The World

The World (世界 (ザ・ワールド), Za wārudo) is a stand featured primarily in Part III: Stardust Crusaders. Its user is supervillain Dio Brando and it is named after the Tarot card The World of the Major Arcana.

Personality/Appearance
The World resembles Dio in several ways, having a tall muscular body and the same green heart motifs it's feet look exactly like Dio's shoes. It has what seems to be a stopwatch on the back of each hand, symbolizing its power to stop time.

It has never shown any personality, but in Stone Ocean, it was hinted that if not for Dio's own personality, it would go out of control.

Powers
The World is similar to Jotaro's Star Platinum with its phenomenal strength, senses and stamina, but it is faster and more accurate.

Time Stop: Its defining power is the ability to stop time (possibly in a limited area), allowing only itself and Dio to act. Given Dio's weakened state during Stardust Crusaders, however, this ability only works for a few seconds before time resumes flowing. The ability is best known for Dio's activation and cancellation phrases "Time stop!" (時よ止まれ, Toki yo tomare!) and "And now, time resumes again" (そして,時は動き出す, Soshite, toki wa ugokidasu).

He also has at least a measure of Joseph's psychic abilities (specifically, the ability to create a vision on a photograph). This ability is only shown once and its presence is explained by an appendix note in JOJO A-GO!GO!, which states that it was a stand power which awoke in the body of Jonathan Joestar.

It is implied in Stone Ocean that Dio wanted to use his Stand to create a perfect world for himself and a handful of subordinates. He enlisted Pucci as his living "conscience", in case he would go crazy and veer "off track".

Steel Ball Run


In the final chapters of Steel Ball Run, a mysterious Diego Brando appeared, summoning a version of The World as his own Stand. This version has D-shaped emblems instead of hearts. The alternate Diego uses The World in much the same way as the original Dio did. It is currently unknown if this version of The World has the same statistics as the original.

Of note is the fact that the main Diego Brando of the Steel Ball Run universe does not possess/use The World, but rather Scary Monster.

Trivia

 * The World has evolved into an internet meme "Za Warudo". This comes from when Dio would stop time in the games and anime. He shouts "The World!", but because of the lack of a "th" sound in Japanese and "n" being the only sound without a following vowel, the pronunciation became "za warudo".
 * It has a great physical resemblance to Josuke's stand Crazy Diamond, and they both share an ability relating to time manipulation.
 * In the manga The World doesn't speak or make any noises besides its battlecry of "Muda", but in the OVA it makes silent roaring noises whenever it's attacking (and it let out a loud one when defeated by Jotaro) but strangely enough only Dio uses the battlecry of "Muda" during the OVA, while The World largely remained silent besides its aforementioned noises.
 * The World as seen in Steel Ball Run is actually not the same design as the one featured in Part 3, but the redesign of it seen in the JoJo A-Go!Go! artbook. The only notable difference are the kneepads that are shaped like the letter D instead of hearts.