I don't think I'd recommend JoJo in general as a first manga or first book in Japanese, but once you've read some graded readers or an easier manga, I would recommend it for beginners. JoJo, like most manga is pretty dialogue heavy. Part 1 (Phantom Blood aka this Part) does suffer more from large text exposition blocks than other JoJo Parts, but since it's a little less than 5 volumes, I think it's pretty easy to decide to if you want to reread them later, comb through them, or skip them altogether.
The main reason I recommend JoJo Phantom Blood to beginners is that the main character, Jonathan Joestar, speaks most of the time in textbook like speech. I think he's a lot easier to understand than many other native text main characters because a lot of learners will be used to his style of speech already.
If you're not a beginner, than I'd still recommend Phantom Blood. I think it's a lot of fun to analyze the characters relations to each other via speech patterns and choices, but it's not so in your face that it's overbearing by any means.
If you're new to JoJo, it's an ongoing series with 9 Parts. Each Part is relatively independent of each other. The series as a whole follows the Joestar bloodline in their adventures. Each Part follows a different member of the bloodline and sometimes characters from previous Parts make reappearances due to the fact the main characters are all related. Each Part gives nods to different genres, although horror is a reoccurring one in all of them. If you aren't already familiar with JoJo and Phantom Blood, Phantom Blood gives a lot of nods to 19th century literature, mainly Dracula and Les Miserables . If you don't like the subject matter of one Part, I highly recommend checking out other Parts since they're so different that you might enjoy them more. Like I said before, they're all fairly independent of each other. No previous knowledge is needed. Since the series is so long running, it's not uncommon to find native Japanese speakers who started with whatever Part was popular when they were in school.
As another general warning, JoJo has a fair amount of body horror although it's not as frequent as like in Ito Junji's works or the amount of gore in Chainsaw Man. In Part 1/Phantom Blood, I felt like I could quickly enough read through any pages that made me uncomfortable, but in later Parts (3 especially), it's not always the case.
As far as the story goes, it's fun although a lot of people aren't particularly fond of it. I think your mileage will largely depend on how much you enjoy the characters and vampire shenanigans.
Bizarrely Good for Beginners
I don't think I'd recommend JoJo in general as a first manga or first book in Japanese, but once you've read some graded readers or an easier manga, I would recommend it for beginners. JoJo, like most manga is pretty dialogue heavy. Part 1 (Phantom Blood aka this Part) does suffer more from large text exposition blocks than other JoJo Parts, but since it's a little less than 5 volumes, I think it's pretty easy to decide to if you want to reread them later, comb through them, or skip them altogether.
The main reason I recommend JoJo Phantom Blood to beginners is that the main character, Jonathan Joestar, speaks most of the time in textbook like speech. I think he's a lot easier to understand than many other native text main characters because a lot of learners will be used to his style of speech already.
If you're not a beginner, than I'd still recommend Phantom Blood. I think it's a lot of fun to analyze the characters relations to each other via speech patterns and choices, but it's not so in your face that it's overbearing by any means.
If you're new to JoJo, it's an ongoing series with 9 Parts. Each Part is relatively independent of each other. The series as a whole follows the Joestar bloodline in their adventures. Each Part follows a different member of the bloodline and sometimes characters from previous Parts make reappearances due to the fact the main characters are all related. Each Part gives nods to different genres, although horror is a reoccurring one in all of them. If you aren't already familiar with JoJo and Phantom Blood, Phantom Blood gives a lot of nods to 19th century literature, mainly Dracula and Les Miserables . If you don't like the subject matter of one Part, I highly recommend checking out other Parts since they're so different that you might enjoy them more. Like I said before, they're all fairly independent of each other. No previous knowledge is needed. Since the series is so long running, it's not uncommon to find native Japanese speakers who started with whatever Part was popular when they were in school.
As another general warning, JoJo has a fair amount of body horror although it's not as frequent as like in Ito Junji's works or the amount of gore in Chainsaw Man. In Part 1/Phantom Blood, I felt like I could quickly enough read through any pages that made me uncomfortable, but in later Parts (3 especially), it's not always the case.
As far as the story goes, it's fun although a lot of people aren't particularly fond of it. I think your mileage will largely depend on how much you enjoy the characters and vampire shenanigans.