Trying something a bit different with this one: I wanted to wait for all of Stone Ocean to be released, but still wanted to talk about each episode individually. So I’ll be doing just that: writing about each episode individually, then releasing the whole thing as one article.
It’s been a while since I read Stone Ocean, but I remember a fair bit of it. It’s not my favourite part (Steel Ball Run), nor does it have my favourite villain (Diavolo, and I’d say the best is Valentine) or JoJo (Johnny), but I like it a lot. The enemy stands are hit and miss but there are some really cool ideas and the villain is the most sympathetic in the series (So far anyway. At the time of writing I haven’t read Jojolion). I’m glad to be revisiting it anyway. Let’s get into it.
Episode 1: Stone Ocean
We’re back on JoJo, baby! This time around it’s Jolyne Cujoh; daughter of an absent Jotaro whose current biggest issue is that a handsome prison guard caught her masturbating and she’s going to die of embarrassment. She’s on probation for a hit and run, during which her boyfriend Romeo emotionally manipulated her into hiding the body. Her lawyer, who looks like a human-deer hybrid for some reason, brings her a pendant from Jotaro that slices open her finger, so she angrily flings it into a drain. He also encourages her to take a plea deal, and say that she was driving the car at the time. She’ll be out on parole in a year, tops. Jolyne becomes fast friends with a woman named Ermes, who gets roughed up by some scumbag guards who are trying to rob her; Jolyne can hear this despite being nowhere near them because of an odd string that’s emerged from her slashed finger. Not only can she hear far away conversations, but she can also use the string more forcefully: she saves Ermes by blocking the screw’s nightstick and slicing his ear off. Serves him right, the prick. Now as JoJo fans we know this is a stand- the “Stone” in the pendant was clearly a piece of arrow head, but Jolyne doesn’t know that yet. To her credit, she takes her newfound powers in stride. Her trial comes and she takes the plea deal her deer lawyer insisted upon, only to discover that the “Body” she and Romeo dumped in a swamp was still alive, so she’s unwittingly admitted to murder, and in turn is handed down a fifteen year stretch. Whoops. Her scumbag lawyer set it up on behalf of Romeo’s rich Father. Firmly entrenched in the big house, Jolyne at least gets some measure of revenge when a piece of her string breaks off and strangles the lawyer, causing a nasty car crash that, if not lethal, certainly doesn’t do him any good.
Good start to this new saga: Jolyne is really well introduced as a noble, kind person with an easy going personality and a mean streak when called for. Unfortunately she can be swayed as seen with her following Romeo down a dark path; she’s really lovey dovey with him in the car beforehand, but sharpens up and carries herself differently in the present. I don’t blame her though; she’s in love, and he did manipulate her. Her stand has an interesting power set that will be expanded on in coming episodes, but starting with its ancillary skills first is a good approach, as Jolyne has no concept of stands yet, so to her it’s just some mysterious power. Good job looking out for Ermes, too. Jolyne’s a good egg. The anime looks superb so far, even in this first episode. I feel so good watching JoJo in motion, and I’m excited for the journey before me.
Episode 2: Prisoner FE40536: Jolyne Cujoh
We’ve got an opening and it reminds me of END OF ZA WARUDO: lots of dynamic shots of the cast living in the prison and involved in action scenes. Nice shot on Jolyne kneeling in the ocean and defiantly snapping the chain on cuffs, good stuff. No spoilers either, so that’s nice. The prison’s warden is Locobaroco: he has a weird shark fin lump thing on the top of his head and eyes that have loads of flesh around them like they’re in the beginning stages of being pushed away from his face on stalks. His assistant is a crocodile puppet called Charlotte, who speaks for him and gets really mad if you interrupt him. I would have thought it’d be a gator given that they’re in Florida but good for you on not sticking to stereotypes, Locobaroco. Now please get away from me before you turn into an Uzumaki snail person. Jolyne’s cellmate is Gwess, a woman goes from zero to violent at the drop of a hat, is in possession of the pendant, and has a parrot in her pocket whose head comes off, revealing what’s clearly a tiny person living inside. She tries to play the whole “Bully your mark then apologise and walk all over them” strategy: she threw away the picture of Jolyne’s parents and lied about it, she makes Jolyne late for breakfast and takes extra portions and throws them away, leaving Jolyne with nothing. The tiny person in the parrot is her pet: she makes him perform tricks and tell her he loves him, but is so enraged when he says “Woah” while jumping to her hand that she murders him. Jolyne finds out about this and becomes her next victim: she’s shrunken down and made to wear a rat suit made from a real rat’s pelt. This is the FIRST THING THAT HAPPENS TO JOLYNE WHEN SHE GETS TO PRISON. Jotaro? Prison cell encounter with a flaming bird man. Josuke? His uncle stops time to get a sucker punch in. Giorno? Fights mafia mum on a train after he licks his face. Jolyne’s first encounter with another stand user is this bullshit, poor girl can’t catch a break. Gwess’ stand is Goo Goo Dolls, and it can’t shrink her so Jolyne has to enact her plan to escape by sneaking into a restricted area and deactivating the locks. Once she’s in there she rapidly starts to return to her normal size, so after distracting the guards away from the sounds of ripping rat skin via weaponised hot coffee she bolts, only for Goo Goo Dolls itself to attack her with its razor sharp claws. Things aren’t looking good, but Jolyne’s stand takes on a humanoid form and clobbers GGD, holding it hostage so Gwess will help Jolyne escape from a tight spot she squeezed into. She’s still sneaky though; spurned by her pet rat rejecting her, she causes Jolyne to almost be killed as an escapee, but our heroine turns the tables by having her stand, which is made out of tightly wound string, separate just enough to get through the security mesh and ORAORAORA the shit out of Gwess’ face. She names her stand Stone Free, in honour of her plan to be free of this “Ocean of stones” or, indeed, Stone Ocean. Title drop! Nice. The real Stardust Crusaders were the friends we made along the way. The episode ends with some starting news: Ermes was the one who sold the pendant to Gwess, meaning she almost certainly has a stand too.
I said it in the recap but I love that this is the first thing that happens to Jolyne; the closest she got to a warm up was de-earing that guard, now she’s got to deal with a full-on mad woman who’s shrunk her to the size of a rat. Liked the brief piano rendition of Jotaro’s theme at the end when Jolyne’s looking at her parents’ picture. The OP is good, it’s got a lot of energy to it and sets the tone without having to reference key scenes too closely, or indeed spoil anything; it’s like Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town in that regard. Good episode, really enjoying this adaptation so far.
Episode 3: The Visitor Part 1
Jolyne endeavours to learn more about the prison, since she can’t escape just yet: Stone Free loses strength the further it stretches, and even at its strongest the most it can do is bend a coin in half, which is pretty good going I’d say. I like also how its maximum range when it’s in its bundled up humanoid form is two metres, which is the new “Each JoJo is 1.85 metres tall” from the first few parts. Gwess, having been punched into a friendlier, more subservient attitude warns Jolyne that by lending a dollar to another inmate using a payphone, she’s on the fast track to becoming a perpetual victim dolling money out left and right. When said inmate tries to fob Jolyne off, and has the temerity to ask for more, Jolyne deals with her by POISONING HER BY PUTTING PART OF A GROUND UP COIN IN HER COFFEE. She’s a noble JoJo, but she’s got an edge to her for sure. She does this and holes up in the bathroom, resulting in her mark buying the time off her for a cool ten bucks. Reputation and status established, and she gives advice to an inmate people constantly extort money from in an effort to help her achieve the same outcome. Good stuff.
She’s about to leave when a mysterious little boy in a baseball kit turns up and tells her that she’ll have a visitor tomorrow, and she absolutely must not meet them. The next day arrives and so does her visitor; unable to persuade Jolyne from meeting with who she’s sure is her mother, the baseball boy gives her a bone. Presumably that’ll come in handy later. The visitor is Jotaro, who’s looking pretty young, I must say. I know he’s not as old, but blimey poor Joseph got the short end of the stick. Jotaro’s been a teenager for decades now. He’s here to break Jolyne out before she’s killed by a hitman called Johngalli A; a blind, stand-using sniper and devoted follower of DIO who set up everything to do with Jolyne being thrown in the slammer: the victim, the lawyer, the trial, everything. Said stand takes the form of a small, flying object that seemingly locates its victims through changes in air pressure, and kills a guard as well as injuring Jotaro when he steps in to protect Jolyne from said guard, who was planning to beat her to death for clobbering him in an attempt to be taken back to her cell. Jotaro’s down, and while the stand has been located, the question of how Johngalli A can attack them when he’s in the separate men’s prison remains unanswered.
He’s my least favourite JoJo, but it’s nice to see Jotaro again. I love him, as I love them all, he’s just at the bottom of the list. I like that he’s a marine biologist who wears a coat with “JOJO JOJO JOJO JOJO” written on the sleeves like he’s a less inventive Garcia Hotspur, I like that his hair has become purple to match his new purple hat, and I like that he stepped in to protect Jolyne despite their relationship being rocky at best. That’s to be expected of Jotaro though, he’s not exactly open with his feelings. Elsewhere I liked Jolyne’s cold blooded coin poison manoeuvre, and I love the flashback to a 14 year old her (who looks fucking radical by the way, dig the big butterfly) where someone dressed like her dad walks up then shows his face and it isn’t him, as if anyone on earth dresses like Jotaro Kujo. The prison is a really interesting setting that feels unique, too; it has its own restrictions and dangers alongside the obvious stand users, and has a built in reason for people to be aggressive towards Jolyne, because there’s all sorts of people in there. Good stuff.
Episode 4: The Visitor Part 2
Jotaro’s wounded, but he’s still in this. Johngalli A knows a whole lot about air currents and how they, and different temperatures, affect the body, something he uses to his advantage when sniping, alongside his stand Manhattan Transfer. He fires from a windowsill in the men’s prison at his stand, and the bullets ricochet towards his actual target. Also despite being blind, he’s very perceptive of the world around him, something that was hinted at in the last episode when he moved his shoe to catch a falling ten dollar bill, and reinforced here when he predicts the flight path of a fly and pins it to the ground with an empty shell casing. Jolyne sets off the sprinkler in an attempt to disorientate Manhattan Transfer, but Jotaro points out that its seemingly erratic movement is actually it dodging every water drop; using the change in air pressure the release of each drop creates. The baseball boy tells Jolyne to kick the base of a nearby pillar which reveals a secret passage Jotaro insists they take, but Jolyne has other plans; Johngalli A will go after the boy for helping her, and she’s having none of that. She follows him through a tunnel behind a fire hydrant, and encounters him having seemingly escaped into a water pipe, only for Manhattan Transfer to de-couple two sections of it and leave him vulnerable. She seemingly leaves herself wide open to attack while throwing a string net over Manttan, but she actually set a trap; breaking a gas pipe to affect the air in the room and throw JA off his aim, then smash MT and take its user out of the game. Well, not quite, because he’s somehow made his way to where Jolyne is. It’s okay though, because Jotaro swiftly sets him on fire. Good stuff. Something’s amiss though; Jotaro didn’t see the little boy…and he doesn’t know who Johngalli A is…and his and Jolyne’s wounds have both vanished…and JA is actually that prison guard from before, and he’s melting now? That can’t be right. Jotaro’s melting too…IT’S THOSE RATS FROM PART 4! No, wait, they’re dead, this is something else. She and Jotaro never left the visiting room; some cruel prankster trapped them in a dream and then covered them in goo. Everything that happened, Jolyne dreamt it, including Manhattan transfer. Jolyne likens it to being trapped by a python and slowly melted to the bone. A snake, then. A… Whitesnake, you could say. Anyway Jolyne cutting herself on the bone that the boy gave her managed to wake her up, but things aren’t looking good; she’s falling asleep again, and she can’t shoot her string out. She summons Stone Free as the episode ends.
I wasn’t a big fan of his when I read the manga, but having seen it play out in the anime, Johngalli A is an excellent antagonist for this specific setting. A sniper in an inaccessible location with the ability to target Jolyne and Jotaro, who’s using a rifle made of smuggled in parts. Jolyne again shows how noble she is by prioritising saving the boy, and I like the whole thing being a dream they’re experiencing as they’re slowly melted by acidic goo.
Episode 5: The Prisoner of Love
Jotaro goes through the same kind of dream but far shorter:
“Use Star Platinum to get us out of here!”
“How do you know it’s called Star Platinum?”
