The Requiem Quietly Plays, Part 2

Have I mentioned that part 5 is my favorite JoJo’s part so far? Well it is. And for those of you wondering, my ordering of all five animated parts is 5 > 2 >1 > 4 > 3. I know a lot of people really like parts 3 and 4, but I preferred the less episodic formats of the first two parts.

And I know part 5 is very episodic in the middle, but that’s why I have this part rated as a 7/10 and not higher. If part 5 was more story driven like it is towards the end, it would definitely be rated even higher. But at least we’ve finally passed all the episodic fights and are now onto the good stuff.

The Requiem Quietly Plays, Part 2 is also the first episode in which a member of Buccellati’s team has died since Abbacchio. And, like Abbacchio’s death, it was quick and off screen. Some people probably don’t like that, but I find it to be a much more powerful way of killing off characters we’ve come to know and love.

We’re also shown our first glimpse of Pannacotta Fugo since he decided to leave Buccellati’s team and not become a traitor of Passione. I always felt like Fugo would make a heroic comeback at some point, but this seems to show that’s not going to happen.

It’s interesting to me that Fugo would just be written out of the series like that. I get that Fugo didn’t want to kill any of his friends with his stand, and that he didn’t believe in himself enough to leave Passione with them, but it still feels strange for him to leave the way he did.

Where is Diavolo?

Alright, so Buccellati is in Diavolo’s body and someone else is in Buccellati’s body, but we don’t yet know who. However, it’s strongly implied that Doppio is the one who was swapped into Buccellati’s body, not the boss. You may recall that I predicted this would happen during last week’s review.

That said, we don’t yet know where Diavolo’s soul ended up. But I’m still pretty sure my prediction was entirely correct and Diavolo’s soul is still within his own body along with Buccellati. I feel like this is too obvious to not be correct.

We know that Buccellati’s body is too far away for Diavolo to be attacking from it, so he’s not there. We also know that there’s nobody else close enough to Buccellati’s team to attack them other than a member of the team itself.

But if this is the case, why can’t anyone figure out where Diavolo is? It’s because every time his soul takes over his body, he immediately uses King Crimson to skip forward in time. By doing this, he could theoretically take out every member of Buccellati’s team without ever revealing himself.

Also I’d like to point out that the rest of the team other than Giorno still don’t know that Buccellati is already marked for death. When Buccellati told Mista to shoot his body to kill whoever was in it, he was fully ready to sacrifice himself. However, Giorno continues to hide Buccellati’s secret by saying that he’ll heal the wounds, even though he know he can’t.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the surviving members of the team react when they learn that Buccellati has died and Giorno knew about it all along. That is, if any of them do end up surviving.

Narancia Ghirga

In case you didn’t know, Narancia was the one who died. I never really liked Narancia, but he was still one of the JoBros and his death was fairly impactful. Although he’s right next to all of his friends, none of them even see him die because it happened during a time skip.

As I mentioned earlier, this is really the best way to illustrate sudden deaths like Narancia’s. Too often in popular media we see character deaths as long, drawn out scenes in which they get to say their last goodbyes. However, that’s not usually how it works in the real world when violence is involved.

It’s often sudden, and nobody knows it even happened until after the fact, when it’s already too late. That’s exactly why it hits so hard when a character’s death is presented in this way. There’s a mix of emotions, ranging from sadness to confusion to anger, usually towards oneself for not being able to help.

I remember one of the things I loved most about Abbacchio’s death was how we got to see Buccellati fighting back tears so that he could remain the strong leader his team needed. While Mista was the one who grieved the most openly for Narancia, we once again see that Buccellati deeply cared for his late comrade.

Despite knowing that he needs to focus on figuring out where they’re being attacked from, and that Narancia is already gone, he still cuts his body down from the gate because he knows he can’t just leave him up there. Also it’s technically Giorno’s body, so Giorno would probably have wanted it back at some point.

Now that Narancia is dead and Giorno’s body is vacant, his soul is able to move back into his own body. And just before they leave Narancia to pursue Chariot Requiem, Giorno promises to return and bring Narancia’s body back home. Narancia had just previously mentioned how he wanted to go home and see Fugo once more.

