JoJo’s Part 5 Episode 24

JoJo’s Part 5 Episode 24

Notorious B.I.G

Notorious B.I.G is a fitting name for the newly introduced stand because this is one that’s almost as notorious in Part 5 as King Crimson for reasons I’ll get into shortly. But while this stand is really good (or really bad depending on how you look at it), this is only true in certain situations.

So, what’s the situation surrounding the introduction of Notorious B.I.G? After learning of the boss’ early life in Sardinia, Buccellati and his men have acquired a private jet to take them to the island. Their thinking is that traveling 10,000m in the air at 800km/p is probably pretty safe from enemy stands.

However, little did they know there was a member of the boss’ elite guard who has the perfect stand for this situation, at least sort of. This man’s name is Carne, although it’s never actually said in the episode. It may have been written on the wall of the jet, but I didn’t pay too much attention to what was written there.

Carne from the anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind
Carne

But, before we get into how exactly Notorious B.I.G is activated, and how it works after becoming active, I’d like to briefly point out some things that don’t make sense about it. The first of which is how exactly the stand got on the plane with the JoBros.

Plot holes are fairly common in anime, but JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has never really been a series that has tried to hide them because it’s accepted that literally anything is fair game. However, there’s no logical explanation for how Notorious B.I.G ended up inside the freezer on the jet.

The other thing that doesn’t really make sense about this stand, but isn’t necessarily a plot hole, is its sub-ability. This ability allows the stand to write messages on things, and the only reason I can think of for why it can do this is because we don’t have its user around to say things on its behalf.

A New Worst Stand?

And, why isn’t Notorious B.I.G’s user around? Because he’s dead. Notorious B.I.G is a stand that activates upon the death of its user, which means Carne had to pay the ultimate sacrifice in order to unleash it and protect the boss’ identity.

Last week we had a discussion about whether or not Talking Head was the worst stand, and GuardianTempest reminded us in the comments that Cheap Trick exists. For those of you who don’t know, Cheap Trick is a stand that kills its own user if anyone sees their back. It then transfers to the person who saw the back of its previous user.

So, how could any stand compete with Cheap Trick for the title of the worst? Obviously it would have to be another stand that results in the death of its user, and Notorious B.I.G fits the bill. But, is Notorious B.I.G really worse than Cheap Trick? Are they equal? Or is it somehow better?

Right off the bat I’m going to say that Notorious B.I.G is a better stand than Cheap Trick for one main reason: it doesn’t actively try to kill its user. In fact, if you so desired, you could live a full life and just never use Notorious B.I.G, effectively making you a non-stand user.

However, the fact that once you die a monster will be unleashed upon all of humanity might be a bit of a bummer if your intent is to live your life as an ordinary citizen.

But, while I wouldn’t put this stand below Cheap Trick in terms of how bad it would be to have, it’s definitely lower on the rating list than seemingly useless stands. Think of it this way, unless you die, it’s like not having a stand at all, so you’re better off having most stands anyway.

The Zombie Stand

Once its user does die though, Notorious B.I.G isn’t your average automatic stand. It follows and attacks the fastest moving thing in its vicinity, and also doesn’t appear to be affected by the laws of gravity, which is something I’m not going to get into here.

But, the way in which the stand works, by targeting the fastest moving object relative to itself within its vicinity, is what makes this stand so powerful in this particular situation. If this stand was activated in the middle of a desert in which nothing was moving, it would be useless.

However, on the jet there are moving things, the JoBros. And, since they’re all stuck on the jet, they have nowhere to escape to, sort of.

Mista, Buccellati, and Trish from the anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind
Mista, Buccellati, and Trish

Since the jet is moving at 800km/h, everything within the jet is also moving at that speed by default, including Notorious B.I.G. This means that anything that moves further within the confines of the jet is moving faster than the jet, and therefore the stand, by comparison.

So, not only are the JoBros stuck in a confined space with an enemy stand, if they make any movements they’ll be targeted by it, which is why it’s so good in this particular situation. But, that said, I can think of at least one possible way to “defeat” this stand.

It doesn’t seem like it can be killed by normal means, so the unreasonable way of defeating it would be to fire it into the Sun. A more reasonable way to “defeat” it, however, would be to simply bail out of the plane and hope the stand never makes its way back to civilization.

This strategy wouldn’t necessarily defeat the stand, but it would no longer be a threat to our heroes. But, as I mentioned, if the stand ever made its way back to human civilization, it would be a cataclysmic event and possibly end in the destruction of entire cities or nations. I’ve seen A.I.C.O.: Incarnation, I know the dangers of flesh monsters.

Conclusion

With Abbacchio using Moody Blues to fly the plane, Mista, Narancia, and Giorno temporarily out of commission, and Buccellati taking care of the three injured teammates, it’s up to Trish to deal with Notorious B.I.G in the next episode. This is also when we’ll be introduced to her stand, Spice Girl.

I don’t know anything about this stand other than the name, so I’m looking forward to seeing what kinds of abilities it has. I assume it has some sort of extreme strength due to the teaser we got of it earlier on in the season, but I fail to see how that would be helpful in this upcoming fight.

So, what do you think of Notorious B.I.G as a stand? Would you be happy having this stand ability? Do you think it’s actually somehow worse than Cheap Trick? And, are there any other stands you can think of that are worse than it? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed today’s review, click the like button ❤ down below. And, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on all my latest content. I tweet out every time a new post goes live, so it’s the best way to stay up to date.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about becoming a supporter of this blog and the benefits that come with it, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “JoJo’s Part 5 Episode 24”

  1. Stands reflect their user one way or another, from Moody Blues and Abbachio’s eternal connection to his past; to Sex Pistols and Mista’s excellent marksmanship. Personalities, pasts, interests, motifs, color palettes, etc.

    So it takes a particularly *twisted* individual to have a Stand that’s only useful upon death. Although we both saw that B.I.G. has a humanoid form, so I assume the zombie mode is just its main ability and a different person can still make do with treating it as a punch ghost.

    1. Yeah, I’ve discussed how stands are connected to their users in one of the earlier episode reviews.

      As for Notorious B.I.G’s humanoid form, I would assume it isn’t a very powerful punching ghost. It’s not like it’s going to have star platinum level punches, maybe more like Sticky Fingers or Gold Experience. The problem there is that those two don’t really have powerful punches, it’s the effects of their punches that make them dangerous.

      So, if your stand is effectively just a punching ghost that doesn’t have any power, you’re probably better off not using it at all rather than turning yourself into a target by revealing you have a stand. That said, as you mentioned, only someone twisted would have a stand that activates on death, so revealing he was a stand user was likely all part of Carne’s plan.

Leave a Comment