“0.0”
Jolyne manages to wake him up with her string, so it’s all good. They’re now back in the real world. Still dissolving, but dissolving in the real world. Jotaro has a plan to escape, Jolyne just needs to bring out Stone Free. Yes, there we go, now a little to the left aaaaand he has Star Platinum smack his daughter and her stand in the face then swing them round and hurl them into the lock, breaking it. They’re out, but a mysterious figure laments that they were able to escape its trap; that looks like trouble. Jotaro has a plan to escape to a Speedwagon Foundation submarine because even in death Speedwagon continues to be the best. Jolyne trips down some stairs and Jotaro makes sure to take the pendant out of her hand on the way down and not stop her falling or anything, then look like he’s offering her a hand up but not really because he’s a great dad. Real Gendo Ikari level father. No time for World’s Best Dad mugs, our pair are in trouble: Johngalli A is very much real and he’s here with a supressed pistol and Manhattan Transfer, looking as it did in Jotaro and Jolyne’s dreams. There’s also some slimy looking stand approaching from another angle; that’s what caused the dreams and dolled out the caustic goo. Johngalli A sends multiple shots Jolyne’s way, causing Jotaro to direct all his effort on stopping them. While I’m on the subject, timestop is getting ridiculous: regular human Jotaro can only stop time for two seconds and he spends ages standing around thinking about how their enemies have come for him and he needs to use timestop to save his daughter. The goo stand seizes the opportunity and removes two CD roms from Jotaro’s head while identifying itself as Whitesnake (you may remember my definitely subtle reference in the last episode), as Johngalli A lets loose another salvo that Stone Free does its best to counter. Jotaro can’t dodge them in time, because the discs Whitesnake stole contain his stand and his soul; he has a brief period with Jolyne during which he tells her she’s definitely a Joestar and she gives Johngalli A a decisive whooping, but after that Jolyne has to drag him to the submarine, and he seemingly dies. Jolyne chooses to stay, and tells the boy, who’s name is Emporio, that whoever stole her dad’s soul and stand fled INTO the prison, not out of it. So she’s going to stay, find them, and get her dad’s discs back. The episode ends with Whitesnake finishing Johngalli A off with his own gun, as he’s the only one who knows who the stand’s user is.
This was the best episode so far: Whitesnake is great and I particularly enjoyed the ending, where Jolyne resolutely decides to stay in Dolphin Street and track down the bastard who stole her dad’s soul. It’s one of those JoJo episodes where the credits roll as the scenes unfold, like when DIO drains Joseph and Diavolo donuts Bucciarati and it was absolutely the right call: a powerful moment beautifully realised, and a great ending to both this episode and this initial little arc of episodes. A villain has emerged, Jolyne has a mission, and we’re re-entering the prison with a renewed purpose. My only issue, and it’s not a big one, is that I think Johngalli A should have stayed in the dream. He works better in his long-range capacity; him turning up with a suppressed pistol while Whitesnake is in play feels superfluous. That could have just been a regular guard running interference; they’ve already established that a prison break situation allows the use of firearm-based lethal force.
Episode 6: Ermes’ Stickers
After her breakout attempt, Jolyne’s had five years added to her sentence and is currently in the punishment ward. Meanwhile, Ermes is recovering in the infirmary, having passed out when her stand first manifested. She’s back in the story for about thirty seconds when some creep strokes her leg and steals some money she had stashed away. Fortunately she takes him out with her ability, which lets her place stickers on objects that duplicates them, and removing the sticker causes the two to rush back towards each other and re-combine into one, albeit with some damage. She clatters him with two brooms desperate to be one broom, and takes one of his Whitesnake discs, not knowing what it does. Side note; I like the sound design when the discs are sticking out; a heavy heartbeat sound with fleshy undertones. It makes the whole thing feel pretty drastic, like although they take the form of CDs, they’re still an integral part of that person’s body. We learn two new facts about them too: they replay memories of their hosts on their surface, and they will try and forcibly insert themselves into whomever is holding them, as Ermes finds out the hard way. The guy who stole her money is a janitor inmate with extreme suicidal tendencies and a stand that makes them someone else’s problem: Highway to Hell. Whenever McQueen tries to kill himself, the exact same effect occurs on Ermes, something she narrowly avoids thanks to her stickers. Emporio runs into her fills her in on stands and how their users are drawn to each other, as well as his and Jolyne’s mission to recover a certain soul from Whitesnake, but there’s no time for that now ’cause McQueen is slashing his arm to bits AND electrocuting himself. Thorough. It fails, but Emporio knows he’ll be looking for saline solution to up conductivity and finish the job, which, as a child who was born and has grown up in an American prison, I assume he knows because of capital punishment. The grim situation turns decidedly absurd when McQueen reveals his backstory: he’s in prison because he was cleaning a shotgun and it accidentally went off, killing a woman who had jumped from the building and just so happened to be passing his window. Ermes tries to talk him out of suicide by boisterously offering him her underwear, but undoes her work by saying that everyone looks forward to Saturdays- the day McQueen was arrested. She was doing well, too. She seemingly gets through to him by telling him that Whitesnake is just using him, and he’s being selfish by potentially killing her too…but in reality he’s just happy to be killing someone who was so sincere to him. It’s time for the direct approach: McQueen flips the switch, but Ermes just manages to slap a sticker on his face, which then burns off and takes him out with an unconventional headshot. It’s not all bad- Ermes knows where he stashed five grand, and now her and her stand Kiss are going to team up with Jolyne to stop Whitesnake.
Highway to Hell is an interesting stand; powerful and horrible, but can really only be used once unless it fails, and really needs someone with such deeply ingrained suicidal tendencies. Cool idea for a one-off encounter like this. The most interesting thing is the implication that Whitesnake’s user gave this particular stand to McQueen because he’s so suicidal, showing themselves to be cunning and unscrupulous. With the ending, I’m glad to see the pieces falling into place for Part 6’s JoJo team to band together and go after the villain.
Episode 7: There’s Six of Us!
Good news: Ermes put McQueen’s memory disc back in and it brought him back to life, so there’s hope for Jotaro yet. Bad news; there’s an amorphous blob monster living in a shed in the swamp on prison grounds. For some reason it kills a man who was trying to change a tractor’s tire. Ah well, that probably won’t be a problem later. Oh no, now the warden’s put together a volunteer search party to find that guy and his mate! Bollocks. Jolyne and Ermes are on the team, and they have to wear explosive bracelets called “Like a Virgin” because Araki-san is naming inanimate objects after musical things now too I guess. The team sets out with a guard on a quadbike; an arsehole who scares Ermes into thinking she’s going to blow up and tries to make her fall in alligator shite, though fortunately Jolyne saves her with Stone Free. Turns out Jolyne volunteered because McQueen’s memory disc revealed that Whitesnake’s keeping its disc collection in a tractor wheel, hence the bloke who tried to change it being slotted. Jolyne and Ermes find it, but they’re swiftly hit with two problems: the five person party has become a six person one without them noticing, and someone or something killed the guard. His body being too far away blows up a timid inmate called Atroe, and only her for some reason, you’d think they’d all go. Ermes protects Jolyne from a suspicious bucket only to pay the price when the bucket becomes sentient and drags her underwater. Oh no wait, it’s actually a group of sentient plankton monsters inside the bucket, who form up into a large, humanoid version and take Ermes hostage. Jolyne shows off that Joestar cunning by having Stone Free form a net for her to run along and stay out of the water, then tank a potentially devastating punch by unravelling her body into so much string that the plankton’s fist just goes into a big hole and misses anything vital. She and Ermes escape, as the creature won’t venture out onto water, and the episode ends with the two of them preparing to throw down with the remaining three inmates, unsure of who the user is.
I love seeing inventive uses for Stands like this. Star Platinum had other abilities like its incredible eyesight, but it mostly just punched things. Crazy Diamond had that cool ability to send a piece of a whole back towards that whole and use that to track people, and Gold Experience’s “Create life” power had some really neat applications, like roundabout (ha, accidental reference) healing and tracking. The best stands are the ones with a seemingly weird power that actually has lots of uses, and lets Araki-san show off all the cool ideas he came up with. Stone Free is one of those; it has the required punching power but the string has a multitude of uses. It seems so inocuous but in Jolyne’s hands it’s JoJos are smart people, let them show off how smart and cunning they are. As much as I like Star Platinum, it countering Timestop by just pulling its own Timestop out its arse was far less interesting than Jotaro coming up with ways to try and stay alive, like hiding manga under his shirt to stop knives, and the magnet trick to make DIO think he was able to move in frozen time. It’s not the ORAORAORA, it’s all the manoeuvring and mental fortitude it takes to get into position for the ORAORAORA, that’s what makes JoJo so good. The ORAORAORA is pretty good though, I won’t lie.
Episode 8: Foo Fighters
Trying to figure out who the user is is going nowhere, so Jolyne decides to just beat up anyone who isn’t herself or Ermes. Fortunately, that turns out to be the answer; they’re all meat puppets created by the plankton monster. Unfortunately, it’s now Jolyne and Ermes versus said plankton monster. It has a name, thank you very much, and it must insist you use it: Foo Fighters, a sentient being proud of his intellect. Also there is no stand user; he’s an independent stand brought about by Whitesnake’s user giving stand and memory discs to plankton. He enacts a two-pronged attack: he’s rushing off to retrieve the discs while the creature that attacked Jolyne and Ermes in the water tries to make off with the guard’s corpse. Ermes deals with the latter by severely dehydrating it and secures the corpse while Jolyne pegs it after Foo Fighters. Once back inside the shed, Jolyne launches her attack; have Stone Free rush at Foo Fighters then send string ’round the back while he’s distracted. It doesn’t work though; Foo isn’t distracted, and thanks to a broken hose tap it’s got no shortage of water. Except that wasn’t actually Jolyne’s plan; in reality she sent that string over to the tractor and started it; it’s currently travelling over thick, muddy ground that swiftly dries up Foo Fighters when he tries to run after the discs. Vanquished, Ermes goes to finish him but Jolyne stops her. She’s realised that Foo Fighters has no loyalty to Whitesnake, but was guarding the discs out of a sense of gratitude to them for its own existence. Jolyne asks Foo to keep guarding the discs, but to do it for her instead, and keep them away from Whitesnake. Jolyne and Ermes searches the discs, but so far they can only find Star Platinum and- oh hey, Atroe’s alive again, and now she’s far less timid and a lot more peppy. It’s Foo Fighters, having taken over her body to protect Jolyne. They’ll need to learn how to better pretend to be a human though, starting with drinking water out of a cup rather than lapping it off the floor. Also they reveal Atroe’s backstory: as a child she wanted to be kidnapped, so as an adult she kidnapped a child seemingly to vicariously live out that dream. F.F doesn’t know who Whitesnake’s user is, but they do have important intel: the discs stored here are ones said user can’t use, because no matter how strong a stand is, you need to be compatible with it to use it. They must keep the important ones elsewhere. Whoever Whitesnake’s user is clearly wants something in Jotaro’s memory. Speaking of which, the episode ends with us finally learning who that user is: the prison’s chaplain Father Pucci.
Best girl F.F is here, Pucci’s been revealed, and I remembered mid-episode why he wants Jotaro’s memory disc; everything’s coming up Milhouse. Good episode, looking forward to seeing the story play out following these new developments.
Episode 9: Debt Collector Marilyn Manson
A female inmate is asking Father Pucci for help with receiving early parole, but he’s far more interested in eating two cherries while keeping them in his mouth and not removing them from the stalks. He agrees to recommend her to the committee, but then smashes her head into his desk, revealing that she tried to steal his crucifix. It’s not a big deal though, he can use someone like her, so he gives her a stand. Her name’s Miraschon, and she interrupts Jolyne and F.F playing catch with the offer of a bet; one hundred dollars says they can’t take their game of catch up to one hundred. Jolyne initially wants nothing to do with it because she’s smart, but Ermes talks her ’round by reminding her that she’ll need to buy some phone time, and though F.F is currently looking after Jotaro’s disc, Jolyne will need to get it to the Speedwagon foundation at some point. They succeed, but Miraschon immediately ups the ante rather than paying: one thousand dollars says they can’t do another hundred. She’s suspicious, this one; she says it doesn’t have to be money, it can be anything valuable, and even the end of the inmates’ yard time doesn’t warrant stopping the bet for her. Ermes bribes a guard to get some extra time, and just manages to stay in the game with Kiss, but she knows she cheated, so in a way similar to Part 4’s The Lock, Miraschon’s stand appears: Marilyn Manson. It recovers the debt however it can; first with the money Ermes hides in her boobs, and then with her liver using its hook hands. Jolyne can’t let Ermes die having been dragged into her and Jotaro’s mess, so she gets involved and makes a new bet: one thousand throws. She’s going to be proactive about it: she and F.F will continue to throw the ball while running around the prison hunting for Miraschon. She nearly ends their game early by turning off the light as Jolyne throws, which is very clearly cheating, but F.F catches it with their head, bless them, and shoots projectiles from their finger into the gambler. Things are looking good until Miraschon uses a lift and then a paid-off guard to interrupt the game, and as Marilyn Manson moves in to take Jolyne’s organ and Jotaro’s disc it seems she’s lost the bet despite, again, clear cheating taking place. But no; Stone Free got hold of the baseball, the game is still alive and everything gets returned to everyone. All that’s left is to finish it off: how many throws was it? Eight Hundred? Nine Hundred? It’s a pain for Jolyne to count, so she’s just going to go with the full Thousand; rebounded off Miraschon’s face via Stone Free’s fists.
Remember back in Part 4 where Rohan played a literal life or death game of Rock, Paper, Scissors? This is that but in a game of catch. Tense, and purposefully annoying with Miraschon being a cheat, but satisfying when Jolyne shuts her down and turns her face into ground beef. Nice brief look at Pucci, I’m looking forward to seeing more of him, and I love F.F. I appreciate the pace that this adaptation is moving at; it’s keeping things nice and snappy.
