The Most Powerful JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Villains Ranked

The last thing Jojo's Bizarre Adventure will ever run out of is powerful villains. The manga has followed a villain-of-the-week format since it first released in 1987. Every few chapters/episodes presents our heroes with a new threat sent by the main antagonist. Usually, the protagonist (which changes with every part) fights his or her way through a solid baker's dozen of underlings before they take on the final boss.

That's not to say that these underlings are chumps. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure author Hirohiko Araki is a master at giving each character (including the henchmen) their own unique supernatural ability known as a "stand." No two characters' stands are exactly the same, so each and every fight in the series presents a strange new challenge for the hero. 

This can make it hard to determine who the strongest Jojo's Bizarre Adventure villain is. Araki always writes stands to follow a semi-strict set of rules. Every fighter, whether hero or villain, has limitations. Many of them have incredibly situational stands as well, making it hard to determine their relative power level. Still, the power gap between certain villains can be obvious, especially for the main antagonists. That makes picking out JJBA's top contenders much easier, even when a ranking of every villain would be almost impossible. So, if that's the case, then who are Jojo's strongest antagonists?

Just because it's easy to figure out who the most powerful villains in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure are doesn't mean that it's no contest between the big dogs. What Kira and Funny Valentine lack in raw power, they make up for in sheer charisma. (Before there was Thanos, there was Funny Valentine.) Both are common series-favorite antagonists in the JJBA community. Unfortunately, they have some caveats that keep them from ranking higher.

In the case of Yoshikage Kira (Part 4's antagonist), he ranks lower than others because his most powerful abilities are both limited and situational. Usually, the strongest Jojo villains can manipulate time in some way. But while Kira's time manipulation ability, Killer Queen: Bites the Dust, is strong, it has a lot of overly complicated limitations. Bites the Dust is a "time bomb" which can create infinite time loops that allow him to kill anyone who discovers his identity. However, it's an automatic ability that actually creates those loops without his conscious knowledge. He also has to plant the bomb on a target in advance. Plus, he can't use any of his other, more offensive abilities once he's planted the bomb. It's just too situational to work in a straight-up fight.

Meanwhile, Funny Valentine (Part 7) has no time manipulation at all. His list of powers — which includes teleporting between universes — is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a lot of ways to hurt other villains that often manipulate time at will.

Part 5's villain has a complicated personality and an even more complicated ability. His primary stand, King Crimson, has two functions. Like most stands, it manifests as a humanoid spectral entity that can interact with physical objects. However, it can also "delete" small sections of the immediate future. Only Diavolo can experience this period of time (up to 10 seconds), allowing him to maneuver around enemy attacks and set himself up for the perfect strike.

His secondary stand, Epitaph, can look forward into those ten seconds, allowing Diavolo to predict what his opponents will do during that time and react. To his opponents, this appears as if time is skipping forward without their knowledge. They usually do not have enough time to figure this out, however, because Diavolo has likely already set himself up to kill them within the next few seconds. It's an extremely confusing and broken ability which required a deus ex machina of sorts for the protagonist to stand a chance.

DIO (formerly Dio Brando) is the most notorious of any Jojo's Bizarre Adventure villain. He's been there since the series' first part, where he used an ancient stone mask to turn himself into a nigh-immortal vampire with accelerated healing, super strength, ice powers, and the ability to create zombies (among other creatures). This was before Araki invented stands, so the only things that can harm DIO are sunlight and the mystic martial art of Hamon.

After DIO narrowly survived the events of Part 1, he spent the next century locked in a coffin at the bottom of the ocean as a severed head. However, in the 1980s, some unlucky fisherman stumbled on the coffin, and DIO's head emerged (now connected to the body of Part 1's protagonist). It wasn't long before he attained a stand called The World, with the ability to stop time. At his peak power, DIO could stop time for what he perceived as 10 seconds before needing a break. He was also still a vampire, so it took a lot of effort for Part 3's non-Hamon-using protagonist to get the job done.

There are alternate, non-canon versions of DIO that have the potential to make the top of this list. But because the canon version of the character dies during Part 3, he isn't counted as highly in the official ranking.

Kars is the one exception to the time manipulation rule. Remember the stone mask that turned DIO into a vampire? Well, it was created thousands of years ago by an ancient race of Aztec superhumans called Pillar Men. Four of these Pillar Men, led by Kars, used the mask to slaughter the rest of their kind before going into hibernation.

Unfortunately, the stone mask doesn't work as effectively on the Pillar Men as it does on humans. They end up becoming more powerful, but ideally, the mask makes them a perfect creature: indestructible and unkillable. Until then, they're still vulnerable to both sunlight and Hamon, so the heroes can still defeat them.

In Part 2's finale, Kars manages to perfect the stone mask using a unique gem called the Red Stone of Aja. After wearing it, he gains immunity to sunlight, the ability to transform himself (or his individual parts) into any animal, and the use of Hamon. On top of that, his Hamon is as powerful as raw sunlight. Its overwhelming power proves to be his downfall when he accidentally triggers a volcanic explosion that launches him into space. The protagonist, Joseph Joestar, claims this was part of his plan. It was not. Either way, Kars becomes stranded in space, unable to die but also incapable of truly living. Eventually, he simply ceases to think before turning solid in the empty vacuum of space.

Part 6's Enrico Pucci is the successor to DIO. He was the vampire's closest and only true friend, and after DIO dies, Pucci continues his legacy. But Pucci isn't a vampire. In fact, he's a priest. Still, in the world of stands, that hardly matters. Pucci commands three stands over the course of his part, but the most powerful one he possesses is undoubtedly Made in Heaven.

Made in Heaven is unique among time manipulation stands in that it's the only one that accelerates time. In fact, it accelerates time until the universe ends and begins again, creating an identical second universe. Pucci can then change anything he wants in this universe. However, it does not become a permanent change until the universe loops a second time, solidifying his alterations. If Pucci dies before the second loop occurs (which he does), the entire universe automatically resets and recreates itself.

Made in Heaven is a special kind of stand created through a special ritual by DIO. In an alternate timeline, DIO performs this ritual before Part 3's heroes reach him. He becomes even more powerful than Pucci with his new stand, The World Over Heaven. But, since that only appears in the video game Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, Enrico Pucci takes the cake as the manga's most powerful villain.