Requiem

I’m not entirely sure if Silver Chariot Requiem’s abilities have all been revealed yet, but a few more of its abilities were revealed in this episode. Last time we learned that it could incapacitate people, swap their souls, and seems to be driven to protect the stand arrow.

This time around it’s confirmed that its goal is to protect the stand arrow, but it doesn’t exactly have any offensive capabilities of its own with which to do so. Instead, it relies on the arrow itself for protection, which doesn’t really make all that much sense.

Never before has a stand arrow seemed to reject a current stand user, so this is perhaps a side effect of it being in close proximity to Chariot Requiem. When a stand user attempts to pick up the arrow, their own stand is turned against them.

We first see this with Buccellati’s Sticky Fingers attacking him after he uses it to attack Chariot Requiem. Then Number 1 of the Sex Pistols attacks Mista after he shoots Chariot Requiem. Finally, Giorno attempts to pick up the arrow, but sees Gold Experience begin to appear to stop him.

But, since Polnareff is now a turtle, and technically no longer a stand user, he’s able to pick the arrow up in his mouth. In the next episode we’ll probably see him stab one of the JoBros with it to awaken their requiem stand. He calls for Mista to get stabbed by it, but let’s face it, we all know Giorno is going to be the one since he’s the protagonist.

Conclusion

So what do you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you think I’m right about Diavolo sharing his own body with Buccellati? And, who do you think is going to be pierced by the stand arrow if not Giorno? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any upcoming 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 how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

The Requiem Quietly Plays, Part 1

Today’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind marks the final episode for which I know a spoiler in the part. I’ve actually known about Polnareff’s upgraded stand, Silver Chariot Requiem from the start, and now it has finally been officially revealed.

I suppose I technically know one more spoiler, but it’s basically something anyone could guess at this point, so it doesn’t count. That said, I still won’t mention it just in case. Since I don’t actually know how this part ends, perhaps the small piece of information I have actually does play some sort of role.

But anyway, requiem stands! I’ll be discussing this concept more in a later section of the episode, but at this point we know very little about them. We know that they’re created by piercing an already established stand with one of the stand arrows, but not much more than that.

Since Chariot Requiem is the only requiem stand that we know of so far, everything we know about them comes from it. A sample size of one doesn’t really give us a good idea of the big picture. The way Polnareff’s explanation was phrased, it almost seems like every requiem stand would gain the same abilities, but that just sounds wrong for the series.

Ever since stands were introduced, and to an extent even before, individuality has played an important role in the series. Yes, over the different parts there have been people with similar stand abilities, such as Holhorse and Mista, but none that actually have the same abilities.

And, as I typed that sentence I actually remembered that DIO and Jotaro do have the same exact abilities, so I guess there is precedent for that after all. But Star Platinum’s sudden ability to freeze time just like The World always felt like more of a Deus ex Machina to me than its actual ability, so I won’t count that.

Mismatched Souls

The first hint of a new ability for Chariot Requiem comes when everyone in the Colosseum begins to fall asleep. We see this start with Diavolo, who was the closest in proximity to Chariot Requiem, and the last to go is Giorno.

He was probably the final one because he’s the protagonist, but the argument could be made that his stand somewhat lessened the effects. Since Golden Wind’s ability is essentially to give things energy, it would make sense for it to help Giorno resist sleepiness a bit better than the rest of the JoBros.

What happens next, however, doesn’t really make any sense to me. Everyone who was put to sleep by Chariot Requiem wakes up a few hours later with their soul swapped with the person who was nearest to them. First of all, why? Second of all, they didn’t swap with whoever was nearest to them, so there’s a plot hole.

The soul swaps went something like this: Giorno and Narancia, Mista and Trish, Polnareff and the turtle, and Buccellati and Diavolo(?). Polnareff wasn’t anywhere near the turtle, and Buccellati wasn’t anywhere near Diavolo, so these don’t make sense. In fact, Polnareff and Diavolo should have swapped.

But, whatever. The point is that everyone has their souls swapped with someone else, and this effect extends beyond the Colosseum to everyone who was put to sleep by Chariot Requiem. Now the question becomes, “why?” What does this swapping of souls actually accomplish for Chariot Requiem?