Episode 10: Operation Savage Garden (Head to the Courtyard!) Part 1
What’s the difference between humans and animals? Humans seek heaven. That’s what makes them beautiful. Operation Savage Garden is go: Jolyne has twenty minutes to get Star Platinum’s disc to the courtyard connecting the male and female prisons so the Speedwagon foundation can retrieve it. Emporio, who’s now calling Jolyne “Big Sister” which is sweet, shows her how he hides within the prison. His stand Burning Down the House lets him exist in the ghostly memories of a room that burnt down when the prison caught fire years ago. There’s a mars bar and a glass of orange juice in there but while they do have a taste, he can’t actually consume them. He has two people with him; a pink haired man in a string top who immediately leaves, and best boy Weather Report, who has a white buffalo hat, sleeps in a piano, walks on his tip toes and is a TV guide fanatic but doesn’t watch television. Interesting tidbit about the pink haired man; in the manga he was originally depicted as a woman before Araki-san made him a man when he reappeared later. Here they’ve just started with his later design. Weather Report has no memory, presumably because Whitesnake stole it. His stand, also called Weather Report, can control the weather, but isn’t limited to actual outdoor weather and can summon meteorological phenomena inside. There’s one obstacle standing between our heroes and their goal: Lang Rangler and his stand Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which can force people into zero gravity. He subdues Jolyne and takes the disc; even Stone Free’s string is no help, but Weather Report manages to gain the upper hand against him in a fight, blocking the bolts he launches and setting him on fire with aerodynamic friction. It’s not just regular rain/sun/snow type weather he controls, it’s everything to do with it. Rangler cuts and runs as the emergency shutters come down, and Weather uses a combination of zero gravity and weather-based propulsion to launch himself and Jolyne after him. They’re one room away from the courtyard: they need to put Rangler down and get that disc into safe hands.
I said it earlier, but Weather Report is Part 6’s best boy. More of him to come; cool powers, cool character, look forward to it. I thought Lang Rangler’s brown suit, goggles and head piece that looks like Polnareff’s hair was his stand a la Secco from Part 5 but nope, his stand is separate. It’s at this point I feel the need to point out something I’ve had on my mind for multiple episodes now, which is that people in this prison can wear whatever the hell they want as long as it has G D ST. PRISON written on the back. Do they make outfit requests? Do they wear their normal clothes and the prison writes on the back of them? Jolyne wears a coat over her clothes and that’s what has the branding on, but everyone else wears unique clothing that has the prison’s name on it, it’s weird. McQueen was wearing what looked like a shirt made out of jeans. Weird. Anyway, Weather’s cool, Emporio’s a good kid.
Episode 11: Operation Savage Garden (Head to the Courtyard!) Part 2
Father Pucci’s come down to see what all the fuss is about with these emergency gates and what not. Simple curiosity, that’s all, but hey what’s this about a phone call made from the women’s prison? That sounds important, give me the recording for…Priest reasons. We get a bit of Pucci’s theme here; a sinister organ piece reminiscent of Diavolo’s pre-reveal theme but less overtly menacing and more subdued. I like it. Meanwhile, Jolyne and Weather are in zero gravity, and the former’s gotta piss real bad, though she dances around the subject. Weather explains that in zero-g the blood rushes to your head, and your kidneys work harder to deal with it by expelling excess salt through a diuretic effect. He went already, and he can just have his clouds absorb Jolyne’s piss, it’s fine. There’s a more pressing matter at hand though; having touched the air, the anti-gravity Jolyne has caused the air to take on that property and it’s rapidly losing all its oxygen. More pressing than that however, according to Weather Report, is that their blood will boil in twenty seconds. Fortunately, he has a solution: gather up all the remaining air in the room and make space suits for the two of them out of clouds. They’ve got two minutes of breathable air to put Lang Rangler down. Weather Report goes for what Jolyne identifies as the edge of Jumpin’ Jack Flash’s range, while Rangler launches nuts and bolts at him, which Jolyne reflects. He sneakily aims for a barrel, and the compressed air inside launches Weather back towards zero g where he’ll surely die. With some quick thinking and recklessness, Jolyne punctures her own suit and launches towards Weather to knock him back, but Rangler has an ace up his sleeve: two live rats launched at Jolyne, who when knocked back by Stone Free instead explode and cover her visor with blood, obscuring her vision. Rangler lands a killing blow with his construction based-attack, but Jolyne reveals she sent her strings down and linked them to his projectiles, and pulls him into the vacuum. Rangler reflects back on the crime that landed him here: stabbing a professor sixty nine times based on compulsion, a compulsion he feels here and now. He attacks Jolyne by causing a chemical reaction that makes oxygen in a bottle and expands it until the bottle breaks, rupturing her suit, but Weather transfers his suit over to her. Rangler deactivates Jumpin’ Jack Flash hoping the change in air pressure will let him escape, but instead it just pulls him towards Jolyne, who punches his face in with Stone Free. We’re so close we can taste it: Jolyne plans to trick a guard into opening the gate with Lang’s work permit, knock him out and go for her goal. It’ll earn her five more years on her sentence as well as six months in solitary, but she’s prepared for that. All that matters is getting that disc to the Speedwagon foundation. The episode ends as Jolyne prepares to knock out the guard opening the door, only to find out it’s not a guard at all, but Pucci.
Again, I appreciate the breezy pace being maintained with this adaptation. I’m not much into Lang Rangler, but I like Weather’s cloud suits and I’m fine with a less interesting stand user if it doesn’t drag on. When I read the manga there were encounters that did drag, and looking at the list of episodes to come they seem to be kept brief, which is definitely a plus. Focusing on the effects zero gravity has on the body was a good move rather than just dealing with the immediate impact it has on movement, aiming and the like. Trust Araki-san to go into detail with these things. Pucci’s theme is great, and I like seeing him in his cover as the kindly prison chaplain, above suspicion and definitely not the villain of the piece, no sir.
Episode 12: Torrential Downpour Warning
Pucci expresses the idea that there’s no such thing as unconditional love, and that doing kindness is to expect kindness in return, which seems oddly cynical for a priest. At any rate, he won’t sound the alarm, and he gives Jolyne one minute to do her courtyard business and return. He can’t reveal Whitesnake because someone (Weather Report, but Pucci doesn’t know that) is watching him, but he has a plan to handle Jolyne: a guard he had stationed in the courtyard plugs her twice in the midsection with a pistol. Definite advantages to being a JoJo villain operating in a prison. Pucci flashes back to 1988, when a sixteen year old him met a beautiful young man with the countenance of one who had lived for centuries, with claims that he could stop time, and heralded by the glorious return of “Dark Rebirth” on the soundtrack. You know him, you love him, it’s DIO. He had a plan to “Reach Heaven” and achieve true happiness, but never got to tell it to Pucci; Jotaro got to him and killed him first. He wrote it all down in a notebook that Jotaro read and then burned, and that’s why Pucci needs his memory. He’s more than just a follower of DIO: he’s his friend (possibly even more than that, it’s up for debate), and he’s going to carry out his friend’s plan whilst taking revenge on the family that did him in. Things aren’t looking great for Jolyne, but Weather Report has one last ditch attempt to keep the disc, and her if possible, safe: use a tornado to gather up and drop a rain of poison dart frogs onto the courtyard. The guard takes enough poison to kill a cement mixer, Jolyne narrowly avoids them with a thread cover made by Stone Free, while Pucci is trapped in a corridor with his card key on the floor and covered in dead frogs. He begins naming prime numbers starting from one, as the strength they convey through the division properties keeps him calm. A cowardly guard runs off to get help instead of letting Pucci through, so he discs a frog and orders it to explode in the guard’s face, showing off the extent of Whitesnake’s powers of control. The now blind guard lets him through, and he strolls leisurely past him, ignoring his pleas for help as his theme swells and adds ominous chimes. Cold blooded. Jolyne plays possum with a net made of tied together live frogs, waits for Whitesnake to find the disc then snatches it off him and hands it over to Savage Garden, who turns out to be a carrier pigeon. Whitesnake goes to shoot it, but the guard fired all his bullets. He’s about to kill Jolyne when more prisoners turn up, so he decides it’s best to call it a day. Jolyne tries to find out the user’s identity with her string but Pucci notices and severs it, confident that, as he still has the memory disc, he’s still on the front foot and things are going his way. The episode ends with Pucci asking a prisoner called Sports Maxx to use his ability on one of DIO’s bones. His stand’s really neat, we’ll see that next episode.
Well, all things considered, I’d call that a win. Pucci still has the memory disc, but Jolyne’s managed to gain some ground, and she’s half way to getting her dad back. I think Whitesnake is really interesting: it’s made clear here that when it talks it’s not just Pucci talking through it, like Diavolo does with King Crimson, but Whitesnake voicing his own thoughts and opinions as a separate being. On the topic of Pucci’s now-revealed motivation: DIO looks superb in this art style. I like the slimmer, prettier version here over the bulky Part 3 look, especially in the anime with everyone’s weird shoulders. I like how Pucci calls him “Dio” rather than “DIO”, because he knows the man, not the larger than life personality. He’s not Lord DIO, he’s his friend Dio Brando, a name not used since back in Phantom Blood. The frog rain is one scene I was really looking forward to, and they did a great job with it.
Episode 13: Kiss of Love and Revenge Part 1
The episode starts with Jolyne, under suspicion of murdering another inmate, being taken to the ultra security house unit, where her presence sets off the manic, baying male population, one of whom throws shit in her face. This seems like an unsafe environment, but Jolyne’s got something she needs to do here, insect-infested bread be damned. No new OP, but the existing one does change a little: now instead of walking away from Jotaro towards the prison gate she tentatively listens to his heart through his back, then wraps her arms around his neck in an embrace. The shot at the end of the island now has frogs falling towards it and Savage Garden flying away from it. Small changes, but meaningful ones. Back before Jolyne got sent to an even smaller prison, F.F is trying to change themself to make the other inmates accept them. They attempt this by doing the exact opposite of what they would normally, or indeed want, to do. Cofee? Tea instead. Bread? Rice instead. Eating with her dominant hand? Nope, the other one. What’s the opposite of pork? Salmon, because it spends its life swimming upstream while pigs lay around in mud all day. They even do the opposite of stopping people cutting ahead of them in the queue, which is grabbing people and making them go ahead of them. Ermes hasn’t been around lately because she’s been tailing Sports Maxx looking for the right opportunity to kill him in revenge for her sister. Ermes was inadvertently at the scene of a brutal murder committed by Sports, so her sister Gloria called the police to keep her safe. She was killed in retaliation and all evidence was destroyed, leading to Sports Maxx getting five years for assault and tax evasion. Ermes robbed that petrol station to get close to him, and here we are. Her plan is brutal, swift and efficient; trap Sports Maxx in a waste water pipe by opening and closing it with Kiss then turning on the water, drowning him. Unfortunately once he’s in the pipe he activates his stand Limp Bizkit which, and I hope you’re sitting down, turns things into INVISIBLE ZOMBIES. Sweet Jesus. A bird and an alligator he taxidermised earlier attack Ermes and are surprisingly effective; the bird takes one of her fingers off before she stops it. Jolyne and F.F arrive to see what’s going on and the alligator takes one of F.F’s legs off. Jolyne has Stone Free cover it in F.F’s blood, so as the episode ends they’re on slightly better footing at least.
This stand is far too cool to be called Limp Bizkit, holy shit. Invisible zombies, where the hell did Pucci find that one? Sports Maxx is a piece of shit and I’m glad Ermes deals with him so swiftly. Quick note: if someone’s beating you up and/or means you harm and they tell you to open your mouth, or put something in your mouth, don’t do it. I feel like that should be obvious but apparently not to the guy Sports Maxx killed, or indeed that guy from American History X. Whatever they have planned for your mouth isn’t going to be good. Young Ermes looked really cool, she has a strong look in general, I dig it. I loved F.F’s strange but oddly logical approach vis a vis doing the opposites of things, and I realised I haven’t actually said this yet, so: Limp Bizkit is one of this part’s coolest stands. It’s completely out of left field and it’s awesome.
