Green Day and Oasis, Part 1

In the previous episode we were introduced to Cioccolata’s stand, Green Day. In this episode we’re introduced to his partner, Secco’s, stand, Oasis. Antagonist pairs are nothing new for JoJo’s, but I don’t believe there has been a pair as perfect for one another as these two.

The first other pair that comes to mind for me are the stands of Clash and Talking Head, but while those were definitely effective together, they weren’t necessarily made for each other. That doesn’t appear to be the case for Green Day and Oasis, as we’ll see later on.

But before we get to Oasis’ abilities and how it works well with Green Day, let’s discuss the users of these stands a little bit first.

Last week I went over the origins of Cioccolata and Secco, so I won’t be going through that again. This time let’s take a look at their personalities and relationship. Cioccolata is the sadist and Secco is the masochist, but their relationship is a bit more complex than that.

It’s probably more apt to say that Cioccolata is the doctor and Secco is the assistant, especially since Cioccolata really was a doctor at one point. Basically Cioccolata performs the operation (killing people) and Secco documents it on film.

Secco also seems to be almost like a pet to Cioccolata, even getting rewarded with sugar cubes and head pats for doing a good job. And this is why I don’t really think calling Secco a masochist is quite right. He probably is, but his main driving force seems to be pleasing Cioccolata rather than being used himself.

Oasis’ Abilities

So what about Secco’s stand? The first thing I should point out is that it seems to be a wearable stand, much like Ghiaccio’s White Album. That is to say, Secco’s outfit is actually his stand and what gives him most of the abilities he has.

The one ability which doesn’t seem to be related to his stand is that he can spit objects with extreme speed and accuracy. He uses this ability to do things like deflect Mista’s bullets by spitting rocks at them. It’s a minor ability, but definitely one that’s useful.

Oasis has two three abilities. The first allows Secco to “swim” through solid ground, and I assume it works for just about any solid surface including walls. This ability merely increases Secco’s maneuverability and allows him to use his other two abilities to a fuller effect.

The second ability allows him to track his opponents through the ground. As long as the person he’s tracking are standing on the ground, Secco knows where they are (I assume this ability has a fairly close range since his speed is so high).

However, this ability has one flaw, which is that if the person he’s tracking leaves the ground, Secco has no way of knowing where they are unless he can see them. Buccellati uses this to his advantage by jumping off a ledge and attacking Secco mid-air while he was confused.

The third ability works in tandem with the first. This ability allows Secco to make the ground softer somehow. The soft ground allows him to swim through it, but can also make it so his opponents begin to sink into the ground. As we saw with the staircase, he can even make large objects sink into the ground as well.

A sort of bonus ability is that while Secco is making the ground soft beneath the surface, he can keep the surface solid to protect him from incoming attacks.

An Ultimate Combo

Oasis’ third ability is the one that really combos well with Green Day’s ability. If you remember, Green Day’s mold spreads when victims within its area of effect move in a downward direction. This could be either moving their entire body downhill, or even just reaching down with their hand.

So, how exactly does this combo work?

The easy way to escape from Green Day is to simply move uphill until you’re out of the area of effect. But what if you couldn’t move uphill? What if even when standing still, you were still moving in a downward direction? This is where Oasis comes into play.

By making the ground soft, Oasis can pull people downward either by sinking the object they’re standing on, or simply by sinking them into that object. If you try to run uphill to avoid Green Day, Oasis will just pull you down into the ground, thus negating your upward motion.

I do have to point out that the JoBros did a lot of both upward and downward motion in this episode, and yet the mold didn’t really seem t be affecting them any more. It’s not the most extreme case of plot armor, but it is plot armor nonetheless.

Buccellati’s Fate

And, I can’t finish discussing this week’s episode without mentioning the elephant in the room, Buccellati. Ever since his fight with the boss, Buccellati’s body has been showing some strange symptoms such as his skin easily tearing, a lack of blood flowing from his wounds, and seemingly no sensation of pain.

I honestly couldn’t figure out why this was happening, but it’s finally been revealed. Abbacchio wasn’t the first of the part 5 JoBros to die, Buccellati was. But if Buccellati died, then how is he still here? And how did he die?