As far as I can tell, nothing. It would be one thing if it either made it so stand users couldn’t use their stands, or made them use the unfamiliar stand of the person they swapped with, but instead it actually does something even more bizarre. It enhances the stands of those who have had their souls swapped!

Now Mista’s Sex Pistols are even more accurate and powerful, Narancia’s Aerosmith is faster than ever before, and we can assume the rest of the JoBros’ stands are upgraded as well. Why this would be the case is anyone’s guess.

Chariot Requiem

So let’s talk about Chariot Requiem itself. The first thing you may have noticed is that it no longer really resembles the original Silver Chariot. Instead, it has a much darker color and almost reminds me of a cowboy mixed with a Robin Hood type character rather than the knight it was originally designed after.

Polnareff also reveals that Chariot Requiem has “gone berserk” and is essentially an autonomous stand at this point. Even though he’s technically already dead, his stand is still able to function and he’s unable to control it in any way.

However, we don’t actually know what its abilities are. We know it put everyone to sleep and swapped their souls, but they’re awake now, so was that the extent of its abilities? Can it put them all back to sleep again on command? We simply don’t know.

What we do know is how to defeat it.

Polnareff explains that Silver Chariot became Chariot Requiem once before, which is when he first discovered requiem stands. He felt that something was wrong and quickly took the stand arrow away from Chariot Requiem, and this made it revert back to normal.

So all the JoBros have to do is take the stand arrow from Chariot Requiem and it should be defeated. Since Polnareff is already dead, it won’t be able to revert back to a regular stand and should disappear instead. The only thing is, I’m not so sure that it’s that easy.

If taking the stand arrow away from Chariot Requiem was enough to defeat it, shouldn’t it have been defeated from the very start when Diavolo was in possession of the arrow? Even though it didn’t have the arrow, Chariot Requiem was still alive and moving around. Maybe this was just another plot hole.

I’m interested to see what other abilities Chariot Requiem ends up having. Polnareff mentioned that requiem stands theoretically have the power of mind control, so does this mean they would all have this ability? Also, are all of them autonomous? And do all of them need to be holding a stand arrow to be active? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Buccellati and Diavolo

Finally we get to the mystery of who exactly Bruno Buccellati swapped souls with. We still don’t yet know whose soul is inside of his body, but we did learn that his soul is inside of Diavolo’s body. So does this simply mean that Diavolo is in Buccellati’s body?

I don’t think it’s that cut and dry. Remember, the boss has two distinct personalities, so what if each one of them has their own distinct soul? I think this is actually the case, and that would definitely change things up.

Remember, Trish is able to recognize Diavolo’s soul because it’s similar to her own. However, Doppio’s soul doesn’t seem to be. In order to trick Buccellati in the previous episode, Diavolo mentions that he masked Doppio in his own soul so that Buccellati would think he was Trish.

This implies that Diavolo and Doppio are more than just two personalities, but actually two different people. The JoBros also are told that the boss is two different people by Polnareff in this episode, but I don’t think that any of them, including Polnareff, know that they share the same body yet.

My prediction is this, since Trish doesn’t sense Diavolo’s soul before his body with Buccellati’s soul in it shows up, it must not be his soul in Buccellati’s body. Instead, Doppio’s soul is in Buccellati’s body and Buccellati is sharing Diavolo’s body with Diavolo himself.

This would be a pretty interesting development, because since Buccellati is already technically dead anyway, killing Diavolo while his soul is in his body wouldn’t really be doing anything to Buccellati that isn’t going to happen anyway. He’s dead either way, so at least he can sacrifice himself to help defeat Diavolo.

I’m also interested to see if Doppio actually helps the JoBros take down Diavolo once he’s split off from him and in a different body. Perhaps Doppio is actually the final JoBro to be introduced in this part. Of course, it’s also possible that there is no soul in Buccellati’s body at all.

Remember, Polnareff is already dead, so we can assume that the turtle’s soul isn’t in his body. The same might be true for Buccellati. Since he’s technically already dead, it’s possible that no soul was swapped into his body.

Conclusion

As a final note, it was never actually revealed how Polnareff survived his first encounter with Diavolo. Instead this is just glossed over, and I think that’s something which should really be addressed. According to GuardianTempest in the comments last week, this is explained in the manga, so I don’t see why it was skipped here.