Episode 14: Kiss of Love and Revenge Part 2
Jolyne creates a web of interconnected strings to feel for any movement by the alligator, which is once again completely invisible despite the blood. It’s walking on the wall, and takes a big bite out of Jolyne’s shoulder. F.F gets into the fight in retaliation for it eating their leg and swiftly takes it out by shoving their hand into its mouth, turning their finger into a plankton gun and filling it full of holes. Badass. They also show off the strength of their healing abilities mentioned in the previous episode; they can use plankton to seal wounds and even re-attach Ermes’ finger. Quite how that works I don’t know, but I’ll roll with it. “She’s a bitch type. What was her name? I can’t recall, I’ll just call her bitch”. Real classy. Bad news: classy gentleman Sports Maxx has escaped the pipe. He tries to pick up a sex worker but he can’t because he actually died in the pipe and his stand has turned him into an invisible zombie, who’s also completely inaudible. It leads to a darkly funny scene where he thinks he’s helping the sex worker rob another inmate who touched her without paying (in reality it was Sports Maxx), moving him around and taking his trousers off looking for cash, to the sex worker’s confusion at a man who actually is willing to pay her, and wants to do some sort of naked sexy breakdance? He’s doing a sort of handstand and wiggling his legs gently; it’s not clear, and she’s not into it. Maxx shoots up some gak the poor bugger had on him, but his body rejecting it and sewage seeping out through several holes confirms to him that he is indeed undead. Poor sex worker gets chomped on, bless her. Jolyne and Ermes catch up, but they’re in over their heads; they’re in the prison graveyard, which is now full of invisible zombie prisoners. Jolyne suggests they back down but Ermes refuses: nothing is going to help her except getting revenge. She seems to be on the back foot, but uses Kiss’ stickers to locate Sports Maxx but having him bite an extra head she makes then track him using the piece of flesh returning to her actual head, from his stomach, when the sticker is removed. He attempts to escape again, but she made a duplicate of his head: she removes the sticker, and as she’s holding the head in place he can’t help but rush towards it, and into Kiss’ fists. Sports Maxx is dead. Again. Gloria is avenged; a golden, ghostly apparition of her swoops down and embraces her sister. Ermes is crying, and wants to just cry next to Jolyne but she may not have the time, she says as she collapses. Bless her. The episode ends with a partial repeat of Jolyne being taken to the USHU: the sex worker is the inmate she’s been accused of killing, and having read Sports Maxx’s disc, Jolyne knows what she needs to do.
This was Ermes’ episode, and it ruled. A defiantly straight forward march into the literal jaws of hell, or in this case invisible zombies, to quell the immense sorrow and grief she feels and put down the piece of shit who murdered her sister. Or more accurately, had her sister murdered while he watched, because he won’t get his hands dirty. A very raw emotional moment from a part that’s had quite a few easy going moments, all that Jotaro stuff aside, and it was pulled off beautifully. Also the potential silliness of invisible zombies, cool as they are, didn’t detract from it. Finally, the bit with the sex worker trying to figure out what her unconscious john was requesting was delightful. Good stuff.
Episode 15: Ultra Security House Unit
So why is Jolyne in the USHU? Well, Whitesnake had Sports Maxx use Limp Bizkit on DIO’s last remaining bone, hoping to revive it. It did come to life, but then tore a chunk out of Whitesnake’s hand and fled; Pucci is content to leave it be for now and simply watch it’s movements. Sports Maxx could feel its presence in the USHU, so that’s where Jolyne’s got to go. F.F’s desperate to help, so she turns to her only remaining ally who isn’t wounded or a child: the other man in Emprio’s ghost room Narciso Anasui. Anasui is the type who won’t help anyone out with anything, and is in prison for murdering his girlfriend and the man she was cheating with. F.F considers coercing him with their Foo Fighters gun, but they can’t even visualise what that would look like, nor do they know where they’d shoot him. It’s rendered moot when Anasui agrees to help, because he’s in love with Jolyne and wants to protect her. If he protects her through to the end then he’ll marry her- F.F’s blessing is his condition for helping them out. His stand Diver Down kicks a security door, then when armed guards come running its leg suddenly appears from the boot mark and takes them all down. Back in the 80s Pucci asks DIO what the weakest stand he’s ever encountered is, and while he states that each has their own strengths and it’s all perspective and that kind of thing, he admits that the worst he’s seen is Survivor. Basically it sends out a small electrical signal that enters people’s brains and makes them angry enough to fight each other. No direct control, no defensive or offensive capability, it can’t tell friend from foe, it just makes people mad and they fight to the death. DIO thinks it’s a load of old bollocks, but Pucci takes it off his hands because hey, you never know. He manages to make surprisingly good use of it: he sent multiple stand users to the USHU, and uses Survivor to get two guards locked in a brutal fight; flesh gouged and bones snapped. The one who survives opens the cells and declares a fight club; he’s going to take them all on in glorious, blood-soaked battle.
I don’t remember a lot about Anasui so I’m eager to see more of him and his stand. I love DIO and Pucci just sitting around having conversations with each other- in this one DIO is putting together a little model ship while they talk. It’s a side to DIO that’s gone unseen; charismatic and philosophical, it makes sense why so many people chose to follow him. I’d be interested in seeing what DIO was doing Part 3 before the Crusaders got to his mansion- sitting around reading, philosophising, formulating his plan to achieve heaven. As much as I love DIO/Dio hamming it up, WRYYY-ing and declaring himself all powerful, I’m really intrigued by these quiet moments with a dear friend.
Episode 16: The Secret of Guard Westwood
Survivor’s affecting everyone in the room, including Jolyne though she manages to overcome it and focus on the task at hand: the bone. Unfortunately, Westwood (the guard who won his fight) comes at her with inhuman speed, agility and ferocity. He has a stand, one that takes a big chunk out of Jolyne’s arm, but she can’t see it yet, and even with its power Jolyne puts him down with a mix of her string, throwing her coat over his head and quick thinking, as well as her own speed, agility and sweet kicks. She goes in for the kill but a similar chunk is blown out of her leg; his stand Planet Waves draws meteorites entering Earth’s atmosphere towards him, which he can use to attack others. He has Jolyne in a nasty chokehold and things are looking bad; she sends her string into his head and ruptures his eardrum, but before we see how that goes it cuts back to Anasui. He can use Diver Down’s arms and legs protruding from walls as foot holds to climb around, and after F.F reminds him that they’re in charge, he reminds them that he’s going to marry Jolyne, which really isn’t anything to do with F.F and they’re understandably confused about the whole thing. Back in the path of the meteorites Jolyne yanks on the string and breaks free, but not without taking a space rock to the flank. Westwood grabs her again, and this time she uses her string to rip his toenail off and pull his skin upwards Black Swan-style, it’s brutal. Stone Free tries to punch the meteorites away but it just tears the flesh from her knuckles: Jolyne’s in a bad way, and the meteorites burn up before they get to Westwood, so she can’t use them against him. She spots someone running off with the bone, so she’s got to finish this fight quickly; she manages to stealthily remove Westwood’s boot when he kicks her, then uses it to block an incoming meteorite and send the now flaming boot into his face. She’s going to keep looking to the stars. She points to her Joestar birthmark and yells “MATCH OVER!” as the episode ends.
This is the best fight so far; a brutal, bloody showcase of Jolyne’s sheer willpower, as well as martial prowess and ability to take a licking and keep on ticking. The combination of hand to hand fighting and stand-based projectiles from Westwood is potent and wears Jolyne down, but she wins with a mixture of toughness and that all important JoJo intelligence. Superb.
Episode 17: Burn, Dragon’s Dream
Right then, here we go: my least favourite arc in all of Stone Ocean. Everyone else in the USHU is down and weirdly bloated like they’ve been dead and floating in water for days, and there are two people left standing. One of them is part of my least favourite arc, the other’s arc I remember liking more but still not being a big fan of by any means. First up is Kenzo; a seventy eight year old man who drinks his own piss. Jolyne shows off a few “Fuck you” gestures from other countries (including Naples, where Giorno’s from), and fortunately F.F and Anasui arrive to help. Basically Kenzo’s a martial artist who hits people in such a way that makes them drown, and his stand Dragon’s Dream is a compass that points out the optimal angle of attack using Feng Shui. He can also break off his arm in the dragon’s mouth and launch it like a projectile, then re-attach it. According to Anasui he’s been in prison since he was thirty seven: he lead a cult and when the FBI got too close he did a Jonestown, only with fire. He miraculously survived when a wall fell on him, and now he’s here grinding Stone Ocean to a halt. F.F’s handling the fighting while Jolyne and Anasui stand around and the latter explains what Kenzo’s whole deal is. The fight is just Kenzo trying to attack from the right angle and F.F tanking it until the end of the episode, where a flying piece of metal takes the top of their head off.
I said at the start of this article that Stone Ocean is hit and miss with stands, and this is the biggest miss. It’s not dragging like the manga version did but I’ll be brutally honest: this is shit. The only remotely interesting thing about it is that Dragon’s Dream is helping out F.F by giving them information about the situation and Kenzo, because it feels like Feng Shui should be available to everyone and it isn’t Kenzo’s henchman. That’s it.
Episode 18: Burn, Foo Fighters
Okay so I’m rapidly losing the will to live but let’s go. F.F manages to wound Kenzo with their gun, then deliberately has Dragon’s Dream sever their arms so they can fit in the hose pipe from three episodes ago, but Kenzo stops them. They fall downstairs and Feng Shui causes a series of miraculous events that gets the electric chair ready to go, which F.F happens to fall on to. Despite their struggling, magic Feng Shui manages to keep returning them to the chair, and it fries them. Fortunately F.F managed to enact their plan to make a water mirror (out of Kenzo’s sweat) and trick Kenzo into standing in an unlucky spot, at which point they grab him and fry him through contact. Anasui’s all ready to move on, but Jolyne instead throws herself down the stairs, bouncing off the railings on the way down because I guess walking would be too slow? Turns out Kenzo’s still alive so Jolyne tries to kill him with a pointed mass of string, but he dodges because he hates me and wants to draw this out. Jolyne rescues F.F by putting some plankton they jettisoned back in their mouth, and Anasui deals with Kenzo once and for all by using Diver Down to rearrange the bones in his legs to turn them into big turkey twizzler looking springs. He hops around the place helplessly and I have to ask: MOTHERFUCKER WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT TO START WITH? Could have been over in seconds.
So yeah, the anime version is also bad, turns out.
Episode 19: Birth of the “Green”
(Grunkle Stan voice) We’re safe now, kids. We’re safe. Tenzo’s dead and he can’t bother us anymore. Elsewhere, it turns out Jotaro literally needs his memory back to live, because with no memories his body sees no reason to go on and is rapidly atrophying. Having regained his stand disc Star Platinum lashes out at anyone who tries to touch his head, as one of his doctors very nearly finds out the hard way. In doing so, Jotaro’s arm is cut up in a way that spells JOLYNE. The same cuts somehow appear on Jolyne’s arm, and she reflects on how her dad has always been away because he’s been fighting dangerous people and keeping them away from her and her mum. Which is true, but I’d also like to point out that at one point instead of dealing with a serial killer he spent all his time looking at starfish, resulting in the death of a child. But he got him in the end, so every cloud. Anasui makes F.F trip Jolyne so he can catch her and embrace her, something they correctly point out is sexual harassment, but does so anyway because they gave their word that Anasui will marry Jolyne, which again isn’t anything to do with F.F. It doesn’t work, and there’s an abrupt tonal shift when Jolyne relocates the small man carrying DIO’s bone and accidentally pulls the skin off his arm. The bone is making him go through a whole lot of body horror: bulging spine that lengthens and makes him taller, a tree growing out his mouth at the expense of his jaw and all his teeth, and his eye turning into a flower. Finally, mercifully, the back of his head explodes. Every other inmate other than one who avoided all the conflict has gone the same way; trees growing out of their faces. Jolyne discovers one of them is incubating a green baby with a Joestar birthmark on its shoulder, but more pressingly she is also infected, having touched the bone. She isn’t growing plants out of her as much as she herself is turning into a plant, and its accelerated by direct sunlight. The trio escape, stopping briefly so Anasui can turn a rather unfortunate looking man named Guccio in to human trap, that springs when another stand user called D and G touches him. Guccio’s ribs come out his back like teeth and take a huge chunk of flesh out of D and G’s forearm, it’s gnarly. Jolyne’s no longer turning into a flower and took the baby with her, but it gets swallowed by D and G’s stand; an automatic, masochistic, sycophantic little green guy called Yo-Yo Ma. He makes Jolyne a chair from sticks, licks her boots clean, gives her a manga he swiped and then grabs and eats a bee that was flying near her, and then F.F just shoots him in the head because they’re sick of his bullshit already and so am I. This is the other bad enemy stand, and unfortunately it comes right after the last one. Off-screen he blew part of F.F’s jaw off, and the game going forward is thus: Yo-Yo Ma will act like Jolyne and Anasui’s servant; doing things for them and providing them with useful and superfluous information and trivia while waiting for a chance to strike.
So we’re onto the next bad arc, but that double helping of body horror was cool. The green baby is the next step in the heaven plan, but that’ll have to wait for now. I don’t remember how long this Yo-Yo Ma business goes on for but I’m hoping it doesn’t drag.
