Gold Experience Requiem

We’re finally here at the end of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind. As the title of this post suggests, this will be a review of both episodes 38 and 39. And let me just say upfront that I think these episodes were a great end to the part.

As I’ll be discussing in more detail throughout this review, we got closure for some plot lines, others were left open — which I’m a fan of, and everything was tied into JoJo’s overall theme of fate. Though, as I’ll touch on at the very end of this review, there was one thing missing.

So since it’s been a few weeks since the last episode review, let’s quickly go over Giorno’s Gold Experience Requiem. Requiem stands grant the specific ability which the user needs at the time the stand arrow pierces their stand. For Giorno, this meant a way to counter Diavolo’s time skip and precognition abilities.

Gold Experience Requiem achieves this in two ways. First, to counter the time skip, it can reset everything to “zero.” For example, if Diavolo skips ahead in time and kills Mista, Gold Experience Requiem can reset time back to the point before Diavolo activated King Crimson’s ability.

Second, to counter the precognition ability granted to Diavolo by Epitaph, Gold Experience Requiem can essentially jump between timelines. If Diavolo has a vision of himself killing Giorno, Gold Experience Requiem will simply transport everyone into a parallel universe in which this outcome doesn’t happen.

Gold Experience Requiem’s abilities also trigger automatically to protect Giorno.

Diavolo’s Fate

However, there’s one more ability which Gold Experience Requiem is revealed to have within this episode. Not only can it reset everything to zero and alter reality, but it can also seemingly remove people from the present and take away their future.

So what does that all mean?

It’s not as though Diavolo was completely erased from the universe; the JoBros still have memories of him. And he wasn’t actually killed, because Trish can still feel his life force “somewhere.” Instead, it appears he was moved into some sort of pocket dimension, kind of like those found within Sticky Fingers’ zippers.

Within this pocket dimension Diavolo has no future. Or, he does, but it’s more like he has an infinite number of futures and none of them end well for him. In each of these futures, he dies in a way he’s unable to predict, or some other terrible thing happens to him. Then, everything is reset and it happens all over again.

For example, in the first future he’s stabbed by a homeless man and bleeds out in a sewer. In the second future he’s already dead, but can still think and feel pain as an autopsy is performed on his body. The third future involves him getting hit by a car he didn’t predict coming, etc.

This ability of Gold Experience Requiem isn’t explained that well in the anime. It’s unclear whether what happens to Diavolo is actually the ability, or if the ability simply makes the victim’s deepest fears a reality. For Diavolo, being unable to predict what he’ll be killed by is his greatest fear.

Rolling Stones

The second half of episode 38 takes us back in time to before Giorno joined Passione. This story follows Mista, Buccellati, and Fugo to an extent, directly after the death of Leaky Eye Luca in episode 1. And, this is the arc that ties part 5 into the main theme of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure as a whole, fate.

An older man comes to Buccellati hoping that he’ll avenge the death of his daughter. We learn that his daughter began dating an older man who was a sculptor, but that he never introduced himself to her parents. While strange, the father wasn’t too concerned at the time.

However, his daughter was found dead a short time later. She had apparently thrown herself off the roof of the apartment building the sculptor lived in and was clutching a strange stone. The older man swears his daughter would never kill herself and pleads with Buccellati to make the sculptor pay.

I’m skipping ahead a bit here, but in the next episode we learn that the strange stone mentioned is actually the sculptor’s stand, Rolling Stones. So why did the young woman kill herself while holding onto this stand? And what does this have to do with the rest of part 5 and JoJo’s Bizarre adventure at large?

Many people probably agree with me when I say that Rolling Stones may be the best stand of part 5. It’s not a good stand due to its appearance, ability, or user. Instead, it’s what it represents that makes this stand so good.

The Sleeping Slave

So let’s dig into what Rolling Stones is and what it means. This is an automatic stand, meaning the sculptor who owns it has no control over its actions. We also learn that he didn’t receive his stand by being pierced by a stand arrow. Instead, he manifested his stand randomly as a child.