But what did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? And what are your thoughts on requiem stands, and Chariot Requiem in particular? Personally I don’t think they’re necessary, but I guess Araki wanted to change things up.

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

And finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

His Name Is Diavolo

A lot happened in this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind. First we learn more about Buccellati’s condition, next we learn about Diavolo (the boss) and Polnareff’s shared past, and then we had the final fight between Diavolo and Polnareff.

So let’s start with the elephant in the room, which is that the boss’ true name and appearance have finally been revealed. While he uses his persona of Doppio, a young man, to hide his identity, his real name is Diavolo and he’s probably in his 40s, though you wouldn’t guess that by how he dresses.

I really liked how every other time the boss was depicted, before his identity was finally revealed, he reminded me of Giovanni from Pokémon. However, once you actually see him, he looks nothing like those silhouettes of him made him out to be.

It still makes no sense as to why Diavolo can physically change his appearance at will to become Doppio, but I guess we can just chalk it up to this being a bizarre adventure. I mean, in part 3 there was an orangutan who was the captain of his own cargo ship, so why am I questioning anything else?

Bruno Buccellati

Alright, we’ve known for a while now that Buccellati is actually dead and that his death occurred some time around his fight with Diavolo in Sardinia. I’ve also discussed this in multiple previous episode reviews. But once again we have some new information.

Due to his battle against Secco, Buccellati’s body is destroyed. Not only is he technically dead, but he can no longer even hear or see. Instead, he can only sense the souls of living things around him. In this regard, he’s basically Hyakkimaru from the series Dororo.

And, because familial spirits apparently look alike, he can’t tell that it’s Doppio/Diavolo helping him to the Colosseum instead of Trish. If only his spirit vision was the same as Hyakkimaru’s. Then he would be able to tell that Diavolo’s soul is much more tainted than that of Trish.

However, what I found to be the most interesting piece of information regarding Buccellati’s condition is that even Diavolo doesn’t appear to know what caused it. I was pretty sure Buccellati died when Diavolo punched him through his stomach with King Crimson, but apparently Diavolo doesn’t think that’s the cause.

And if that’s not what caused Buccellati’s death, then I have no idea what did.

Polnareff vs. Diavolo

Now we get to the juicy content involving both Diavolo and Polnareff. As it turns out, Polnareff’s current injuries were not due to his battle against DIO back in Egypt. We’re shown that his body was still in working order after that fight, and that he and Jotaro split up to search for the stand arrows.

Jotaro was in charge of searching Asia and the Americas, while Polnareff was in charge of searching Europe and Africa. Then, at some point during the 90s, Polnareff learned of an Italian gang which suddenly rose to power, and there were rumors that one of the stand arrows was involved.

But before I go any further with Polnareff’s tale, we need to back up and go over Diavolo’s. I don’t exactly remember the origin of the stand arrows too well, as it was explained in part 4, but they’re made out of some meteorite and eventually made their way to Egypt.

Here they were uncovered by Diavolo, who proceeded to keep one for himself and sell of the rest, most notably to Enyaba from part 3 who then sold one to Kira’s father in part 4. Anyway, Diavolo was the one who uncovered the stand arrows in Egypt which is essentially what causes the plots of parts 3, 4, and 5 to occur.

After Diavolo had his hands on a stand arrow and had built his organization, Polnareff finally tracks him down. The two have a fight, and in the end Polnareff loses. It’s this fight which robbed Polnareff of both his legs, one of his arms, and one of his eyes.

Diavolo also claims that he was certain Polnareff was deceased after their fight, and that he even scattered his remains in the ocean. I hope we get an explanation as to how Polnareff survived this at some point, because it makes no sense to write a plot hole into the episode like that.

I also found it to be interesting that King Crimson now appears to work a bit differently than it did previously in the series. From what I can tell, while King Crimson is fast-forwarding time, it cannot come into contact with people. This means that he has to resume time before striking his opponents, which I don’t believe was true before.

Stardust Crusader

Since the Stardust Crusaders were brought up in this episode, let’s briefly go over what they’re doing today. Jotaro is still doing “marine biology” which apparently means tracking down stand arrows, Joseph is probably still alive, but in an assisted living facility, Polnareff is here, dying in Italy, and the other three, Avdol, Iggy, and Kakyoin died back in Egypt in that order.

