vampire, his charisma only increased as he appeared as a charming mysterious individual. However, his natural arrogance would lead him to openly insult and belittle his enemies, notably disparaging their insignificant strength before his vampiric or Stand powers.

Dio approaches obstacles and problems in a number of ways depending on the situation and his mood. When he was human, Dio was careful and methodical in trying to break Jonathan's spirit and slowly poisoned George for a sizeable period of time, only being thwarted due to unlucky twists of fate. As a Vampire, DIO at first let his arrogance get the better of him and took a laissez-faire approach, only sending subordinates to kill the Joestar Group while he rested and recovered. However, his defeat by Jonathan taught him to be wary of the Joestar Family in its entirety, thus he would later ambush Jonathan and, during the events of Stardust Crusaders, send his minions to delay the Joestars as much as possible to recover strength. During his final battle, his wariness, tactical acumen and arrogance would clash to make Dio alternate between meticulous approach and planning and reckless attacks.

Stand
"Main article: The World"DIO's Stand is the humanoid The World; facilitating melee attack roughly equal, if not even superior, in its immense force and speed to Jotaro Kujo's Star Platinum.

About a year after gaining his Stand, DIO discovered that it is capable of stopping time. At first, he could only do this for a very short amount of time, but by the end of Part 3, he is able to stop time for a maximum of 9 seconds.[1] This duration would have continued to develop had DIO not been defeated. When stopping time, DIO gives the impression that he is teleporting or otherwise moving at impossible speeds.

The ability is best known for DIO's activation and cancellation phrases '''THE WORLD, Time, stop! and Time resumes'''.

MASTERY
Having had ample time to rest and train with The World, DIO is shown to have been thorough in exploring his Stand's abilities. Case in point, it was during an experiment session during which DIO sought to test the limit of The World's speed that he discovered his time stop ability.

To give himself an advantage, DIO has tried to keep the ability of The World a secret, only using it at key moments to psych out an opponent and perform incomprehensible sneak attacks, as well as only trusting its secret to a few confidants such as Enya the Hag and not hesitating to eliminate her as soon as she remotely risked to inform the Joestars of his timestop power. However, as soon as they understood its ability, DIO dropped the secret and showed a great degree of confidence about the supremacy of his power, ultimately not caring about his secret as he was convinced that no one could do anything about it. Thus, he began to liberally stop time against Jotaro. Thanks to the free time-frame of action granted by The World, DIO has made it possible to instantly reposition himself to avoid attacks or set himself up to attack, kill enemies instantly, or even displace his opponents to toy with them.

DIO has shown a high degree of control over The World, using it to battle Jotaro's Star Platinum to a standstill, but showing superior technique in hand to hand combat by using low kicks to unbalance Star Platinum or feints to out-punch Star Platinum. However, his Vampire constitution means that DIO never showed the same care at using The World defensively at he preferred to avoid being hit at all and regenerate by sucking blood.

Unlike practically every other Stand User, DIO has sought to improve his Stand's capabilities. He notably wanted the Joestar to come to him so that he could suck the blood of a Joestar and sync himself up with Jonathan's body to further improve his time stop ability. Araki indeed stated that DIO had the potential to stop time indefinitely. Moreover, DIO had searched a way to unlock a power even more powerful than The World, using esoteric knowledge to divine a plan to create another mightier Stand.

JOESTAR STAND
Due to an awakening power within Jonathan Joestar's body, DIO is capable of using a Hermit Purple-like Stand which allows him to create psychic images, be it on photographs or crystal balls. Due to the connection he has between Jonathan's body and his descendants, DIO is also able to sense the presence of other Joestars and can use this to track their position. He is even able to tell when Joseph uses Hermit Purple to take a psychic photograph of him, and instinctively knew that his acquisition of a Stand also awoke Stand abilities in Jonathan's descendants.

Vampiric
Becoming a Vampire as a young adult, Dio displays a broad range of fantastic, supernatural abilities; explained as expressions of the full, unbound potential of the human body.

Superhuman Strength: Dio attains massive strength as a Vampire, allowing him feats such as forcibly walking on walls and single-handedly deflecting attacks such as Hierophant Green's Emerald Splash (volleys of substantially-sized emeralds flying at almost bullet speed). After absorbing Joseph's blood he is powerful enough to pick up and drop a steamroller on Jotaro.

Superhuman Speed: Dio also possesses superhuman speed and agility. At one point he was described by Speedwagon being faster than a cheetah.

Superhuman Senses: Demonstrated when placing his head on the ground to hear Jotaro's heartbeat, despite being a few meters away, Dio appears to have senses beyond human level.

Regeneration: Dio can regenerate his body faster than fire can consume it. His incredible vitality is maintained by consuming human beings (or their blood), which he commonly does by piercing them with his fingers. Like all JoJo Vampires, Dio sucks blood through tentacles in his fingers and has been seen at least once drinking blood from an unnamed girl. His body is able to live even after having vital body parts amputated and he can also control his detached body parts. The extent of Dio's own survivability is demonstrated when he could continue as just a head.

Space Ripper Stingy Eyes ("Space Splitting Eye Spiked Surprise"): Dio is able to pressurize bodily liquid in his eyeballs and then create small openings in his pupils, eventually unleashing two fluid jets (referred to by Straizo as "Space Ripper Stingy Eyes") powerful enough to slice through stone.

Vaporization Freezing Technique(Kikareitōhō): An ability Dio utilized after learning of the Ripple energy and the danger it presents to him. By vaporizing the moisture in his body, he can absorb heat from any living being he is in physical contact with and freeze them. This ability can be circumvented by Ripple being channeled through items and fire. Dio loses this ability after his original body was destroyed.