Episode 20: F.F. – The Witness
I was wondering why F.F didn’t go with Jolyne and Anasui, and it’s because they’ve been tasked with putting down D and G. Also what damaged their jaw was Yo-Yo Ma’s spit, so that’s what they’ve got to look out for. Also I misread the situation before: what stopped was the plants blooming out of Jolyne’s skin, it’s unclear if she’s safe yet. Yo-Yo Ma releases insects from his mouth that bite Jolyne, and despite turning off their airboat and applying camouflage, it’s all for naught when searching guards blow said camouflage off with their boat’s fan. Anasui deals with them and pleasingly, Yo-Yo Ma gets hurt in the process. Their plan is to keep moving East, away from the sun, while waiting for an opportunity to get the green baby’s incubator dealie out of Yo-Yo Man’s stomach. The insect that bit Jolyne has riddled her tongue with holes, leaving her unable to speak. Her attempts to make Anasui aware of the situation fall hilariously flat as he thinks she wants him to kiss her, and interprets her exasperation conveyed through uppercutting him in the jaw and repeatedly wrenching his head in different directions as a kink, and her being particular about her kissing angle. Jolyne’s wounds grow in number and she’s out of commission, so Anasui steps in. He tries and fails to figure out what’s going on; it turns out it is Yo-Yo Ma’s spit that’s doing the damage, but it’s all rendered moot when Anasui uses Diver Down to put a frog in Ma’s head and wire it into his brain, so any attempts to follow his mission are disrupted by thoughts of eating beetles, chasing female frogs and hiding from birds. Back in the USHU, F.F’s looking for the right opportunity to kill D and G, and an ecstatic Pucci uses Whitesnake to take a music CD he just happens to carry around and put it in Guccio’s head, playing Handel’s “Messiah” out loud like a stereo. It’s a delightful mix of gore and silliness, as the shattered, near-death Guccio acts like a human speaker and Pucci closes his eyes, raises his hands and lets the music wash over him. F.F is in position and ready to kill D and G, but Pucci wants to hear first hand about DIO’s bone creating the plants, so he reveals himself to F.F, ready for confrontation as the episode ends.
I wrote a few episodes again that I remembered liking this arc more than Dragon’s Dream but still not liking it, and I feel the same way now. It had more going for it though: I like Anasui’s simple, direct solution to the Yo-Yo Ma problem with Diver Down, the scene with him thinking Jolyne wants to kiss him was great, and Pucci’s on the scene again, which is always a plus. I love his hiding in plain sight plan; it’s reminiscent of Yoshikage Kira’s quiet life but he’s pulling strings, being a proactive part of the plot and placing himself in a potentially dangerous place. It’s nice to relive Part 6, because while I have read it I feel like I don’t know it’s characters that well, apart from generally liking them, particularly Weather and F.F, as I’ve said. It’s made me love Jolyne, and I’m really enjoying Pucci as a villain.
Episode 21: AWAKEN
F.F manages to kill D and G, but at the cost of blowing Atroe’s brains out and having to slip away in a new plankton/Atroe hybrid form. They stall for time and keep Pucci talking, as he wants to know their opinions on what was born of DIO’s bone; something that won’t be found in the memory disc. Their detached lower half manages to slip out and get to a faucet, only for Pucci to reveal that he had Whitesnake slip a stand disc into them; one that boils any water it touches. The boiling water is F.F’s body, and it explodes into pieces that then disintegrate. Back in the marshlands, the green baby has hatched, and is getting on with some important crawling that Jolyne rudely tries to interrupt. The baby’s stand Green, Green Grass of Home won’t let her however, and unleashes it’s power: anything moving towards the baby constantly shrinks. Anything moving away from it enlarges. Jolyne can’t even jump from a plant onto the baby; the concept of “I’ve got to hit the ground eventually” is overruled by Green, Green Grass of Home. That’s a really powerful stand, and an ideal one for an otherwise defenceless baby that people will be trying to move towards and grab hold of. It does have one weakness however: anything the baby touches stays the same size, which Anasui uses to trap the stand in a glass bottle. Despite being a baby it shows deceptive intelligence; rolling the glass bottle forwards until it traps Anasui under it, forcing Jolyne to choose between letting him be crushed and smashing the bottle, resuming the battle with Green, Green Grass of Home. Fortunately the baby takes a third option: it touches them both and returns them to normal size because it’s fascinated with Jolyne’s star-shaped birthmark. Anasui knows they need the baby to get to Whitesnake, but vows to kill it when he can, sensing only darkness from its ability.
So Netflix spoils this in its episode description but I knew anyway: F.F isn’t dead, so don’t worry. That would have been a brutal way for them to go out; completely failing in their objective to help Jolyne one last time. After two crap stands in a row, the Green Baby and Green, Green Grass of home are a breath of fresh air. I like the baby, I think its neat. Its stand is a unique power that’s potentially unbeatable, and we’ll see how Pucci plans to get around that soon enough. Good episode this; we’re back on track.
Episode 22: Time for Heaven! New Moon! New Priest!
Excellent title, that. The episode opens with DIO (who’s shirtless) and Pucci lounging around on a bed, talking about art works in the louvre and boys and that kind of thing, when suddenly DIO kills the mood by grabbing Pucci’s hand and asking him if he’ll betray him one day. Pucci knows DIO can’t go out in the sun, so all he does to do is come in during the day and take The World with Whitesnake, so why doesn’t he? Do it you coward. Nah, Pucci’s not into it; he loves DIO like he loves God, although he does eject and then immediately re-insert one of DIO’s discs. DIO tells Pucci that he can calm his soul just by talking to him, and that he feared losing him. It’s weird, but in a good way, hearing DIO talk this way to anyone. Also we get a good look at his sweet Mullet. Finally it’s revealed that the bone Pucci has wasn’t recovered, DIO gave it to him; no matter where Pucci is, DIO will always be able to lend him his powers. Back in the present, Weather Report saves F.F’s bacon by causing a downpour, and they communicate through a radio via Morse asking for a fog smoke screen that covers their escape, and they tell Weather that Whitesnake’s user is Father Pucci. Whitesnake, mate, you look like a right twat. F.F and weather catch up to Jolyne and Anasui, and F.F somehow manages to heal the former’s eye, damaged by Yo-Yo Ma’s corrosive spit. Jolyne and Weather hug, which annoys Anasui and I’m all for that. Anasui is eager to kill the Green Baby, but keeps asking for permission for some reason, which is enough time for Weather Report to reveal that he’s actually Whitesnake in disguise somehow, didn’t know he could do that. He swiftly neutralises all three heroes, and Pucci steps out to further the heaven plan: he now has DIO’s bone filled with the souls of thirty six of the worst prisoners. He’s a smart villain, so before he gets started he goes to finish off Jolyne, but she’s one step ahead of him and turns Stone Free’s strings into a pair of handcuffs attaching them both together, which is stretching it a bit (no pun intended) but fine, I’ll go with it. She and Pucci have a cool “Handcuff deathmatch” in the priest’s words; he’s not phased by the handcuffs and she’s been wearing them every day now, and though she’s the better fighter and has the stronger stand, he puts up a good fight, including hiding a crucifix under his nail for a holy sneak attack. Pucci needs an out, fast, before Stone Free beats him to a pulp, and he has one: throw Jotaro’s memory disc into the dying Anasui, where the disc will perish alongside him. Jolyne of course chooses the disc. Free from the handcuffs, Pucci recites a string of fourteen words and phraess that pass by Green, Green Grass of Home’s defences: Spiral Staircase. Rhinoceros Beetle. Desolation Row. Fig Tart. Rhinoceros Beetle. Via Dolorosa. Rhinoceros Beetle. Singularity Point. Giotto. Angel. Hydrangea. Rhinoceros Beetle. Singularity Point. Secret Emperor. The Green Baby starts to fuse with Pucci and pulls him into the grass. Meanwhile, Anasui tries to send a trail of his blood over to F.F so they can take over his body and eject the disc. They do just enough to help him eject the now damaged disc, but doesn’t take over his body, electing instead to die on their own terms. Their biggest fear was losing the mental urge to say goodbye to their friends, because their most prized possession is their intellect. They’re content this way, because at least they retain their intellect enough to bid Jolyne farewell as their Bucciarati-style golden cloud spirit ascends to heaven. Jolyne insists she can recover the Foo Fighters disc, but F.F says that wouldn’t be them, it’d be a different version. This is goodbye, Jolyne.
This is the lowest point, at least so far: F.F is dead, Anasui is gravely wounded (Although he’s an unlikable arsehole he’s a powerful ally) and Pucci’s got exactly what he wanted. F.F’s death was bittersweet; they’re dead, but they got the death they wanted, and they were content with having existed and lived a life with fond memories of their friends. The handcuff standoff in a moonlight field between Jolyne and Pucci was cool; it was nice to see them finally face off. While I’m on the subject, those fourteen words take ages to say in All Star Battle R. Pucci pulls the baby out of his coat and stands there with his back to his opponent while a gauge slowly fills. It’s worth it though.
Episode 23: Jailhouse Lock!
Okay so Dragon’s Dream and Yo-Yo Ma are two arcs I remember really disliking, but this is one of my favourites, with one of my favourite JoJo minibosses/henchmen/however you want to put it; stand users who aren’t the main villain. They stand alongside Vanilla Ice, Risotto Nero and Blackmore. Also Ringo Roadagain’s really cool. And Axl RO. Steel Ball Run’s so fucking good. Anway, back to the topic at hand.
Pucci’s back, baby, and he’s got a fresh new look: three small ponytails fed through holes in his collar, a star made of hair on his forehead, and long eyelashes like the growths around the Green Baby’s eyes. He’s got no further use for Dolphin Street: he’s off to await the next new moon, where at certain co-ordinates outlined in DIO’s plan, heaven awaits him. If he’s gone, then there’s no need for Jolyne to hang around either: she’s busting out. At least she would, but her intention to do so has made her run afoul of inmate and Pucci ally Miuccia “Miu Miu” Miuller, whose stand Jailhouse Lock looks like a Silent Hill enemy. Its power is devastating in a small-scale, localised, really quite upsetting way: it makes it so you can only remember three new pieces of information. A fourth one will erase the first one, and so one and so forth, looping around. Jolyne awakes in her cell with writing on her body trying to warn her about the stand, but reading them just overwrites the ones she’s learned and she gets nowhere. The doctor gave her a note saying she has amnesia, and Gwess is no help at all. It’s a nightmare: Jailhouse Lock is like manual, weaponised Memento, and it’s so strong without any kind of physical might. Miu Miu even appears to Jolyne as a stranger, telling her completely superfluous pieces of information to erase her useful memories, making her eat something gross (Much like Memento) and spilling coffee on her so she has an excuse to rub off what Jolyne wrote. With two pieces of information left: “You can only remember three things” written in pen and “Go see Emporio” stitched in with Stone Ocean’s string, she leaves just the third entry blank, and goes to see Emporio. He’s having his own trouble: there’s a puddle of water and an electrical outlet that keeps frying him whenever he tries to leave, and his three memories are just him thinking about his obstacles. Poor kid.
I love Miu Miu. As I said, she’s one of my favourite villains, and Jailhouse Lock is just HORRIBLE in a low key way. I like the way it’s depicted here, with Jolyne just suddenly appearing in different places because she no longer remembers going there. I didn’t think it important enough to put in the recap but I liked Ermes pouring one out for F.F and swearing to avenge them. Not much more to say really: I loved this arc in the manga and it’s off to a really good start.
Episode 24: Jailbreak…
So Jolyne’s heeding her hand’s advice and heading straight to Emporio, right? Nope, she’s in the rec room trying and failing to keep up with a film and a comic. Dammit Jolyne, head in the game. Extra advice on her hand tells her to sock anyone who keeps looking at her left hand, which nearly bags her Miu Miu but she dodges it and bolts. Jolyne’s information store resets when she sees that she’s in area D-12, and realises that Miu Miu’s lead her into a trap when armed guards start closing in on her for being in a secure area. She narrowly manages to escape with the most interesting use of her stand yet: unravelling herself to the degree that the holes in her body fit around one of the guards without touching or alerting him, then slipping off and away to Emporio’s room. Good stuff. There’s also a cool, quite creepy moment where despite there being four guards, one of them vanishes before Jolyne’s very eyes, because she can only remember three of them being there. Speaking of which, Jolyne finally makes it to Emporio and finds out that Miuccia is actually the head guard just as she follows her into the room and shows a frighteningly direct and lethal use for Jailhouse Lock: she can fire more than three bullets in quick succession, and her target will only know about three of them. Of the first salvo, the fourth hits Emporio and his laptop, destroying the record of her true identity. She then empties the magazine at Jolyne, but she manages to deflect them all by watching their reflections in the pool of water that was shocking Emporio: that reflection counts as one piece of information. She gets a hit in, but Miu Miu quickly regains the upper hand by summoning more than three guards, rendering her invisible and inaudible to Jolyne. Emporio comes through for our girl though; he provides a binary depiction of what he was going to print out, which Stone Free can make into a physical image and provide Jolyne with the visual prompt she needs to finally beat up Miu Miu. She and Emporio are leaving, with Miu Miu, now a hostage, using Jailhouse Lock to aid them. They stop to collect Ermes and they’re free; out in Florida to pursue Pucci. Speaking of which, the priest is unwell; his new stand ability is wreaking havoc inside him, and he accidentally does something to a woman that makes her nails rapidly grow, and the eggs she bought grow into horrible egg/chick hybrids. In the manga it was a one side of a baby growing into an adult, but I feel this is worse. More visceral, certainly. Pucci isn’t deterred though: this power carries hope, and Heaven will arrive in six days at Cape Canaveral; The Kennedy Space Centre.
Jailhouse Lock is one of my favourite arcs in Part 6, as well as JoJo as a whole, and I loved it just as much here. It’s a fantastic send off to the prison we’ve spent so long in, and now Jolyne, Ermes and Emporio are off into the world to stop Pucci and his sweet new hat, which looks like a Stetson with a cross on it. Swaggering about in a garish new hat he seemed to say “Look at me, Jolyne Cujoh, I have a new hat!” Very nice. Strictly speaking, Jailhouse Lock shouldn’t have activated for those guards at the end; they needed to touch the bars of a cell, but I’ll let it slide. Pucci’s theme continues to be an absolute banger, and I’m excited to get to the reveal of his new stand; that’s another great arc in this Part. Next up we’re introduced to a whole new set of characters, so look forward to that.
