JoJo’s Part 5 Episode 13

Man in the Mirror and Purple Haze

At the end of last week’s episode, Giorno and Abbacchio each have differing plans regarding how to move forward after the disappearance of Fugo at the hands of an enemy stand user. Giorno believes the pair should solve the mystery behind Fugo’s disappearance and defeat the stand user, while Abbacchio believes the mission comes first.

To this end, Abbacchio abandons Fugo to his fate and leaves Giorno to decide for himself which course of action is best. He plans to head directly to the dog mosaic, get the key, and complete the mission he was entrusted with by both the boss and Buccellati.

However, upon running towards the location of the key, Illuso, the enemy stand user, notices his footsteps heading away from the battle at hand, and subsequently gives chase. Honestly, based on everything from both the previous episode and this one, it doesn’t make sense for Illuso to be able to hear the footsteps of someone outside the mirror whom he can’t even see.

But, let’s pretend that this sound quirk isn’t a plot hole. If so, then there’s still the next plot hole in which Illuso is able to grab a large piece of the broken mirror, catch up to Abbacchio, and then place it in front of him while he’s looking in its direction without him noticing it floating through the air.

As we’ll see later on, these aren’t the only two plot holes surrounding Illuso and Man in the Mirror.

Abbacchio’s Sacrifice

To quickly summarize the majority of the battle between Abbacchio and Illuso, Abbacchio smashes the mirror so that Illuso can’t see him swap himself out for Moody Blues, which is then pulled into the mirror world in his place. Once there, Moody Blues is able to give Illuso and Man in the Mirror an intense beating.

However, this beating doesn’t last long because Illuso banishes only half of Moody Blues from the mirror world, causing it to be stuck in place. He then brings half of the real Abbacchio into the mirror world where he’s fused with the other half of Moody Blues.

Considering Moody Blues and Abbacchio have roughly the same body structure, and that a stand and it’s user are typically considered one and the same, it doesn’t really make sense for this combination of the two to be any less mobile than a full Abbacchio or Moody Blues.

Now that he’s immobilized, Abbacchio has no way to defend himself from his attacker, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost his usefulness. In an attempt to get the key to Giorno so that he can complete the mission, Abbacchio cuts off his own hand so that Moody Blues’ hand in the real world is severed as well. The disembodied stand hand then flies the key in Giorno’s direction.

For the sake of not making myself go crazy, I’ll assume that freely controlling the disembodied hand of his stand is fair game for Abbacchio, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn’t. With that in mind, Abbacchio’s plan succeeds in getting the key to Giorno, but Giorno doesn’t escape once he has it.

Giorno’s lack of action causes Abbacchio to yell out to him, but his words aren’t able to reach past the mirror world. This is the next plot hole regarding Man in the Mirror’s stand ability. I can understand that if Abbacchio’s entire body were in the mirror world that he couldn’t communicate with Giorno, but this isn’t the case.

In fact, half of Abbacchio’s body is in the real world, combined with half of Moody Blues, just as they are in the mirror world. This means that theoretically Abbacchio would simply have to have his real-world counterpart yell out to Giorno rather than his mirror world self.

An explanation as to why this couldn’t be done is never given, and something tells me that there is no explanation other than the fact that it would detract from the planned plot.

Giorno’s Sacrifice

Although it appeared as though Giorno had no plan after receiving the key from Abbacchio, this was anything but the case. In reality, while Abbacchio sacrificed his own hand to get the key to Giorno, Giorno was risking his life to save his comrades.

He purposefully got infected with Purple Haze’s virus just so that he could pass the virus on to Illuso when he was grabbed and brought into the mirror world by him. To this end, Giorno’s gamble paid off and Illuso found himself infected with the deadly contagion.

However, the only problem for Giorno is that Illuso has an escape route which he doesn’t. Getting the idea from Abbacchio, Illuso severs his own hand by returning most of his body to the real world and leaving his infected hand behind, thus preventing the virus from spreading any further.

Or, at least this prevents the virus from spreading throughout the rest of his body temporarily. You see, although he escaped from the infected Giorno within the mirror world, the cause of that infection, Purple Haze, is still in the real world.

Giorno uses Gold Experience to turn a virus infected brick into a snake which then tracks down Illuso so Purple Haze can finish him off. Once he’s dead, his stand ability dissolves and the Jo-Bros are back in the real world where Giorno can use the snake he created to make himself an antidote, although that’s not really how antidotes work.

Giorno then passes out due to what I can only assume are the lingering effects of the virus, and Abbacchio likewise passes out due to the blood loss from severing his own hand. At this point I should mention that I think Giorno will later fix Abbacchio’s hand with Gold Experience as the team medic main.

Conclusion

Next week’s episode is actually just going to be a “special,” which is a fancy way of saying recap episode, so instead I’ll be bringing back #FigureFriday. If you follow me over on Instagram then you should already know which figure I’ll be reviewing next week.

And, since there’s no real episode next week, after the end credits we got an extra scene which simply showed the next antagonist of the series, who I believe is the leader of the hitman team. Hopefully the next real episode will feature him that wasn’t simply a teaser for later on in the series.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this week’s review of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, then be sure to let me know by clicking the like button ❤ down below and adding your thoughts on the episode in the comments. Also remember to follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content.

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My Review of the next episode is available here.