Dio the Invader

The story opens in 1868 as a carriage tumbles off a rain-soaked cliff. A thief named Dario Brando and his companion approach the wreck to loot the dead, tossing aside an ugly stone mask before they realize the gentleman George Joestar and his infant son have survived while the mother has not. Mistaking Dario for a rescuer, George promises him a future favor, which the thief readily accepts.

Twelve years later, George watches his boy Jonathan grow up in comfort while, across town in the slums, Dario's son Dio scrapes by fetching drink for his ailing father and hustling strangers for coins. When Jonathan steps in to recover a bullied girl's doll, he meets Erina Pendleton and insists he acted only out of a gentleman's duty, leaving behind a handkerchief that bears his name. On his deathbed, Dario hands Dio a letter and sends him to the Joestar estate to claim a better life; Dio spits on the grave and privately resolves to bleed the family dry.

Arriving at the mansion, Dio greets Jonathan by kneeing the boy's dog Danny in the jaw, then sets about breaking his rival down to seize the Joestar fortune. He outshines Jonathan at study and table manners, humiliates him in a boxing bout with a dirty thumb to the eye, and paints him as a snitch to leave him friendless. Jonathan's spirits lift only after he grows close to Erina, until Dio steals her first kiss out of pure spite. The brawl that follows finally sees Jonathan overpower Dio, and a spray of blood on the discarded stone mask makes it sprout tentacles. George halts the fight, and the next day Jonathan discovers Danny was burned alive in the incinerator. With no proof against Dio, he can only grieve, while Dio, having underestimated his rival, resolves to change tactics.

The premiere establishes the founding rivalry of the whole saga: the upright Jonathan Joestar against the scheming Dio Brando, whose father's old debt places him inside the Joestar household. The ominous stone mask reacts to Dio's spilled blood for the first time, and Danny's death cements both Dio's cruelty and Jonathan's suspicion.

The opening episode of the anime, and of Phantom Blood, adapts chapters one through five. It runs without an opening theme and closes on Roundabout. Many manga beats were trimmed, among them Jonathan's childhood memories of Danny and several scenes surrounding the boxing match, while a few post-crash moments were added that never appeared in the original. The arrows shown during the internal monologues nod to Araki's earlier work Cool Shock B.T.