But before Polnareff dies at the end of this episode, he gets a surprising amount of character growth. Back in part 3 he was basically just a goofball womanizer who couldn’t even protect himself or his friends from their enemies. However, in part 5 that’s no longer true.

While he’s still very much the same Polnareff we know and love, he’s learned from his past mistakes and previous fight against Diavolo. In order to combat King Crimson’s time altering ability, Polnareff cuts his finger so that he can use the blood droplets as a timer.

When time fast-forwards, he can see how many new blood droplets there are, determine how much time has likely been skipped, and from there figure out where Diavolo is likely to be based on his speed, direction, and the time which has passed.

For example, if there are two seconds between each drop of blood, the droplets increased from three to seven, and Diavolo was moving toward Polnareff at a speed of three meters per second, then after the time skip Diavolo would be 24 meters closer to Polnareff.

And before he dies, Polnareff makes sure to do one last thing to prevent Diavolo from winning altogether. He stabs his stand, Silver Chariot, in the face with the stand arrow. This seems to melt Silver Chariot, but later on we see a new figure who’s similar in color to Silver Chariot, but with a different appearance and a stand arrow depicted on its face.

So what did Polnareff do exactly before he died? And how is this going to help the JoBros defeat Diavolo?

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you think King Crimson was shown to be working in a slightly different way? Do you think we’ll learn how Polnareff survived? And, what do you think happened to Silver Chariot?

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on all the 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 how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Green Day and Oasis, Part 3

This week’s episode had a decent number of interesting developments, but I don’t really feel like anything all that special happened in it. Yes, Secco was defeated, we were officially introduced to Polnareff, and Doppio reappeared, but all of that was bound to happen anyway.

I’m not saying that the fact those things were going to happen takes away from the episode, but I am saying that the lack of any real surprises does. I mean, our heroes still haven’t even made it to Polnareff, he was just introduced to the viewers so even that wasn’t too exciting.

This episode also focused on Buccellati and didn’t show the other JoBros at all. Though, it does take place after the previous episode, and not alongside it. Or, at least the latter half of the episode takes place after the last episode.

We know this because Cioccolata’s Green Day mold is no longer spreading throughout the city, which means it’s after he’s already been killed. And, upon learning of Cioccolata’s death something interesting is revealed about Secco, which I’ll get into later.

Oasis vs. Sticky Fingers

The fight between Buccellati and Secco, Sticky Fingers and Oasis, continues on for what’s technically the third episode. And, let me just say that I think this fight dragged on way too long considering Oasis’ abilities. It’s not like Oasis is the most interesting stand out there, especially when Secco isn’t working with Cioccolata.

Together their stands make a formidable pair as I’ve discussed in the past, but individually they aren’t really all that great. That said, we do learn in this episode that the stronger of the two is actually Secco’s Oasis, not Cioccolata’s Green Day (in one-on-one battles).

So how is this the case? Green Day is good because its attacks cover a wide range, but as long as you don’t move in a downward direction, it can’t really harm you. Oasis on the other hand can harm you no matter where you are or what you’re doing as long as you’re within range.

Not only is Oasis fast and fairly strong due to its speed, but Secco has figured out more unique ways to use its abilities as well. One such example is to spit out the liquefied ground into the air. Once the pieces get high enough, they leave Oasis’ range and re-solidify to rain back down as spikes.

Also, if Secco and Cioccolata were to fight each other, Secco would win since he’s not affected by Green Day for some reason, as pointed out to me by GuardianTempest in the comments of episode 30. This was still never explained even after both their fights are over, so I think we can chalk it up to “Araki forgot.”

The Frenchie

Halfway through their fight, Secco and Buccellati notice a glint of light coming from the second level of arches in the Colosseum. And, when we’re zoomed over to the Colosseum to check it out, it’s none other than Jean Pierre Polnareff using his binoculars to observe the fight.

In the previous episode review I mentioned that I didn’t remember what happened to Polnareff at the end of part 3, and that still holds true. I haven’t gone back to look up what happened to him, but clearly he survived the battle with DIO unlike Kakyoin.