Random manifestation of stands isn’t unheard of, but it’s not something I think I’ve really discussed before. And actually I think the origins of stands would be a good topic for a separate post at some point — though my schedule is booked through September already — so I’ll just run through the basics for now.

While it seems possible to randomly manifest a stand, the main way to obtain one is direct or indirect contact with a stand arrow. Direct contact would mean being pierced by an arrow. Indirect contact would mean being a descendant of someone who was pierced by an arrow.

Since the sculptor “randomly” manifested Rolling Stones and can’t control it, we can assume that he isn’t connected to any dangerous organization. That’s the first thing Mista needs to determine when investigating the death of the young woman.

As for what the stand does, it carves the fate of a particular person into it’s surface. The sculptor does not get to choose who’s fate is shown and does not get to choose what their fate is, though it typically ends in death.

You Can (Not) Escape

The reason Rolling Stones is such a good stand is because it’s an incarnation of the concept of Fate within the JoJo’s universe. Everything in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure revolves around the idea that your Fate is determined from the start, and all you can do is go along with it for the ride.

Or, at least that’s how it is for most people. There are some circumstances in which fates can be changed, but it’s unclear how many of these cases Araki meant to include in the series and how many are plot holes. For example, the young woman who killed herself was able to change the fate of herself and her father.

She learned from the stone that her father contracted a disease which will slowly kill him if he doesn’t get replacement organs. She then learned that she would develop this same disease in a matter of months. With this knowledge, she chose to kill herself while still healthy so that her organs could be used to save her father.

Since she wasn’t meant to die yet according to Rolling Stones, this is an example of her changing her own fate. But as a character this woman isn’t all that important. I don’t believe she’s ever even given a name. What is important is the fact that Buccellati is the next person to be carved into the stone.

His death at the hand of Diavolo was predicted from this point, which chronologically comes at the start of part 5. However, Mista is able to change this fate by attempting to sacrifice himself. Little does he know that he changed fate to not only take Buccellati, but Abbacchio and Narancia as well.

The New Boss

In the end Diavolo was been defeated, three of the JoBros died, and Giorno became the new boss of Passione. We know that Mista is still a member of the gang and seems to be Giorno’s right-hand man, though it’s unclear exactly how these two plan to change the organization.

Sure, we know that Giorno wanted to change the mafia from the inside so that it was less corrupt, but it’s still a gang. We can assume he ended their drug trade operations, but is Passione still in the business of intimidation and racketeering? Even if he wants to protect the weak, he needs to make money somehow.

And this brings me to that one thing I mentioned was missing from these final episodes at the very start of this review. What ever happened to Jotaro and Koichi? We never see them after the beginning of this part, so where did they go? It would have been interesting to see if Giorno allied Passione with the Speedwagon Foundation in the end.

We also don’t know what became of Trish and Fugo. I don’t necessarily need to know what became of these two, because I’m fine with the open ending regarding them, but it’s something to think about. Did Trish officially join Passione? Is Fugo still a member? Will he be reunited with Giorno and Mista? Has he learned about Narancia’s death?

Conclusion

What did you think about these final two episodes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Did you think this was a great ending to the part like I did? Did you think something was missing? Let me know in the comments, along with which part was your favorite now that Golden Wind is done.

If you enjoyed this review remember to click the like button ❤ down below. And, 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 and the benefits you’ll receive for doing so, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of part 5 as a whole is available here.

King of Kings

Today is the final JoJo Friday. There are still two more episodes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, but they’ll be airing as a one hour special on Sunday, July 28th. That’s right, we have to wait over three weeks to see the conclusion of Giorno’s adventure.

But at least we can be pretty sure that it’s going to be a good conclusion. Overall this season of JoJo’s has probably been my favorite so far. As some of you are probably aware, I wasn’t the biggest fan of parts 3 and 4, but I did really like how part 5 handled a lot of the situations the JoBros found themselves in.

