So from what I’ve heard, we’ve recently hit the halfway point of JoJo Part 5. Having caught up (give or take an episode), let me say this to start:
Huh.
So that’s how that works.
Mild-ish spoilers for everything up to episode 21. If you’re wary of getting spoiled on anything, this post is very not DI MOLTO.
…It’s funnier to use the phrase improperly.
I think that my biggest regret with the JoJo franchise is that I’ve watched the compilation of supers from All Star Battle way more times than I needed to. It came out before watching Part 1 was even a possibility -- at least for me, and in my mind -- so I assumed that that game would be the only way I’d ever get exposure. Flash forward to the present, and I’m pretty well-versed in the franchise right up to where the anime is currently. That means I’ve played myself; whereas Golden Wind goes to great pains to keep The Boss’ identity a secret, All Star Battle by necessity revealed exactly who he was. Good job, Past Me.
I’ll give All Star Battle a retroactive, congratulatory clap, though; its recreation of lines, moments, and poses is spot-on. It’s a real thrill to have famous sequences, long since burned into my mind, play out in the best animation David Production can put out (though I prefer the sound of ASB’s ARI ARI ARI to the anime version, TBH). That said? There are two clear factors that put my anime experience over clips from the game. One: proper context, so I can see the buildup to and payoff of those classic moments. Two: I’m seeing things I didn’t even know existed.
Case in point? Abbacchio wasn’t in ASB, so when I first saw him in promo art I thought “Wait, who the hell is that?” Now he’s my favorite character in Part 5 right now.
And, crucially, he has my favorite Stand. Period.
Okay, sure, Moody Blues isn’t going to win a punch-up with Star Platinum or Crazy Diamond anytime soon. But its ability and applications are intensely interesting to me; I’m not saying they’d be the most useful in everyday life (Crazy Diamond has the edge there), but in the context of telling a story? Especially this story, where battles are won by learning and exploiting enemy weaknesses and expectations? Aces.
It helps that it’s attached to Abbacchio, who is most certainly my guy. I won’t deny that he’s abrasive and cynical, but it’s not purely out of a desire to make newcomer Giorno eat shit. He’s a street soldier with experience, and who puts his pride on the line -- even it’s for questionable causes like running with the wannabe gang-stars. The mission matters to him; it comforts him, maybe to an unhealthy degree. And the foundation for that? A wellspring of loyalty that won’t let him betray his idea of “what is right”.
If I had to rank the main cast, it would go Abbacchio > Giorno = Bruno > Fugo > Narancia > Mista. (I’m leaving Trish out for now because thus far she hasn’t been the most active player…which outside of Part 6 is par for the course for JoJo.) It’s not like I think Mista is a bad character or anything; it’s just that right now, he’s the most plain and level of the bunch, meaning he shares screen time with some very pointed personas. That said, I respect that he goes for some big, OTT plays -- stuff that tries to make him more mechanically interesting than “has a gun”.
No matter how I feel about Mista -- sorry if there are any fans whose tail feathers I ruffled -- he does help me segue into my main point. See, I could go on and on about the themes of Golden Wind and how they’re integrated into each successive Stand battle. At the end of the day, though, it’s a series half-built on spectacle, and seeing cool guys do cool things with cool skills. That’s true of a lot of stuff in the genre (and yes, the quality of the writing can absolutely set the champs apart from the chumps, as My Hero Academia has soundly proven). So the question then becomes simple: what’s the key to JoJo’s enduring success?
My theory is given some real weight precisely because of Part 5. That is, the sheer spectacle of the franchise is not only on full display, in full form, and going full blast nearly non-stop, BUT the quality of those spectacle-filled skirmishes has only risen from saga to saga. I’m not just talking about animation quality (though that helps). No, what I mean is that, pound for pound, there hasn’t been a single part of this franchise yet that’s topped the amount of times I wanted to say “Holy shit.” Sometimes softly. Sometimes loudly. Very loudly.
So on one hand, it’s not hard to get the sense that Part 5 is not messing around. That’s true of pretty much all the Parts, granted, but we’re dealing with the clash between gangsters and gang-stars -- thugs, hitmen, assassins, and everything in between. Heroes and villains alike are willing to go for the kill. Honestly, sometimes it feels like the heroes are more lethal than the enemy Stand users; whereas Jotaro and crew were keen to beat up baddies and leave them to their fates offscreen (“retired”), Giorno’s got no problems tricking gangsters into suicide, sending out poisonous snakes, and kicking guys into metal spikes. He’s only fifteen, but his body count is probably higher than most convicts.
