@pyromonki:
The color style has been pretty fabulous even in part 1 in my opinion, but yeah, the art in PB is notably bad, but so is it in Part 2 and it hardly ever gets any flack for it.
Dio and Zepelli are the only truly distinct ones, the rest are the type you'd find in plenty of other manga. It doesn't help that Phantom Blood mainly consisted of blacks, browns, and dark blues. As for Part 2, I tend to think of the excellent designs of the Pillar Men, as well as Caesar and Stroheim. While not up to par with later parts, it's enough of a step up from part 1 that most of my annoyance veers away from it.
AND ALL THE parts have filler fights in it except for part 2 and 7, so to hold that against PB is also just a weird gripe.
It's because it was so blatant and dull. If you want to do a short story you shouldn't put in a fight like that. It doesn't bother me nearly as much when the series focuses on the fights as the main draw, but those knights were a means to an end.
And I don't really what's so cliche about part 1 except for maybe Poco getting his confidence or Jojo getting the final ripple?
Well, the final ripple is a pretty big one, especially since it couples in a prophecy element that never factors into Jojo again. Beyond that there's the heavy expositing during fights and extremely muscle bound characters…but I was mainly talking about how it felt. I'm not one to analyse cliches, I just got the feeling that it was one. This is likely partly influenced by outside views, so take this criticism lightly.
Part 1 is by no means perfect or even close to best story, but I just don't see what makes it horrible.
Well, I've already given reasons. Honestly though, I don't like giving reasons. I read a story and feel how much I like or dislike it. Analysis normally comes after, a biased overlooking view that tries to justify pre-formed opinions. I enjoyed Phantom Blood by far the least of any part, but I just said it was bad, not horrible. Anyway, if what I said didn't speak to you it seems rather pointless to try and convince you more of its faults.
I dislike Part 4 more than part 1 because it dragged on way longer. Part 1 at least got to the point pretty fast.
Indeed, but the dragging sections of part 4 were just as good as the best parts of part 1. Again, what I enjoy most about this series is the overwhelming creativity Araki puts into each battle.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Phantom Blood was very straightforward, so of course even that fight would accomplish something. I suppose uninteresting is the better term, I called it filler because what it accomplished could have been done better and quicker in another fashion, which is how the majority of Phantom Blood up to that point had been like. I admit that the fight doesn't fit under the definition of filler I normally use, which is "can be skipped entirely without the reader knowing that they skipped it."