With that said, I do have a few, minor complaints to address in today’s review. Don’t worry, I still enjoyed the episode and thought it was good. But before I get into all of that, there’s one other thing I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks now.

Remember how Koichi from part 4 and Jotaro from part 3 made appearances at the start of the season? What ever happened to them? I figured they would have some small, supporting roles, but it seems like they were simply forgotten. Will they make a comeback in the final two episodes?

It’s not like I need them to play any important roles in the end, but it would be nice if they were acknowledged once more, especially since Polnareff is now dead. Perhaps we’ll get to see Giorno or one of his surviving comrades join the Speedwagon Foundation and tell Jotaro about the death of his friend.

Buccellati’s Last Stand

Bruno Buccellati has finally passed on, but not after dealing one final blow to Diavolo. The only issue is, it doesn’t really make sense. Remember how last week I was puzzled by how Diavolo “defeated” Silver Chariot Requiem? Well this week Buccellati does something similar, but with wildly different consequences.

Just as Diavolo is about to grab the stand arrow in Mista’s body, Buccellati smashes the star behind his own head (in Diavolo’s body). In Diavolo’s case, this stopped Chariot Requiem from continuing to pursue him. However, in Buccellati’s case, this somehow completely defeats Chariot Requiem.

And once Chariot Requiem is defeated, all of the swapped souls return to their own bodies. Ergo, Diavolo is swapped back into his own body which is out of reach of the stand arrow. Unfortunately, this also means that Buccellati finally ascends to heaven rather than going back to his body.

And here comes my next minor complaint, the fact that Buccellati got a send-off by Giorno. I guess this isn’t really a complaint, but after the sudden deaths of the Abbacchio and Narancia, Buccellati’s soul ascending to heaven felt a bit drawn out and overplayed.

At the same time, since it was only Giorno who was able to see his soul, likely because of Gold Experience’s abilities, the other JoBros are going to have a rude awakening when they find out Buccellati is gone for good. I thought it was a good end for Buccellati, but a bit out of place for part 5 as a whole.

Gold Experience Requiem

After Buccellati’s final act, the smoke dissipates and what do you know, the stand arrow is in Giorno’s hand. That alone is a plot hole, but whatever, at this point I’ll allow just about anything. He then pierces Gold Experience with the arrow and Gold Experience Requiem is born.

Also the stand arrow gets absorbed into Gold Experience Requiem so it can no longer fall into Diavolo’s hands. The image of the arrow then appears on Gold Experience Requiem’s forehead, begging the question of whether or not Black Sabbath from the beginning of the series was secretly a Requiem stand.

The only two official Requiem stands had the stand arrows pictured on their bodies, but so too did Black Sabbath. However, once we look closer at the abilities gained by stands that have achieved Requiem status, it becomes clear that Black Sabbath was not one of them.

The abilities gained by Requiem stands are the perfect abilities for the exact situation the stand user happens to be in at the moment the arrow pierces their stand. While these abilities are definitely overpowered, there’s no guarantee they’ll be useful outside of that one specific situation.

In the case of Chariot Requiem, Polnareff needed to keep the stand arrow away from Diavolo, and so that’s what all of Chariot Requiem’s abilities were for: keeping the arrow safe. Gold Experience Requiem has a different goal: defeating Diavolo.

If you’re interested in learning more about Requiem stands, and are also interested in some theorizing on how Kira Yoshikage from part 4 may have had the first Requiem stand, there’s a great video on the subject by xForts. In particular, I really enjoyed his breakdown of Killer Queen and Killer Queen Bites the Dust.

Another DIO

But Gold Experience Requiem actually brings us to my biggest complaint about this episode, which is that Diavolo is essentially another DIO. I get that they’re two separate characters, but let’s face it, they have a lot of similarities.

