Stands in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure originated from an alien virus carried inside a meteorite that crashed in Cape York, Greenland roughly 50,000 years ago. Within the story’s lore, this single extraterrestrial event is the root of nearly every Stand that appears across the series. But the ways that virus reaches people, and the other paths to Stand awakening that emerged later, vary widely depending on which part of the story you’re in.
Outside the fiction, creator Hirohiko Araki introduced Stands in Part 3 (Stardust Crusaders) as an evolution of the Ripple energy system from earlier parts. He even originally used the Japanese characters for “Ghostly Ripple” (YuHamon) to describe them, framing Stands as a spiritual successor to Hamon that gave him far more creative freedom.
The Meteorite Virus
The foundation of all Stand creation is a virus that arrived on Earth inside an asteroid. The virus takes the form of tiny reddish-pink spheres capable of surviving the vacuum of space, atmospheric reentry, and thousands of years of dormancy inside rock. It can infect humans, animals, and even undead beings like vampires.
Infection is brutal. Within hours, blisters erupt across the body and swell into bleeding, tumor-like growths. Without intervention, the host deteriorates and dies within about 48 hours. There is no cure. The only people who survive are those the virus seemingly “deems worthy,” individuals with exceptional willpower and fighting spirit. When a host survives the initial stage, the virus stops attacking and instead triggers a Stand: a manifestation of the person’s life energy that can take the form of a humanoid figure, an environmental effect, or almost anything else. A flash of light marks the moment a Stand is granted.
Notably, even dying victims sometimes manifest a Stand before succumbing. Survival isn’t strictly required for awakening, just for keeping it.
The Stand Arrows
The most common method of Stand creation in the series comes from the Stand Arrows, arrowheads forged from chunks of the Cape York meteorite. Because the virus clings to non-living substances like metal, these arrows carry concentrated doses of the virus and deliver it directly through a wound.
The Arrows function as a filter. Instead of forcing someone to endure a full-body viral infection, the process is compressed into a single moment: survive being pierced, and you’ve proven the willpower needed for a Stand. If you lack the fortitude, you simply die from the wound. The virus may even be partially sapient, as the Arrows have been shown redirecting their own trajectories mid-flight toward people it considers worthy candidates. When the virus enters through the arrow wound and accepts the host, the injury often heals rapidly, sometimes shrinking to a small coin-sized mark.
The Arrows can also evolve an existing Stand. In Part 4, Yoshikage Kira is pierced a second time by an Arrow, and the virus recognizes his need for greater power, unlocking a new ability (Bites the Dust) on top of his existing Killer Queen. This makes the Arrows not just a switch that turns Stands on, but a tool that can push them further.
Bloodline Awakening
The Joestar family demonstrates that Stand awakening can spread through blood. When DIO used Jonathan Joestar’s stolen body to awaken his own Stand (The World) in Part 3, every living member of the Joestar bloodline was affected. Jotaro, Joseph, and the others all manifested Stands because their spiritual connection through shared blood transmitted the awakening like a chain reaction.
This wasn’t harmless. Holly Kujo, Jotaro’s mother, gained a Stand but lacked the fighting spirit to control it. Her Stand turned against her like a disease, causing a high fever and a slow descent toward coma and death. Muhammad Avdol noted this was not unusual, claiming he had witnessed many people whose Stands overpowered them in exactly this way. The bloodline grants the ability, but it doesn’t guarantee the strength to wield it.
The Devil’s Palm and Wall Eyes
In the alternate universe of Parts 7 and 8 (Steel Ball Run and JoJolion), Stands don’t come from Arrows. Instead, specific locations on Earth can grant them.
The Devil’s Palm is a shifting, dangerous zone in the American desert that bestows Stands on anyone who wanders into it and survives. In Morioh (the Part 8 version), the Wall Eyes serve a similar purpose. These strange geological formations rose from the earth and carry the power of “Equivalent Exchange,” awakening Stands in people who spend time near them. Daiya Higashikata fell into a fault line where the Wall Eyes later formed and gradually lost her eyesight, but gained a Stand in return. Ojiro Sasame grew up near a Wall Eye fault and eventually developed his Stand, Fun Fun Fun. Others who came near the Wall Eyes received unexplained human-like bite marks on their bodies that appeared to correlate directly with their Stand awakenings.
The origin of the Wall Eyes’ power traces back to 1901, when Johnny Joestar brought the Holy Corpse (the Saint’s remains) to Morioh and buried it beneath the Twin Pines to cure a family member’s illness. Lucy Steel later observed that the ground where the Wall Eyes formed felt identical to a Devil’s Palm. The implication is that the Corpse’s presence transformed the land itself into a Stand-granting site, and the Rock Humans (non-human beings native to the area) recognized this, making it their home.
Stand Discs
In Part 6 (Stone Ocean), the villain Enrico Pucci introduces a completely artificial method of transferring Stands. His Stand, Whitesnake, can extract two discs from any person: one containing their memories, and one containing their Stand. These discs are physical objects that can be inserted into someone else, temporarily or permanently granting them that Stand’s power.
This means a Stand can be separated from its original user and given to a completely different person, bypassing the virus, the Arrows, and any question of worthiness. It’s the most mechanical and controllable form of Stand creation in the series, though it depends entirely on Pucci’s own Stand to function.
Natural and Innate Stand Users
Not every Stand requires the virus, an Arrow, or a supernatural location. Some users are simply born with their Stands, inheriting the ability from a parent or manifesting it on their own. Others develop Stands through sheer mental discipline or mastery of a skill. Araki has stated that Spin and Ripple can both become Stands, suggesting that pushing any spiritual or physical discipline far enough can cross the threshold into Stand territory.
A Stand fundamentally represents its user’s psyche and fighting spirit. In cases where the awakening comes from within rather than from an external trigger, only a large amount of mental strength is required. This is the most open-ended path and the hardest to define, but it reinforces the core idea behind Stands: they are projections of who you are, and the stronger your inner world, the more likely one will emerge.
Araki’s Creative Origins
From a real-world design perspective, Araki built the first generation of Stands around Tarot cards. In Stardust Crusaders, nearly every Stand is named after a card in the Major Arcana (Star Platinum, The World, Hierophant Green), and Araki designed custom Tarot illustrations in his own style to accompany them. The remaining enemy Stands in that part drew from Egyptian mythology, named after gods like Anubis, Bastet, and Horus. This gave the early Stands a structured, mystical identity system that Araki later abandoned in favor of naming Stands after bands, songs, and albums, which gave him unlimited room to expand.
The shift from Hamon to Stands was partly practical. Hamon’s sun-based energy was too narrow, useful mainly against vampires and pillar men. Stands let Araki give every character a unique power with its own rules, strengths, and weaknesses, turning fights into puzzles rather than simple power contests. The “Ghostly Ripple” concept kept the spiritual DNA of Hamon alive while opening the door to the wildly varied abilities that define the series.