Episode 25: Bohemian Rhapsody Part 1
New OP: “Heaven’s Falling Down”. Great title, right off the bat. It starts with Star Platinum destroying The World, then recaps in gorgeous stills what’s lead the characters to this point: Romeo’s car crash and Jotaro being put into a coma, Gloria’s murder, the skeletal remains of Emporio’s mum, Anasui’s girlfriend and, for Weather, clouds blocking his currently forgotten backstory. They move out of the confines of the prison and move dynamically towards Pucci (With an amusing shot of Emporio rapidly firing a revolver with a panicky “HOW DO I USE THIS THING?!” look on his face), until Jolyne squares off against him, alone in the water with a full moon looming overhead. There’s also a lovely shot of F.F ascending into the clouds, and it might just be me but at one point it sounded like the song sped up, just for a split second. I’ll see if I still hear it in the episodes to come. Really good anyway, it’s all about taking the fight to Pucci and I’m here for it.
Speaking of Pucci, the universe is giving him all manner of signs pertaining to the number three, which leads him to a hospital where three special people with the same father have been brought, one of who takes Pucci hostage with a pair of scissors. Pucci stabs himself with them as a power move because he’s still working on prison rules. No wait, it’s to show that fate has placed them JUST next to a lethal spot, but missed it. That’s all we get from this part of the story for now, but they’ll be important later.
Weather Report and Pucci now have star shaped birthmarks on their shoulders like the Green Baby did and the former decides to break out with Anasui and follow Jolyne. A kindly old man gives them a ride in the back of his pick up truck where something weird is afoot: famous fictional characters have climbed out of books and taken physical form: Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves are here, Batman is mentioned as well as the T-1000, Chewbacca and The Elephant Man, which is weird because he was a real dude. Anasui is shocked to see his body being dragged behind the truck: this is the power of Bohemian Rhapsody, a stand that can separate the souls and bodies of people who encounter their favourite fictional character. Weather Report is unaffected due to his amnesia but it gets Anasui, and though he can still use Diver Down to kill the real boy and the Big, Bad Wolf, he ends the episode separated from Weather, who’s hopped on a bus and heading north.
I’ve been wondering how they were going to handle Bohemian Rhapsody, and it turns out they’re just using Warner Bros. characters because they own this adaptation of JoJo. In the manga Mickey Mouse, Spider-Man and Raoh and Kenshiro are mentioned, but Araki-san couldn’t get away with showing them. Much to the disappointment of us all, they cut out Anasui getting mad at the Disney guide for being crappy and not having Mickey in it, though obviously that’s through necessity really, and they did keep the scene I like where Pinocchio tries to make Weather be affected by Bohemian Rhapsody and Weather threatens to kick him to death, so that’s something at least. Next episode is where BH kicks in to high gear, so I’m looking forward to that, and the reveal of who those mysterious young men were.
Episode 26: Bohemian Rhapsody Part 2
Kenshiro is mentioned in this version, and there’s a very brief bit of the Hokuto no Ken OP on television, which is neat. Anasui and Weather both fall victim to Bohemian Rhapsody, and the way its power works is that once it’s got you, nothing can stop the story from playing out as it did originally. Anasui accidentally makes himself a wolf who eats six lambs and is destined to be slit open with a pair of scissors, filled with rocks and drowned by their mother. Weather report is pulled in by Vincent Van Gogh, because it isn’t only ficitional characters, but artworks and the like too: he’s destined to lose an ear and shoot himself in the head twice. Ungalo, the user, is flying away on a plane and is thus out of the reach of any weather phenomenon Weather Report can summon. His and Anasui’s stories complete, and things are looking bleak for the pair of them. But Weather refuses to die, instead grabbing hold of Van Gogh and making him create a new character: PUT BACK, a man in a top hat with a vacuum cleaner that sucks up every realised character and puts them back where they belong, as well as sending Anasui and Weather back to their bodies. Up on the plane, Ungalo has succumbed to despair and fallen into a coma: he’s out of commission. A brief flashback to the night before reveals that he and the other two men are, of course, the sons of DIO, and Pucci basically said to them “Alright dickheads, you work for me now. Do something useful for once in your miserable lives and help me achieve heaven, ya bums. Here, have some stands.”
Elsewhere, Jolyne’s tracked down Romeo, broken into his home and has spent what I liked to think was hours posing and waiting for him to come in and find her. He’s breaking down in tears and making excuses but she just cuts through it all by saying she doesn’t blame him; he got caught up in a conspiracy, and asking for money and a car, which she gets. A duplicate tongue made by Kiss makes it look like Romeo is about to rat Jolyne out, but he instead misleads the police and tells them Jolyne is heading to Mexico. Also, the key isn’t for a car, it’s for a helicopter, which Emporio is very excited to fly.
I thought Bohemian Rhapsody went on for longer than this, and while I don’t particularly dislike it, I appreciated it being kept to a tight and breezy two episodes. It moved at a good pace, it was fun, and I love Weather’s solution in the end. Excited to see Emporio fly a helicopter, that sounds like a good time.
Episode 27: Sky High
I’m definitely still hearing it. It’s like the OP skips a beat. Interesting. Anyway; onto the second son of DIO: Rikiel, a man with issues around panic attacks and his eyelids closing on their own. I was wrong about the sons’ stands; Pucci didn’t give them to them. He helps Rikiel properly awaken to his: Sky High, which gives him control over small, super fast cryptids called “Rods”. He uses them to crash the helicopter Jolyne, Emporio and Ermes are in; they land and the fight is on. It’s a weird fight; Ermes clobbers Rikiel with some thrown rocks, then the three of them get battered by rods and try to work out what the creatures feed on. Poor Emporio has bloody piss at one point bless him. Fortunately, said bloody piss helps him work out the solution. Bloody piss saves the day, how many times have I said that in my life? Rods feed on body heat; they attacked Emporio’s kidney, it cooled down and blood entered his urine stream. In order to combat this, Jolyne walks right up to Rikiel on a busted ankle and SETS HERSELF ON FIRE. She doesn’t want to sleep, she just wants to keep on loving you. Not one to back down from the confidence Pucci has instilled in him, Rikiel follows suit; now they’re just two people on fire, not at all bothered by that fact. Rods get into Jolyne’s body through her mouth and attack her thalamus, which makes her unable to see Rikiel. Jolyne isn’t phased though; she’ll just stop breathing, no big deal, and track Rikiel by sensing his star-shaped birthmark. She gives him a brutal kick in the head and seems to win the day, but Rikiel has one last trick up his sleeve: cover her neck to cool it down and mark it as a target for the rods. The rods hit him instead, and Jolyne admits that she left his hand there by accident, though Emporio questions in voice over if that’s really the case. At any rate, Rikiel drops a reveal to end the episode: Weather Report is Pucci’s brother.
This is a weird arc, and I’m glad they kept it brief. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s more of neat little oddity rather than anything noteworthy; get in, get out, don’t let it drag. Rikiel is dressed as a cow for some reason, I don’t know why but good for him. I hope Emporio’s kidney is okay. Jolyne’s well ‘ard. Is she the toughest JoJo? Probably, I’d have to review everything that happens to all the other ones.
Episode 28: Heaven is at Hand: Three Days Until the New Moon
Quick aside: back in episode 15 I mentioned that I’d be interested in seeing what DIO was up to while he was waiting for the Stardust Crusaders to show up, and I’ve remember that such a thing exists. There’s a light novel called Over Heaven that takes the form of DIO writing in his diary about various things, including the heaven plan and reflecting on his life thus far. It’s only officially available in Japanese, so I better get to learning it.
Jolyne’s tracked Pucci to the hospital, where he’s having the last of DIO’s sons Donatello Versus check his food for shellfish, despite it clearly having prawns in it. Versus’ ability to accurately identify ingredients by taste is similar to the priest’s own, and its implied his physical measurements are the same as Pucci’s possibly due to the influence of DIO’s bone. The meal opens up to reveal a boy who was shot in the neck by his father, and the bullet launches out of the wound and kills said father, who’s waiting outside. Clearly finding this a tad suspicious, Jolyne and Ermes investigate, having tasked Emporio with getting Jotaro’s disc to the Speedwagon Foundation and giving him a sisterly peck on the cheek. They find a huge hole in the floor, and despite Ermes’ insistence they stay out of it, Jolyne insists they follow Pucci in, lest he use it to tunnel to Cape Canaveral, or just wait in there for three days until the new moon. Ermes holds Jolyne’s thread while the woman herself goes in, and ends up in an aeroplane, with Versus, his stand Underworld and Pucci watching from outside. Underworld nearly cuts the thread, but Jolyne manages to stab him in the neck with a pen and escape; Pucci instructs Versus to let her go, as she’s a far better fighter than him and they just need her to clear off so they can wait in the whole for three days. What they’ll eat and drink I don’t know, maybe they’ll raid the plane for cans of Stella and mini tubes of Pringles. Jolyne is attacked by Sports Maxx, who’s made a surprise comeback thanks to Underworld’s power: basically it taps into the memories of those who died on the ground that are all remembered by the Earth itself, which is really cool. The Earth remembers everyone who’s ever died on it; their blood seeps into the soil and it claims their memory for ever. This particular memory is of a plane that crashed five years ago; as the flight attendant nonchalantly points out that a passenger’s face got lodged in her stomach by the impact, and they all burned to death, as right on cue holes in passenger’s faces start opening up, revealing muscle underneath. Erems and Jolyne have fallen back in, and they’ve got two minutes before the crash takes place and takes them with it. Also, cracks are starting to form in team Pucci, as Versus is getting fed up with the priest. Outside the hospital Weather Report is getting closer, and Pucci is eager to avoid a confrontation.
This is easily the best of the three sons’ stands: the Earth remembering all those who died on it is a really cool idea (you could definitely do the same thing with the sea, that sounds like some pretty spooky, gnarly fun), weaponising that is an interesting and unique idea, particularly in this manner, and the nature of the crash is really grim, what with the melting flesh and faces lodged in stomachs. The part with the meal and the measurements was strange; I didn’t remember that and I don’t remember how or even if that gets paid off, we’ll see. Also that meal looked way too good for hospital food. Flounder and asparagus mousse with a scallop sauce and whole prawns? Geddowdahere.
Episode 29: Underworld
Versus had a freakishly unlucky life; he was hit in the head with signed baseball shoes he was accused of stealing and was sent to prison, he tripped on a hole and skewered his hand on a knife an inmate was hiding, and pissed on a wall and it broke open to show a skull. He thinks that was all Underworld but I think that’s pretty flimsy.
Back in the present, Jolyne leaps out of the emergency exit and goes straight for Versus, but he summons a fighter jet that was downed by a MiG and traps Jolyne inside it. She snags a walkie talkie from a cop back in the hospital and calls Emporio: “ERMES AND I ARE TRAPPED IN AIRCRAFT UNDERGROUND AND WE’RE GOING TO DIE, SEARCH FOR WAYS TO HELP US!” Emporio is nonplussed, naturally, but he actually does manage to help them with his “Ghost computer”: a big late 90s/early 2000s PC he pulls out of hammerspace. He instructs Jolyne to crash the jet into the plane, as neither will explode until they meet their fated crashes, and looks up an article that says two people miraculously survived the plane crash; seats 51D and 51F, and Jolyne and Ermes have around thirty seconds to get to them. They pull the survivors out of the seats, but Versus has a pretty nasty trick up his sleeve: drop three sick children into the seats from the hospital above. They’re out of time, and the plane meets its explosive end, seemingly taking Jolyne and Ermes with it. Except it doesn’t:
Ermes places kiss stickers on the two survivors and stores one kid in one survivor, herself in the other and one kid in each seat, with Jolyne hiding inside Ermes as threads. They do all this as the plane is exploding. They’ve got Versus dead to rights, but he’s got one last surprise. Tired of Pucci being in full on Hank Hill “YOU’RE A LOSER!” mode, he somehow found a version of Pucci in the rubble next to them, and with him is Weather Report’s memory disc. He sends Underworld to take it to him, and reveals that he watched it: Weather Report isn’t the ally Jolyne and Ermes think. His brother Pucci sealed away his demonic powers, and he’s waking up to them. Rainbows fill the cavern, each one accompanied by a low, dread-inducing tone. The devil’s rainbows. Heavy Weather. The episode ends with Weather knocking a man with a cast off a bench so he can sit down, and looking ready to kill the man then and there when he takes issue with it.
This episode was great, this two-parter was a lot of fun; neat stand, interesting problem for them to solve and I loved Jolyne just yelling what was happening to Emporio and the poor kid, understandably having no idea what to make of it. Also a Ghost computer sounds like something Sister Imperator would encourage Papa Nihil to use and he wouldn’t be into it. Not sure what was going on with the extra Pucci stuck in the rubble seeing as he hasn’t died, maybe the Earth just has a memory of everyone who’s ever lived in it? That’s way more OP than I thought, holy shit. You can just hide in a hole and pickpocket anyone in the world remotely. The best part though, was the ending. Heavy Weather is some serious shit; things kick up a notch next episode. The rainbows appearing with that ominous low tone was superb, there’s tension building and I can’t wait to see Weather’s full powers in action.