They both view themselves as above the common man (which DIO is more so than Diavolo), they both have time-altering stand abilities (which are among the most overpowered possible), and because their stand abilities are so strong, both require a Deus ex machina to defeat.

It’s this final point which is revealed in this week’s episode. Requiem stands were essentially introduced into the series as a way to deal with the overwhelming power of Diavolo’s King Crimson and Epitaph. The evidence for this is that Gold Experience Requiem’s abilities are tailor made to defeat Diavolo.

For starters, it can reverse time back to before the point that King Crimson’s time skip began. But what truly makes it the perfect stand for the situation is that it can also seemingly alter the future so that Epitaph’s predictions, while still technically correct, do not come to fruition.

It’s almost like Gold Experience Requiem shifts the world line (to steal terminology from Steins;Gate) to one in which Epitaphs prediction doesn’t come true. The predictions are still technically correct, just not in the universe they have now been shifted into. Or at least that’s how I interpreted what I watched.

Regardless of how exactly Gold Experience Requiem’s abilities work, the outcome is the same. Just as Jotaro’s Star Platinum suddenly developed time-altering abilities to defeat DIO’s The World, so too has Giorno developed time-altering abilities to defeat Diavolo’s King Crimson.

Conclusion

So what are your thoughts on this final Friday episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Did you like how Buccellati was sent off? And do you think it was a good idea to introduce Requiem stands with the express purpose of using them as a Deus ex machina? 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 to stay up to date with my latest content. Later today there will be a poll to determine which series you’d like to see in the Friday slot for my Summer review schedule: Fire Force or Dr. Stone, so make sure to vote!

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 final two episodes can be found here.

Diavolo Surfaces

Episode 36 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind is the single most confusing episode of JoJo’s yet. Before part 5 was animated people used to say that King Crimson’s abilities make no sense, but I actually find King Crimson to be fairly easy to understand.

What I don’t understand are the chain of events that happened within this episode. Some of the things that happen and make no sense are explained poorly, others are explained in ways which themselves don’t make sense, and then there are those which are simply not explained at all.

So as much as I’d love to be the person who can explain everything that happened in this episode to you, I can’t. Instead I’ll be sharing my confusion with you in the hopes that either I’m not alone or someone else will be able to come to the rescue and explain what I just watched.

Let’s start with some of the simple thing and work our way up to the most illogical. At the very start of the episode we’re shown a shot of Buccellati’s body and it’s revealed that Doppio was in fact the personality which got swapped into it.

It’s still unclear exactly why Doppio and Buccellati’s souls were swapped since they weren’t actually near each other, but that’s what happened. However, to further complicate things, Diavolo’s soul was also swapped out of his own body, which implies a whole host of other issues I’ll get to shortly.

But the more I think about it, the more it would have made sense for Diavolo and Doppio to have their souls swapped with each other. They were the closest ones to one another, after all.

Giorno’s Plan

Giorno, the only character currently within his own body, realizes that Diavolo isn’t just nearby, he’s residing within the same body as one of the JoBros. He comes to this conclusion after Mista’s revolver is broken while the group is out in the open with nobody else around.

He then reveals that because his stand, Gold Experience, deals with life, he can determine how many souls are in an object by touching it. This was previously hinted at when Narancia was killed and Giorno mentioned that his own body was hollow after reviving it.

With this ability, Giorno suggests that he can determine which of them is harboring a second soul in their body, thus determining where the boss is. To this end, he knows that the boss isn’t within his own body because it was empty when he transitioned back into it from Narancia’s.

However, Mista isn’t convinced and is worried that by letting Giorno check his (Trish’s) body, he’ll be killed by Diavolo hiding within Giorno. The reason Giorno wanted to check Mista first is because nobody else was closer to his gun when it broke than Mista himself.

Seeing that his team is on the verge of breaking down due to mistrust of one another, Buccellati volunteers to have his (Diavolo’s) body searched first. I originally figured that Diavolo would be in the same body as Buccellati because there wasn’t another soul for his to swap with, but this turns out to be incorrect.