Fusion: Dio possesses the ability to graft the body parts of different beings together, using this to create half-man half-beast pets. Dio later used this ability to graft his head onto Jonathan's body.

Flesh Buds (Niku no Me, Spores): Introduced in Stardust Crusaders, Dio is able manipulate his hair to create parasites that he can insert into a human's head. The Flesh Bud will pierce through the skull into the part of the brain, making the afflicted compliant to Dio's charisma. As explained by Joseph, the parasite will gradually eat the inflicted's brain. If someone tries to take out the spore, which can prove fatal if it's not carefully removed, the Flesh Bud will sprout tentacles in an attempt to invade the intruder's brain. If the vampire wants, he can give permission to someone to activate the spore's tentacles anytime he wants if close to it. The spores possess another effect in case DIO himself ever dies. According to Keicho Nijimura, his fatherwho was implanted by the spore underwent a mutation into a greenish animalistic form by having DIO's cells inside his body. Presumably, this is a side effect that the rest of the surviving Stand Users that DIO had implanted his spores inside of would suffer from.

Hypnosis: This ability was used twice on Jack the Ripper (anime only) and Poco, respectively. In the case of the former, Dio hypnotized Jack to convince him to join as a servant, allowing Dio to drain his blood and turn him into a zombie. Poco was manipulated to lure Jonathan into a trap, though his consciousness returned after being subjected to Jonathan's Ripple.

Healing: Dio also seems to possess the ability to heal other people's wounds as he was able to completely cure Pucci's wounded foot by simply touching it. However, the origins of this power remain unknown.

WEAKNESSES
All of this, however, is at the expense of having a body sustained by sheer willpower alone, rather than vital energy. A sufficiently powerful force of vitality - specifically sunlight or the Ripple - will negate the sustaining force's presence and disintegrate the long-unliving body.

PERSONAL
Intelligence: Dio is naturally intelligent, displaying cunning and perceptiveness as well as imagination repeatedly.

As a child and teenager, Dio Brando managed to achieve academic excellence with ease, having planned to graduate from university as a top law student.

Otherwise Dio is a cunning villain and proficient tactician in combat. Dio almost managed to get away with two murders, bidding his time in order to have a perfect alibi and was only discovered by accident. Upon his return from the bottom of the ocean, DIO built in six years a powerful criminal empire spanning over several continents and which brought him many riches. In a fight, Dio is particularly cunning and perceptive, his ruthlessness making him able to exploit dishonorable and downright inhuman tactics to get ahead, such as leading his enemies into a trap, using hapless civilians as projectiles and sources of energy, or plain sneak attacks. Dio has the habit of analyzing his opponents and determine quickly a counter to their strengths, such as freezing blood in order to stop the flow of the Ripple, or forcing Jotaro's bluff by throwing multiple knives from all direction so that he's forced to act during the stopped time.

Naturally ambitious, Dio constantly seeks to improve himself and meticulously studies his abilities to make the most of them. As such, he developed a freezing power akin to the Pillar Men's Modes in just a month, and in six years, discovered enough about Stands to be able to fuse several together with souls in order to create the ultimate Stand. Arguably his most successful move, Dio experimented on how his vampiric powers allowed him to fuse two organisms together, and used that knowledge to steal Jonathan's body.

Though he doesn't show it often, Dio has become a natural philosopher, arguing about the human condition with multiple people.

Toughness: All prior to becoming a Vampire, Dio was already an able bare-handed fighter; A skill he says he developed in the slums of London. A good amateur sportsman, during a rugby game as a young adult, he is shown to have developed high athletic ability (as well as fantastic muscle mass).

Charisma: Dio is a cunning and charming individual. In addition to Stand Users, whom Avdol and Joseph suggest he recruits through sheer charm or charisma, he has seduced many women through his life.

Knowledge: Throughout both his humble youth and tempestuous maturity, Dio is often seen reading. During his pre-teens, he is seen playing chess with adults. In Part 6, in conversation with Enrico Pucci, he is shown to have accumulated some wisdom within the world of Stands. Importantly, Dio is able to concoct a plan, contained in his diary, incorporating vast, unknown information as to the deliberate creation of Stands of perfectly specific abilities.

Trivia

 * Dio's name is derived from the Italian word for "God", befitting his megalomaniac personality and his project to create a new world for him and his subordinates as implied in Stone Ocean. His Heaven Acension DIO form also fits as well due to warping reality to his liking.
 * The style of Dio's name in Part 1 is written normally, whereas DIO's name in Part 3 onward is written in English and completely capitalized.
 * Despite this, Giorno's picture of him has "Dio Brando" imprinted on it, even though his original name would have been long forgotten by then.
 * The trick DIO used on Hol Horse by instantly going through spider webs without damaging them is likely a reference to Bela Lugosi's first scenes in Dracula (1931).
 * The bridge Jotaro defeats DIO on is the Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which connects downtown Cairo to Gezira Island and the Zamalek district. Its coordinates are 30.043747°N 31.229464°E.
 * In Araki's top Ten Favourite Characters in 2000, DIO ranked as 10th, being the third main villain in the countdown.
 * Dio and Diego's themes in Eyes Of Heaven are remixes of each other. This is true for both Dio Brando and Scary Monsters Diego, as well as DIO and Alternate Diego.This makes sense as Diego is the reboot of sorts counterpart of Dio.
 * Araki considers Dio to be 'the true protagonist' of Phantom Blood. Araki developed Dio's character design before Jonathan. Dio also makes his debut first before Jonathan. Araki pondered in deciding what would be the scariest factor, and decided that "evil from the past" coming to get the present descendant would be the most frightening thing. Dio was developed with this in mind. After him, Jonathan Joestar of 'light' was designed to counter Dio's 'darkness'.