Episode 30: Heavy Weather Part 1
A nurse comes to the aid of the injured man Weather knocked off the bench, and Weather fills said nurse with water until it comes out of his eyes and balloons his body. He’s taken a turn into a cruel, spiteful arsehole, to the shock of even Anasui, who’s no boy scout himself. His personality isn’t all that’s different: Heavy Weather creates rainbows that split people open, break off their limbs and makes snails fall from the gaps. If you touch the snails, you start turning into a snail yourself. Back up in the hospital it’s like a zombie film; there are snails everywhere, the rainbows phase into existence with that ominous, low tone and people’s movement is slowed to a crawl as they lament what’s happening to them with no way to stop it. Pucci slips away, but not before spelling out the situation for Jolyne: if she doesn’t kill Weather or take his memory away again, humanity won’t live to see the new moon. Now he’s at full power, Weather can affect the ozone layer, and weather on a global scale. He’s got godlike power and if he isn’t stopped soon then the world is Fucked with a capital F. Interestingly, in the manga he proposes a temporary truce with Jolyne while they both work to stop this cataclysmic emergent threat, but not so here. Jolyne and Ermes manage to escape and go after Versus, who uses Underworld, which it’s confirmed conjures memories of people in general, not just dead ones, to locate Emporio in an attempt to steal Jotaro’s disc and learn the heaven plan. Amusingly, his first plan is to look for anyone running towards the hospital, because clearly Emporio wouldn’t leave Jolyne behind. He thinks this as he runs past Emporio, who is indeed leaving Jolyne and running away from the hospital in order to complete the task she assigned him. Versus manages to catch up with Emporio and knock him out cold, the bastard, and seizes the disc from the boy’s little ghost bag that acts as a hammerspace inventory tied to the ghost of the music room. He nearly gets away, because Jolyne and Ermes are turning into snails, but Jolyne manages to turn the tables on him and infect him too. They’re all ready to get the hell out of here in a car, but discover a new problem: the presence of beetles that follow snails into their shells, Uzumaki-style and devour them. The episode ends with Weather, who’s been walking through town much to Anasui’s frustration, sensing the presnce of Pucci, with whom he’s determined to settle a past score.
“How does King Crimson work?” Fuck you, how does Heavy Weather work? This was superb: never have rainbows felt so menacing. That shot of the hospital covered in snails as people start to transform, scored by the harrowing tones that herald the rainbows appearing was excellent. I love the explanation for it, basically: “We can only look at previous weather to predict what might happen, we can never know for sure. Could the ozone layer being compromised make people turn into snails? I dunno, but neither do you.” It’s nonsense, but it’s so cool, creepy and devastatingly dangerous that you just roll with it, or at least I am. I love Weather just sauntering through town, uncaring about the havoc he’s wreaking. Great realisation of one of Part 6’s best and strangest arcs. Looking forward to it developing.
Episode 31: Heavy Weather Part 2
June 5th, 1972: a woman’s new born baby dies, and in her grief she swaps its body with one of a pair of twins. The woman who birthed him named him Domenico Pucci. The woman who raised him named him Wes Bluemarine. A kind young man with a strong sense of justice, who one day stops a thief from running off with a girl’s purse. That girl is Perla Pucci, and they start dating. We see Enrico Pucci’s first meeting with a mysterious, beautiful man who fixes the bent toes on his left foot, and leaves an arrowhead in his possession. DIO is enamoured with the young Pucci’s will to believe his extraordinary claim that he’s allergic to sunlight, and says that if Pucci wishes to meet him in the future, he’ll be able to call out to him with the arrowhead. Pucci finds out that his sister Perla is unknowingly dating her brother, and hires a P.I to break them up. Unfortunately what Pucci doesn’t know is that he’s a piece of shit Klansman, and he lynches Wes for being the adopted son of a black man. Devastated and incorrectly believing her beloved to be dead, Perla kills herself. Pucci is distraught, and begs for his sister to not be taken- all she did was fall in love; he’s the one who should be punished. He suddenly remembers that strange man who fixed his bent toes, and the arrowhead punches through his neck and activates his stand. The first disc he extracted was Perla’s. Meanwhile, Wes’ stand activates too, and he uses Heavy Weather on the P.I before turning his own gun against him. He tries to use said gun for his third suicide attempt, but all three are stopped by Weather Report. He’s a burning mess of despair and rage that just wants to be dead, and he knows that Enrico is the one who hired the P.I to break them up. He turns a whole town into snails before Pucci finally steals his memory with Whitesnake and has him locked up in Green Dolphin Street. Back in the present, Weather insists Anasui kill him once he’s settled the score with Pucci, and Jolyne, Ermes, Emporio and Versus race off in the stolen car to rejoin their comrades.
This episode was heavy, and I think they handled it really well. Wisely it doesn’t have an OP, or any stand eye catches, and the stuff back in the present is kept to a minimum. It’s mainly just a depressing tale of misunderstanding, failed attempts to help loved ones and people being utter pieces of shit. This catastrophe is what sets in motion Pucci’s belief in, and hated of, fate, which will come into play later. It’s a good reminder that for as goofy as it can be and often is, sometimes JoJo is dark, violent and depressing. It shifts between tones masterfully, and this is no exception. Excellent episode.
Episode 32: Heavy Weather Part 3
Wes is all ready for the final showdown with his brother, but Enrico is one step ahead. Somehow hiding under a pile of snails he waits for Wes and Anasui to get closer and severs the former’s leg, then reflects a rainbow into the latter’s eyes, setting him on the path to becoming a snail. Pucci knows the true nature of Wes’ stand as well as how to counter it: Heavy Weather doesn’t require you to touch the snails, you have to see the rainbows. They subliminally convince people they’re turning into snails, so they do. Pucci avoids it by having Whitesnake remove his ability to see, and takes Wes’ other leg off for good measure. He’s all ready to leave, but having no legs isn’t gonna stop Wes Bluemarine, no way no how; he uses a combination of strong wind and freezing to make spikes out of the blood puddles on the floor, which the currently blind Pucci can’t see. He grabs Anasui and uses Whitesnake to make him act as his guide, but Wes forms a spike with the blood from Pucci’s own wound; stabbing him in the face and opening him up for Wes to lock in a hold. At this point, Pucci gets desperate; he says he always hoped he could save Wes, hence why he only took his memory, and that he should definitely let him go because someone has to get to heaven and save humanity, and Pucci’s gonna do that so that’s pretty good, right? Wes is disgusted; Pucci is the kind of evil that doesn’t know it’s evil, and that’s the worst evil of all. Before any kind of decisive strike is dealt, Jolyne and co. arrive in their car. There’s a dust storm obscuring their vision, but they’re slowly reverting back to being humans, and that’s not a great sign. Jolyne launches herself at Pucci, but it’s too late: he killed Wes and Versus then slipped off and left mirages of himself behind as decoys. As the group mourns their dead friend, they discover that he left his stand disc behind to help them, and Jolyne takes it.
This was surprisingly brutal. All I remembered about this arc was the Pucci “Gay Priest” meme pose, which didn’t even make it into this adaptation. I certainly didn’t remember Wes Bluemarine having both his legs sliced off and forming spikes from the resulting blood puddles. We get a look at what Pucci’s like when under life-threatening pressure, still counting prime numbers but not afraid to beg for his life, not for himself but for all he feels will benefit from his plan to attain heaven. A sad end for Weather Report/Wes Bluemarine/Domenico Pucci, but it was what he wanted. Hopefully he died not knowing he didn’t take his brother with him. As for the arc as a whole, it’s one of the strongest so far; the grim backstory, the horror of Heavy Weather and the brutality of Wes trying to finally achieve his revenge. Good stuff.
Episode 33: Gravity of the New Moon
On the road to Cape Canaveral, Jolyne wonders if her vehicular arrival on the scene caused Weather’s death, and what her dad would do in this situation. She’s fallen asleep on Anasui’s shoulder, so he puts a ring on her finger and hopes that when she wakes up she’ll understand how much he loves her. Remembering Limp Bizkit, Ermes points out some alligators hanging around, at whom Jolyne throws said ring while yelling “Take this, dumbasses!” as Ermes taunts them. Anasui is, naturally, upset. Inside the Kennedy Space Centre Pucci is once again feeling unwell, and inadvertently pushes someone away from himself and impales them on a security rail. Back outside, the car suddenly slows down and then stops in place with Emporio gunning the engine. A truck, a bird and a tree get blown backwards, away from the space centre, and it becomes clear that everything is falling sideways: the ground is still where it always is, but people and objects are being pushed away from the visitor centre in a way that makes it seem like they’re falling downwards. Ermes gets knocked away, and everyone else is holding on to a barrier at the side of the road, having left the car. Jolyne thinks this is Pucci’s heaven. Emporio thinks that this is merely a prelude to something far worse. They make the climb towards the visitor centre along the barrier; again it’s like they’re climbing upwards, but they’re moving sideways. Atop a ticket booth, Pucci’s evolved stand reveals itself; it punches Jolyne’s hand, which makes it slam into the roof of the ticket booth, then turn inside out as her bloody, raw fleshed fingers start jutting out through the skin. Pucci’s new stand says that as Jolyne can’t wait two days for the new moon, it’s here to kill her.
This is a transitionary/set up episode really, but it’s good. It establishes how serious this gravity based threat is, gives us a brief intro to the coolest stand in Part 6, and has some much needed levity in the scene with the alligators. From here on out, it’s all serious business, so be ready. We’re close to attaining heaven. Quick sidenote: the Kennedy Space Centre looks cool, but fuck if I’m going anywhere near Florida.
Episode 34: C-Moon Part 1
WAKE UP PUNKS IT’S TIME FOR C-MOON! I love that when it hits Jolyne’s hand it hangs around, leaning on the ticket booth watching its handiwork unfold. It’s a neat little vicious touch of personality. This is Pucci’s new stand: visually it’s a mix of Whitesnake and the Green Baby. Its powers are inverting anything it punches, and another that will come up shortly. For now it’s got its sights set squarely on Jolyne, who times it just right so it punches her hand again and fixes it, and does the same to her leg after it catches it between its fists. Atop the ticket booth Jolyne and C-Moon square off one-on-one, the two of them slowly circling each other waiting for the right moment to strike. C-Moon wraps a piece of metal around Jolyne’s leg, but she manages to wrap her string around its neck and strangle it. It grasps feebly at the string, manages to grab it and start inverting it (and by extension Jolyne), then bolsters its position by touching the wall and inverting it so C-Moon can stand up, realigning itself and strengthening its base. Diver Down submerges into the string and makes it too strong to tear, so Pucci arrives on the scene to help. Jolyne attempts to punch C-Moon and Pucci with Stone Free, but in both cases her hand just glances off. Pucci explains that C-Moon’s other power is making him a centre of gravity around which the world orients. Anything above him is pushed to the sky, anything below to the ground, and no one is able to approach him when he activates it: they’re pushed away. He says that to achieve happiness, people need a trial to overcome. DIO and Pucci’s trial is the Joestar bloodline. Hey, C-Moon: only punch her once, and punch her somewhere important, okay? Stay away from her limbs. Following its user’s advice, C-Moon punches Jolyne right in in the heart, reversing blood flow to her brain and sending her falling away from the visitor centre, seemingly to her death. Pucci retreats to the visitor centre to await the new moon. Suddenly Jotaro sends Emporio a text saying Jolyne is still alive, and he’s on his way to help. He better hurry up, because Pucci can sense that she’s still alive, and he’s coming back for round 2. The only fighter currently active, Anasui uses Diver Down to climb the wall and meet Pucci head on, deeming it the best way to keep Jolyne safe.
C-MOON! Best stand in Part 6, and it’s only around for five minutes. After seeing its large-scale gravity powers last episode, here we see its up close and personal, nastier skill set, turning limbs inside out with a single punch, or even just light contact with its hands. One touch from this thing means potential death, or at the very least grievous injury, and it zips around that ticket booth like no one’s business. It makes Jolyne look even more badass for fighting it one on one. I quite like Pucci coming out to give C-Moon advice too, like he’s its corner man. By the way, a youtuber called ChadScript made a brief clip of C-Moon before it made its anime debut, and it’s well worth a look. It looks so cool and intimidating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKc5tfM6_-E
Not that the official version isn’t, it’s just a nice little extra to check out if you think C-Moon’s cool.
Episode 35: C-Moon Part 2
Pucci heads further into the Kennedy Space Centre, where he finds a piece of Jolyne’s trousers caught on a shard of glass. Anasui has caught up with him but C-Moon swiftly disposes of the threat…wait a minute, that’s not Anasui. Oh, I see, he used Diver Down to change a corpse’s bone structure to match his own. That explains why he has the exact same hair and outfit, too. I kid, it’s fine. Pucci evades a hit by having C-Moon turn his face inside out then sends the real Anasui flying. With her only present ally delayed, Pucci hunts for Jolyne, who twice sneaks up behind him and tauntingly touches his face. He sets the room on fire to no avail, but the third time she reaches for him, he finally hits both her arms with C-Moon. We see the solution Jolyne came up with, as Jotaro mentioned: whenever C-Moon hits her, she turns that part of her body into a mobius strip made of string. No front and back, no inversion. One thing to note is that they all return to normal quickly besides the first one she made to counter that punch in the heart. Pucci stalks around the room waiting for the right moment, shifting gravity and making objects fall, then takes a gun from a falling guard’s corpse and fires four rounds at Jolyne. Cue timestop.