Since Diavolo is a split personality, it appears that he can be swapped into another body as a split personality as well. I guess it was just pure luck that sent Doppio into Buccellati’s body over Diavolo. Diavolo turns out to be in Mista’s body along with Trish, which explains why she could never sense him appearing.

Diavolo’s Precognition

Now, everything so far at least makes sense, even if it breaks the pre-established rules regarding how souls were swapped with one another. From here on out, however, that isn’t the case. But before getting into the things that really don’t make sense, we need to take another look at King Crimson.

King Crimson’s main ability has been explain fairly well so far. It skips time forward while allowing the user to react to the time that was skipped. This alone is a broken ability, but it isn’t the only ability King Crimson has access to.

You may have noticed that there’s a smaller face on the forehead of King Crimson, this is known as Epitaph. The best way I can explain it is that it’s essentially to King Crimson what Bites the Dust was to Killer Queen in part 4. It’s a secondary ability which almost completely covers the weaknesses of the main ability.

Epitaph’s ability is precognition. We’ve already seen it at work earlier in the series when Diavolo lent its power to Doppio during the fight against Risotto. However, when used in tandem with King Crimson, it allows Diavolo to use his time-skip ability in response to future threats.

And now that we’ve established how King Crimson and Epitaph work, I’m unable to explain to you how Trish and Spice girl were able to outsmart Diavolo. In fact, Trish isn’t even able to explain this even though she tries.

She says that she turned Mista’s bullets soft, but that doesn’t explain what happened next. How did those bullets end up getting through King Crimson and Epitaph’s abilities? And why did they take so long to finally hit King Crimson? And how did they somehow fling the stand arrow out of his reach? Also when did she touch the bullets?

I have so many questions about what happened during that scene, and I feel like there isn’t a real explanation of what happened.

Requiem’s Shadow

But there’s something that makes even less sense than Spice Girl being able to outsmart King Crimson and Epitaph, Silver Chariot Requiem. For starters, we were introduced to yet another ability it has which is to fundamentally alter the composition and DNA of all life affected by its first two abilities.

I guess this would end up killing everything it infects, but that’s not actually clear. It could just be mutating appearances, and if so is little more than a body horror ability. Still, nobody wants to be turned into a mutated blob of flesh, so I can understand why this is a big deal to the JoBros.

The mystery here is why it has an ability like this at all. Silver Chariot Requiem’s abilities are all over the place and don’t really have much in common with each other. The best explanation we get is simply that it’s all-powerful and has the ability to manipulate mind, body, and soul.

However, we now get to the part of the episode that made the least amount of sense to me: Chariot Requiem’s true nature and how Diavolo defeats it. It’s revealed that Chariot Requiem’s shadow always appears opposite from the person who is viewing the stand.

What this means is that if two people are looking at Chariot Requiem from two different angles, they will see its shadow to be in two different places. This phenomenon was explained well in the episode and I have no real issue with it.

It was also stated that this phenomenon is partially due to Chariot Requiem’s nature as the shadow of a former soul, that being Polnareff’s. And while this clearly isn’t a logical explanation, that’s why its own shadow appears differently to each different soul which views it. It’s always as if they’re seeing the shadow of their own soul.

But no, the part that really doesn’t make sense is that Diavolo is able to defeat Chariot Requiem by smashing a miniature star which he believes is behind his head. Since Chariot Requiem’s shadow is always in front of him, Diavolo believes there must be a light source always behind him to cast this shadow.

I have no idea why he would come to this conclusion after how he explains the nature of the stand. Also, why are we able to see the star behind his head in that instance, but not for anyone else? Further, why would smashing his personal star destroy Chariot Requiem for everyone?

Conclusion

Were you as utterly confused as I was about the events in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you know how Trish was able to outwit Diavolo? Do you understand how Diavolo came to the conclusion that there was a miniature sun behind his head he needed to smash? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this very confused 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.