Facilitating all of this is the fact that Part 5’s Stands (and the men that wield them, by extension) are the wackiest yet. Creator Hirohiko Araki really flexed his creative muscles so that JoJo truly earns its moniker of “bizarre”. Even if we ignore the memelicious King Crimson, one of the deadliest villains so far came in locked and loaded with a fishing rod. To say nothing of Melone and Baby Face, the application of which nearly made my jaw fall on my face and burrow five miles into the earth below. We’ve come a long way from the days of sterling tool kits like “punch really fast”, “spew fire”, and “GUN”.
I mean, we’ve still got a ways to go. But progress has long since been made.
I’m in a good place with Part 5…relatively speaking. I’m having a hard time determining where it’s going to end up on my personal ranking of the sagas; by extension, I don’t know if Giorno is going to become my new favorite JoJo, or if he’ll become the family caboose. On one hand, it would be for the best if I wait until Part 5 is over and I have a full picture of everything. On the other hand, I don’t want to wait that long, partly because there are niggling doubts gnawing at the inside of my skull.
Asking if Part 5 is good now is barely any different from asking if JoJo at large is good. Am I ready for some deep, honest reflection on what I’ve seen? By which I mean: is JoJo as a whole really as good as I think it is, or am I just getting swept up in the spectacle and audacity (and memes) week after week? Is this show style over substance? Is it style without substance? Sometimes I can’t help but wonder, and Part 5 is intensifying those thoughts.
The mechanisms behind the show are getting pretty stark. It’s built around Stand battles, clashes of the mind, body, and spirit against a seemingly-endless armada of villains who look like what would happen if Louis Vuitton got its hands on the Large Hadron Collider. That’s good for action and suspense, without question. But how long can a show rely on the enemy Stand user of the week (or two weeks, or three, depending on the arc) before it causes burnout?
Giorno, Bruno, and the rest have to cart Trish across Italy for the story’s first half, and each major event is synonymous with each successive hitman. The high-tension skirmishes are a lot to handle for even the hardiest of anime fans,and sometimes I find myself wishing for more breathers. They’re in there, for sure, but…I don’t know, I hope there’s a chance for the gang to spend a full episode futzing around in a restaurant instead of progressing to the next Stand battle like it’s a session of Street Fighter. Though given that the gang’s now branded as traitors to Passione and The Boss, it’s probably going to be pretty breakneck for a while.
The biggest consequence (for me, at least) is that we’re 21 episodes in, possibly at the halfway point, and with a dwindling count of episodes the studio has left on tap. Despite all that, there’s a part of me that alternates between “Wait, we’re at the halfway point already?” and “So outside of the Stand battles, has anything really happened?”
It may be the nature of the beast that I’m taking issue with. Fair enough; the scenario right now is kind of like an inverted Part 3, where the good guys are trying to run away from the big bad (for now) instead of marching up to his doorstep. I mean they kind of already did that, but it went poorly and ended with Bruno maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe sort of dying? Who knows. Then again, that brings up another issue. I’m the last person that should be saying this, because I’ve argued against it when people bring it up for stuff like the Marvel movies, but here it is: some of the good guys need to die.
This is JoJo, meaning that the obituaries are going to get filled at some point. But for the high-stakes, life-or-death struggle the story’s trying to tell, the punches are seriously being pulled. Mista should be double-dead by now thanks to his battles against Grateful Dead and White Album, but he’s lucked out and walked around like it’s nothing several times now. Come on, now. Six strapping mad lads all in a row (well, five now), and you can’t even put one in a body bag? Not even the one shot in the head and only escaped via raw coincidence?
I’m spending a lot of time shitting on Mista in this post, and I don’t know why. I don’t even hate him, he’s just my least favorite.
Quibbles aside, it’s pretty much a given that I’ll keep watching JoJo. Suppose we enter the worst-case scenario and -- despite whatever post I use in the future to provide my analysis -- it really is just a bunch of fluff. Junk food. Fine. Even if it is, I can at least rest easy knowing that it’s among the best fluff and junk food we’ve got on the market.
The raw emotions and reactions I’ve had during my viewings were 100% real, and still are. Heroes and villains alike have the charisma to carry me through from scene to scene. If everything between the Stand battles is just an excuse to set up the next Stand battle, then at the very least there’s been some success. I’m invested enough to see the context between each tussle. And if that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.
No, wait, I take it back. I know what my ringing endorsement is.
You know…
*sigh*
I don’t usually say or think this, but…stuff like this make me feel blessed to be alive, here in this time, in this very moment.
*wipes away tear* Truly, truly blessed.
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