However, Polnareff has some pretty serious injuries, likely sustained in the battle against DIO. He lost both of his legs, which are now replaced with metal prosthesis, he’s confined to a wheelchair, and it appears he may be blind in his right eye. He’s also 36 years old now, potentially making him the longest-lived JoBro.

I also can’t help myself but point out that while Polnareff’s stand is called Silver Chariot, he now has a second silver chariot (his wheelchair). Do you think Araki did that on purpose, or is that just a coincidence? I think Araki must have done it on purpose.

Anyway, it’s revealed that the secret to defeating the boss lies within one of the stand arrows Polnareff is in possession of. We haven’t yet been told exactly how the stand arrow is going to be used, but it holds some secret which he doesn’t want falling into the wrong hands.

We’re told that if Buccellati and his team fail to make it safely to the Colosseum, Polnareff will have no other choice but to destroy the arrow so as to prevent anyone from using it for evil. However, I don’t believe this secret is specific to the arrow Polnareff has, so theoretically the broken arrow from Black Sabbath would work too (which I think is the one Giorno is shown with in the OP).

Secco

Alright, so I mentioned that after Cioccolata’s death something interesting was revealed about Secco. That interesting thing is that Secco isn’t actually the masochist I believed him to be. Instead, it turns out he was simply following Cioccolata because he believed that he was strong.

But why was Secco following someone he thought was strong? For protection. Initially Secco must have believed that getting on Cioccolata’s good side would prevent him from killing Secco like he had done to his previous patients, and that seems to have worked.

However, the reason he continued to follow Cioccolata was for continued protection. It’s not exactly that Secco believes himself to be weak or that someone or something is going to kill him, but he simply figures that he’s even safer if he’s with someone strong like Cioccolata.

The fight against Secco comes to a conclusion when Buccellati tricks Secco into making a car fall into the ground. He then uses Sticky Fingers to rupture a tire on the car, causing a deafening blast to go through the ground. Since sound is how Secco was determining Buccellati’s position from underground, he’s essentially blind (actually deaf) now.

This partial deafness means Secco can no longer accurately determine Buccellati’s location compared to other moving objects. And, due to his confusion, he gets his leg run over by a car which he thought was Buccellati.

But although he’s injured, Secco has one final plan. He takes a child hostage (which just so happens to be Doppio) thinking that this will prevent Buccellati from attacking him. However, Buccellati simply zips through Doppio to get at Secco and defeats him.

I feel it’s also important for me to point out that during their fight Buccellati was physically affected by Oasis’ liquefying ability. It wasn’t explicitly explained in this way, but I wonder if his body began to be affected by it due to the fact that Buccellati is already dead. Perhaps as Green Day affects the living, Oasis affects the dead.

Conclusion

At the end of the episode Buccellati is in a severely weakened state due to his fight with Secco. And, unfortunately for him, Doppio (the boss) is right there. Will Doppio finish off Buccellati, or will the other members of his squad/Polnareff intervene?

Let me know what you think Buccellati’s fate will be down in the comments. And, while you’re down there, click the like button ❤ if you enjoyed today’s review. You should also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month, as well as Rob Wright and Keyboard Kadabra for supporting at the Kouhair tier. To learn more how you can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Green Day and Oasis, Part 2

The battle against Cioccolata and Secco began during the previous episode and should be concluding in the next. Is this the first three part mini arc of part 5? Probably not, but I’ll claim it is without fact checking myself.

There are two fights in this episode, so let’s briefly recap how things are going for the JoBros before getting into the action. As stated, this episode continues the fights against Cioccolata and Secco, so the two of them are still kicking. However, they have split up to fight individually.

As for the JoBros, we’re down to five of them, Giorno, Buccellati, Mista, Narancia, and Trish. That said, Narancia was injured by Cioccolata’s Green Day and Trish isn’t exactly in fighting form so the two of them are out of this fight. Even so, that still makes it three against two in favor of the JoBros.

Buccellati decides to fight Secco on his own while Giorno and Mista go after Cioccolata, whose helicopter has been caught by Giorno’s stand.

Buccellati vs. Secco

The fight between Buccellati and Secco only begins in this episode and will likely be concluded in the next. Even so, there are a few new pieces of information we can discuss, as well as some old information which I’ll reiterate.