Let’s answer that second question first. Buccellati died in the exact same way Abbacchio did, by being punched through the stomach by King Crimson. It actually happened 10 episodes ago, and in my review of episode 20, you’ll even find a picture of the exact moment it happened.

As for how Buccellati is still “alive,” he explains that it’s thanks to Giorno’s Gold Experience giving him back some amount of life force. It wasn’t able to completely stop Buccellati from dying, but rather extended the amount of time he had left before his body gave out.

My issue with this is that it doesn’t really make any sense. Why was Giorno able to extend Buccellati’s life like this, but not Abbacchio’s? It’s been established that Gold Experience can’t bring people back from the dead, but if Buccellati is dead then that must mean it can in a way, right?

Or perhaps Buccellati wasn’t quite dead when Giorno healed him, but then “died” shortly after and the excess energy from Gold Experience has just been keeping him going since then. I don’t know, but that seems to be the only plausible explanation to me. Even so, Buccellati should have been dead almost immediately from the boss’ attack just as Abbacchio was.

Conclusion

So what are your thoughts on this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you think Cioccolata and Secco have the most perfect stand combo we’ve seen so far, or am I forgetting someone? Also, what do you think about the twist involving Buccellati?

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content or schedule changes. My Twitter is mainly just me tweeting out blog posts these days, but I do occasionally mix it up.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. If you’re interested in becoming a supporter of this blog as well, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama for more information.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Get to the Roman Colosseum!

Last week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind was a recap episode, so as usual I didn’t actually watch it. However, if you watched it, then let me know what you thought of it in the comments of today’s post. Also, why did you watch it?

And since there wasn’t a real episode of JoJo’s last week, that also means it’s been two weeks since our last JoJo’s Part 5 episode review. So before we begin with this week’s episode, let me just do a quick recap of the major plot points.

First, we saw the boss/Doppio finish off Risotto Nero, thus killing the last of the hitman squad. Then, he went on to kill Abbacchio, who was using his stand, Moody Blues, to figure out the boss’ identity. However, he wasn’t fast enough, and Abbacchio was able to leave a clue behind for his comrades.

Now that we’re up to speed, the remaining members of Buccellati’s team hop back onto their speedboat and head off into the sunset with the bust of the boss’ face that Abbacchio created. Meanwhile, the boss, still on the beach, is panicked because Buccellati & co. appear to not be panicking themselves and instead have a set goal.

However, at this point they don’t really have a set destination. They know they need to escape from the beach where Abbacchio was killed, and thanks to Abbacchio’s work they have some way of identifying the boss which they run through a criminal record database.

An Ally Appears!

Unfortunately for the JoBros, there are no matches for their search in the database. However, they suddenly receive a call through the computer from someone who was alerted to the fact that they were searching for the boss’ identity.

It doesn’t really make sense how this person would know who they were searching for in the database since they don’t technically know themselves, but whatever. And, things get even sketchier when this voice tells them the boss’ name, his stand’s ability, and that he has a way of defeating him.

Trish seems to think that the fact this mystery person knows the boss’ stand proves that they’re an ally, because there’s no way the boss would allow one of his underlings to survive with that knowledge. However, to me this just points towards the person on the other end of the call actually being the boss and tactically giving up information.

But, once this mystery person reveals that they’re in possession of a stand arrow, that they know the origin of stand and the arrows, and that this arrow will help defeat the boss, it became pretty clear to me that this isn’t a setup. He didn’t give up all of his information, but he gave up too much to be the boss.

It’s also interesting that the silhouettes of the stand users and their stands which were shown during the description of the stand arrow were all from part 3. The stand arrows weren’t written into the story until part 4, and the only part 3 character who’s been shown/mentioned in part 5 so far is Jotaro.

So is this mystery man Jotaro?

It’s possible, but it’s also possible that there was no real reason for part 3 stand users in particular to be shown and that this character is someone completely new. We were also given the hint that this person is no longer in fighting form, and I don’t think that describes Jotaro just yet.

Cioccolata and Secco

The mystery voice tells Buccellati’s team that if they want to learn about how to defeat the boss, they need to come to Rome and meet this person in the Colosseum. And, it doesn’t take the boss long to figure out that Rome is their destination as well.

