Lost JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Film Pilot Has Finally Been Discovered

It seems a piece of long-lost anime history has been found. Thanks to some dedicated fans of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the anime’s lost Phantom Blood film has surfaced in part, and fans are rightfully geeking out over the piece of lost media.

Over on Youtube, the channel Mangomation posted a clip of pilot footage shown for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. The movie, to be clear, and not the TV series done up by David Production. As you can see above, the clip dates back to 2004, and Mangonation says they brought the footage to life with help from a friend.

“This was a pilot, doubling as an announcement trailer, for the 2007 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood movie. It was shown at the 2004 Tokyo International Anime Fair, and then never seen again,” the user wrote. Earlier this year, the fan nabbed attention has sharing a sneak-peek of this pilot with fans, and it seems the full teaser has gone live after a bit of scrubbing.

“The animation is entirely unique to this pilot, and was not used in the final film. Some scenes and characters, including Robert Speedwagon, are present in the pilot but did not make it into the actual movie due to time constraints.”

According to Mangonation, they found the footage on an old DVD-RW, and it was then restored by a Youtube user called Notelu. At less than three minutes, the footage is unlike any seen in the film’s actual clips, and fans admit they are down with the artwork done up by Studio APP. It is just as stylized as the artwork made by creator Hirohiko Araki penned decades ago. Now, fans are hoping the full film surfaces one day soon even if the final product doesn’t live up to this conceptualized pilot from the early 2000s. After all, reports were not kind to the movie when it debuted back in the day, but the franchise’s new fans are understandably curious about the JoJo film.

Do you think this style suits the first chapter of JoJo? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is the fifth and most recent part of Hirohiko Araki’s series, and follows Giorno Giovanna, the son of former series villain Dio Brando, as he joins the mafia group Passione in order to change and reform them into reputable thieves and crooks from the inside. The anime adaptation premiered last October, and can be currently found streaming on Crunchyroll.