Firstly, the old information. Either last week or the week before it was revealed that Buccellati is actually dead and that his life force was extended slightly thanks to the power of Giorno’s Golden Wind. This is the reason why Buccellati is confident he can defeat Secco on his own.

Oasis, Secco’s stand, has a strangely versatile ability in that it can make solid object liquefy. This means he can swim through solid ground to perform sneak attacks, or simply make his opponents sink into the ground, thus activating Green Day’s mold ability.

However, neither of those tactics work on Buccellati. Due to the fact that he’s dead, Green Day’s mold won’t grow on him even if he moves downward. And, because he figured out that Secco can only track him while he’s on the ground, he can now avoid the sneak attacks.

But I didn’t say Oasis is a versatile stand just because it can do those two things. It can actually do even more. In what seems almost like a combination of the abilities of White Album and Spice Girl, Oasis is able to increase Secco’s movement speed and power by bouncing off solid objects which it liquefies.

Honestly I think this is a bit cheap, and is something that fits with the ability of Spice Girl much more than Oasis, but this is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Araki often seems to make up new abilities for or ways to use stands as he goes, so this is nothing new.

Giorno vs. Cioccolata

While the fight between Buccellati and Secco was just getting started in this episode, the fight between Giorno (and Mista) and Cioccolata was the main attraction. This fight was pretty good due to all the twists and turns, but for manga readers it was exciting because it included the “seven pages of Muda (無駄).”

I’ll get to that in minute, but since it comes at the end of the fight I should probably do a quick review of what leads up to it.

Basically Mista is taken out of the fight early on due to Cioccolata getting the drop on his Sex Pistols. In case you forgot, the damage done to someone’s stand is directly transferred back to the stand’s user (in most cases), so when the Pistols were severely injured, so was Mista.

Mista being taken out so early effectively made this a fight between Giorno and Cioccolata. But, instead of going into the specifics of the fight, let’s just look at the new “ability” that Cioccolata was revealed to have, being a doctor.

Thanks to his expert medical knowledge, Cioccolata is able to cut his body apart, use Green Day’s mold to stop the bleeding, and then independently control all of his limbs. Does it make sense? No. Not at all. Does it somehow still work? Yes. This is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure for a reason.

So back to the seven page Muda. Sure, it was pretty cool, but this is one of those things that I think only worked so well in the manga because it was so unheard of. Writing “Muda” for seven pages isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, but it’s the sheer fact that Araki did it that makes it entertaining.

It’s kind of like the Endless Eight in Haruhi. In that case, it could have been done in only two or three episodes, but the fact that the creators had the guts to keep it going for eight is what makes it unique. Seven pages of Muda may have been unique in the manga, but it doesn’t exactly have the same effect when translated to anime.

Jean Pierre Polnareff

And I couldn’t possibly conclude today’s review without mentioning the reveal of Jean Pierre Polnareff at the very end of the episode. Also for anyone who didn’t know who that was, now you do. It’s Polnareff from part 3.

I don’t actually remember what happened to Polnareff at the end of part 3, but from what we’re shown in this episode he’s confined to a wheelchair. He also previously stated over the phone that he’s no longer in fighting form, so we can probably assume he won’t be a major character from here on out.

Either way, what’s interesting is that Polnareff has appeared at all. We haven’t seen a character from a previous part since Jotaro and Koichi at the very beginning. So the fact that Polnareff has showed up really helps to reinforce the idea that parts 3, 4, and 5 all happened relatively close together.

I think part 3 was in like 1988, part 4 was 1999, and part 5 is 2001, so they aren’t as far apart as the first two parts of the series.

I’m also interested to find out why Polnareff is even in Rome in the first place. Did he go there to live after the events of part 3? It’s possible that this is the case and that he said this is what he was going to do back then. Or, perhaps he’s now a member of the Speedwagon foundation and is working with Jotaro and Koichi.

This is also the time I would usually theorize about what secret Polnareff knows that will help bring down the boss, but I actually already know. So, as to not spoil anyone, you’ll just have to wait until its officially revealed to read my thoughts on the subject.

Conclusion

But, anyway, what did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Specifically, what did you think of the adaptation of the seven pages of Muda? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.