Yes, Jotaro is here, and he brought Ermes and a harpoon with him. He stops time to move Jolyne away from the bullets, then has Star Platinum punch Pucci through a window, getting lodged in the frame. They’ve got him dead to rights: it’s still over a day until the new moon, Pucci’s on his arse and surrounded by people who want to stop him, it’s all over. Oh ho ho, not so fast there. Pucci’s made a realisation: it’s not the new moon he needs, it’s the new moon’s gravitational force, something he can achieve if he has C-Moon move him to the right spot. Ermes opens fire on him and Jotaro stops time to throw the harpoon, then waits for time to resume rather than ending timestop manually. Something’s wrong though: PUCCI LOOKS AT HIM IN THE FROZEN TIME. The attack sends him towards an exhibition space shuttle, which gently floats him to the right spot, and the episode ends as beams of light emit from his body.
Excellent two-parter. Love Jolyne’s solution to C-Moon’s powers, love Jotaro and Ermes arriving to complete the team and try to put Pucci in his place, but to no avail, ’cause it’s time to attain heaven. C-Moon continues to be great for its brief screentime, I like Pucci stalking Jolyne around the room once he has her cornered, and it was nice to hear Jotaro’s theme again. Good episode, good arc, onto the grand finale.
Episode 36: Made in Heaven Part 1
And so the curtain rises on Father Enrico Pucci’s final stand: Made in Heaven. He disappears, and our heroes wonder what’s going on. Then it starts to rain, and suddenly they’re soaked, then bone dry just as quickly. Anasui goes to stop a rock from hitting Ermes in the head but she’s unconscious as soon as he makes the effort. She’s back up in no time and her blood is drying as fast as it leaves her body. Elsewhere, people are feeling similar effects: a woman is killed crossing the road, and multiple cars crash into each other. An abattoir worker goes into the meat locker for a cut and freezes to death. A rookie pitcher throws so many strikes he earns MVP status, then goes for an easy catch that rips a big hole in his jaw. Made in Heaven speeds up time: Jotaro works out that it takes two minutes for an hour to pass, and Pucci himself is moving thirty times faster than they are. Whenever he’s on screen he’s a blur, and making it worse is that while Jotaro’s timestop still works, and leaves Pucci suspended and able to be seen, it’ll do him no good. Five seconds isn’t enough time to stop him, and he can’t spam it. The gang retreat to a rooftop where Jolyne sets out a string trap and Jotaro takes the lead, calmly instructing the rest of the team to do their best to observe the fact that Pucci is moving, even if they can’t see him or where he’s going. Jotaro tries to have Star Platinum punch Pucci but he’s just too fast, and slits Jotaro’s throat though Diver Down saves him. There’s a brief comedic moment where Anasui asks Jotaro for his permission to marry Jolyne and he thinks Anasui’s gone mad from the stress of the situation, but otherwise this is serious business. Pucci appears before them and says that this ability was obtained not to end their lives, but to guide humanity towards true happiness and the episode ends.
Bloody hell. I’ve been looking forward to this, imagining what Pucci’d look like moving with Made in Heaven active, and I didn’t expect it to be quite this fast. He’s like a force of nature, and I love when Jotaro stops time and you see Pucci hanging there and know that this absolutely will not stop him. Also Jotaro seemed genuinely worried when he worked out that Pucci wasn’t hiding behind the palm tree’s leaves, but was in the middle of using it to catapult himself over to the roof and attack. You know he’s out there but he’s moving so fast he might as well be teleporting; it’s like King Crimson only you can see it coming, or at least Jotaro can.
Episode 37: Made in Heaven Part 2
Oh, so that’s why Emporio has a revolver in the OP: he fires a bullet with a Kiss sticker on it, then removes the sticker to quickly move the whole group away. Doesn’t do them much good though: Pucci quickly catches up on foot. He’s declared his first target to be Anasui, so in a surprisingly heroic move Anasui has submerged Diver Down in everyone other than himself to protect them, and once he feels that someone has been attacked Jotaro is to stop time and take Pucci out. They land in the ocean, where they can see splashes where Pucci’s moving, and it becomes clear that time is moving even faster now. It turns out that birds and flowers are moving and growing at their usual rate: living things are unaffected by the time advancement, apart from the ones who are in potentially dangerous situations like last episode. A mangaka is seen failing to adapt to the new situation, but he’s told there’s one who is: Rohan Kishibe. Well of course he is. Back in the ocean, the waves are moving so fast they can’t tell where Pucci is. Anasui is attacked, but for some reason it’s at the hand of Stone Free. Jotaro uses the opportunity to move in for an attack, but at the last second notices, to his vocalised horror, that Pucci has used DIO’s Part 3 knife trick on Jolyne. It’s all he can do to pull Jolyne and the others away, then futilely ORAORAORA at Pucci, who of course just dodges it. Jotaro was two steps behind, and now he’s dead. Ermes and Anasui are dead too, and Jolyne is down for the count. Pucci goads Emporio into shooting him and earning a martyr’s death by reminding him that he killed his mother, and dodges the bullets, natch. Emporio is screaming and crying in terror as he unloads the revolver, then it clicks on an empty chamber. Suddenly, Jolyne saves him by tying him and herself to a dolphin, and throwing a knife at Pucci, slashing his eye. Now he’s mad: “JOESTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!” oh man he’s gonna end that bloodline or die trying. Jolyne can’t stay with Emporio; Pucci will sense her birthmark and he won’t be safe. She cuts the string and squares off against the priest only to die instantly. Back in the wider world time is now moving so quickly that the sun appears as a long streak moving across the sky. Days pass in seconds, raw food rots in an instant, and the bodies of Jotaro, Anasui and Ermes decay to nothing. Time moves so fast that Emporio is present as the universe resets, and he ends up back in Green Dolphin Street where he started.
I appreciate how little time the episode takes to dwell on the deaths of the protagonists. Jolyne gets a heroic monologue before she tries to slow down Pucci, and she has a brief set of flashbacks about Jotaro before he dies, but besides that they’re quickly dispatched and then they’re just dead. Jotaro, protagonist of Part 3, main character in Part 4 and instigator of Part 5: Dead. Anasui and Ermes don’t even get any kind of fanfare, they’re just corpses now. Jolyne is torn apart in an instant. Out in the shallows of an ocean, on foot is a cool and original idea for a fight location. I like that Emporio is the last man standing, that’s an interesting development story wise. I like time getting faster and faster seemingly in conjunction with Pucci getting angrier, and I love Jotaro freaking out at a reminder of DIO’s tactics from Part 3. I’ve seen fan theories about Jotaro having PTSD following his confrontation in Egypt, and this fits that well. Pucci’s abilities and stand are so well realised; he moves so fast you only see him when the show wants to hammer home just how much of a threat he is. Superb.
Similarly to C-Moon, another youtuber called TheDashingDoctorK did an impression of Made in Heaven attacking the group when they’re in the ocean, and it’s similarly fantastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsM_nd1ULQ
Episode 38: It’s a Wonderful World
So Emporio’s back in jail, where two people who look like, but aren’t, Jotaro and Jolyne are arguing in the visitation room. Pucci struts onto the scene and explains the situation: Made in Heaven sped up time to the point that the universe ended and reset: in this new one, anyone who died during the time acceleration has vanished from existence. Emporio is truly alone.
New OP, just in time for the final episode. At first there are some small changes: DIO’s sons are no longer in shadow, and the clouds blocking Weather Report’s backstory clear, showing Perla hurling herself off the cliff. Then we get to the now standard, and highly anticipated, scene where the villain uses their powers to mess with the OP. DIO stopped time and sauntered around a frozen Jotaro. Kira activated Bites the Dust and made Great Days play backwards. Diavolo interrupted Traitor’s Requiem to foresee Giorno’s next move and place himself in an advantageous position, then Gold Experience Requiem stopped him in his tracks. So Pucci’s going to fast forward Heaven’s Falling Down, right? That’s what I assumed, but David Production went a different way, and I love them for it. In keeping with the aforementioned resetting of the universe, the OP plays out normally until it arrives at the prison courtyard, at which point Jotaro appears and stops time, clearly confident he’s won. But then time suddenly resumes, and jumps forward into the opening for Phantom Blood: Sono Chi No Sadame. Jolyne is in Jonathan’s place and squares off with Pucci mid-air in the Joestar mansion, then has Stone Free slam her fist into him in the same way Jonathan did to Dio all those years ago. There’s a quick montage of all six JoJos with brief sound effects associated with their powers and stands, and it ends with Jolyne’s locket falling through space. Okay so this is not at all what I expected, but I love it. It’s a very thoughtful, beautiful encapsulation of JoJo, a neat way to express Made in Heaven’s powers, and the latest example of just how much David Production loves this series. It’s fantastic.
Back in prison, Pucci is stalking a crying, terrified Emporio through the halls and outlying his vision; the whole point of the heaven plan and fast forwarding time. Everyone who lived through the acceleration knows everything that’s going to happen between now and the end of the universe. Everyhing: who they’ll meet, when they’ll get sick, when accidents happen, when wars break out and end, when they’ll die; everything. In knowing comes the ability to prepare, and in knowing bleak, sad events like your own imminent death comes a sense of peace. That’s what Pucci believes anyway; if you know everything bad that’s going to happen to you, you won’t fear or dread it. Fate brought Perla and Wes together. Fate got the former killed. Pucci rues fate’s existence, but rather than avoid it, he’s chosen to lay out every action and event determined by fate before humanity, so they can prepare for the inevitable. You can’t avoid it either, as seen when Emporio is fated to turn right towards his ghost room but goes left instead, and a broom smacks him in the face and sends him down the right path anyway. He pulls Pucci into the ghost room, and uses the priest’s fist to insert Weather Report’s disc into his head. Pucci isn’t worried though, because Emporio has no experience using Weather Report, and he has super speed. But that doesn’t matter: Weather Report’s been filling the room with pure oxygen, which is toxic to humans, and Made in Heaven is accelerating the adverse effects in its own user. He pleads his case to Emporio: let him die after Cape Canaveral instead, so that the loop closes and his plan becomes concrete. If he dies now, everything will be undone. Emporio is also feeling the effects of the oxygen- he’s bleeding from the eyes, but he stands his ground, and acting on its own Weather Report slowly crushes Pucci’s head then machine gun punches him into oblivion.
Suddenly back at the bus stop outside the prison, Emporio comes across what seem to be his friends, only they have different names and don’t remember him. Anakiss and his girlfriend Irene are going to see her dad, and maybe they’ll get married. It starts to rain, so they take Eldis and a tearful, dumb-struck Emporio with them, and stop to pick up a new version of Weather Report. The familiar opening bars of YES’ Roundabout make a triumphant return as they go forwards into a future free from DIO’s influence and the shackles of fate. A new ED shows one-shot representations of each part, as tears roll down my cheeks and I think about how much this series means to me and how good it feels to see it adapted by people who feel the same.
Powerful finale to this Part. Emporio fleeing through the halls crying his eyes out was harrowing, I love the conviction Pucci has in his plan, and as I said at the very start of this article I think he’s the most sympathetic villain in the whole series. He’s still a villain, don’t get me wrong, but he’s genuinely trying to help people; his motives are noble, but his actions aren’t, although even they can be explained. He wants to kill Jolyne and her allies partly out of revenge for DIO, partly because that lineage is a thorn in his best friend’s side, and partly because if he doesn’t then they’ll stop the plan he’s waited so long to achieve. Emporio turning the tables with Weather Report was awesome and enjoyably brutal with the bleeding eyes, and the ending made me well up; they aren’t the friends Emporio knew, but they all seem nice, especially Irene, and they can form a new friendship away from all the strife that plagues the Joestar bloodline.
Final thoughts on the series as a whole:
Loved it. JoJo’s one of my favourite things in the world and it felt so good to dive back into it like this. I think this was an excellent adaptation; it looked gorgeous and it did a great job of realising all of Part 6’s best scenes, in particular Heavy Weather, C-Moon and Made in Heaven. Seeing Pucci moving with MiH in action is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now, and it absolutely delivered. My thoughts on Part 6 haven’t really changed: it has ups and downs, but Jolyne’s a great protagonist, when the stands are good they’re really good, and Pucci is an excellent villain both on his own merits and tied into DIO and the on-going generational story. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reliving Stone Ocean.
David Production have once again done a wonderful job, and I’d love to see them adapt Steel Ball Run, which is still my favourite part. Seriously, if you haven’t read Steel Ball Run you should do so, it’s amazing. In the meantime, Part 9 is coming out soon, and Part 8 finally ended so I need to get that read. I’ve been putting off starting it until it was all available given how long it was taking.
By James Lambert
@jameslambert18
The Reviewing Floor 