Rather than attempting to stop them himself, he calls on two more of his underlings, Cioccolata and Secco, who aren’t members of any particular team. In fact, these are actually the only members of Passione who the boss expresses that he dislikes, which is a bit strange.

The apparent reason for his dislike of these two is due to the fact that they’re sadists, but I’m sure plenty of other Passione members are as well. Maybe there’s some other reason he doesn’t like these two, but that’s really all I could think of since nobody else was explicitly labeled a sadist.

Cioccolata’s background is in the healthcare system. Originally he worked in an assisted living facility where he would drug and emotionally abuse patients until they committed suicide. From there he moved on to become a doctor who performed surgeries on healthy patients, made them aware of what was happening, and killed them.

Secco is apparently one of these patients, though he obviously wasn’t killed in the end. For some reason Cioccolata spared him, probably because he’s a masochist or something, and now they work as a team.

While Cioccolata does the dirty work of killing their opponents, Secco’s job is to film the dying breath of everyone Cioccolata finishes off. But, while Cioccolata is the one doing the fighting, I imagine that Secco has a stand as well.

Green Day

But since we don’t yet know what Secco’s stand is, I’ll just have to discuss Cioccolata’s stand, Green Day, alone. And I should start off by mentioning that the English localization, Green Tea, actually isn’t that bad as far as stand names go. I really don’t like Zipper Man or Moody Jazz.

So, how does Green Day work? At its core Green Day seems to be a pseudo-autonomous stand. It’s a fungus, or virus, or bacteria (I don’t know) that infects a host who descends within some radius of Cioccolata. It then kills that host, whose corpse then acts as the center for a new infectious radius.

Basically, although the stand doesn’t technically have a large radius, it’s able to spread its area of effect by chaining kills. Also, the reason it’s activated upon descending was explained by it being similar to a real world fungus, however I seem to recall that fungus actually causing its victims to ascend, not descend (not I’m not going to fact check that).

Alright, so how do you defeat Cioccolata and Green Day? Well, the answer seems to be that you just shouldn’t descend. From what we’re shown, as long as someone who’s been infected doesn’t continue to move downward, the infection won’t spread.

The thing I find strange about this though is that Cioccolata and Secco were up above all of their victims. This means that anyone who tries to attack them will automatically be ascending, and therefore not harmed by Green Day.

Perhaps it only affects those who are beneath Cioccolata, and that’s why he has to be high up. If this isn’t the case, then really he should be hiding underground so his enemies have to descend in order to reach him.

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you think Green Day is a good or bad stand? And, what do you think Secco’s stand is going to be like? My guess is that it’ll have some ability which pairs well with Green Day, but I’m not sure what.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. Also give me a follow over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on all the latest content and schedule updates.

And, finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. If you’re interested in becoming a supporter of this blog too, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama for more details.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Beneath a Sky on the Verge of Falling

I feel like I say that the most recent episodes of series are the best to date a lot, but this time it’s true. Today’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind is probably my favorite Part 5 episode so far even though it didn’t introduce any new characters or stands.

It may be hard to believe considering how I mainly write about shounen battle series on this blog, but my favorite anime tend to be dramas, not action. And, this episode sure had some drama.

But, before we get to the drama towards the end of the episode, we have to go through what led up to that point, starting with the end of Risotto’s fight with the boss.

After Aerosmith fills Risotto with holes, he’s still barely hanging on. The boss then gives him a choice: he can either be killed by the boss personally if he replenishes the iron he stole from the boss’ body, or he can be left to slowly die before Buccellati and his team.

However, Risotto chooses the secret third option which is to take the boss to his grave with him. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work out, and when he tries to get Aerosmith to come back around to shoot the boss, the boss just uses King Crimson to evade it.

So, with that, Risotto is finished off by Aerosmith, and the boss begins his escape, but with dangerously low levels of iron in his blood.

The Boss’ Escape

Due to the severity of his injuries, the boss can’t get very far before Buccellati and Narancia find the corpse of Risotto. While Narancia is confident that Risotto was the only opponent nearby, and that his Aerosmith is what killed him, he believes they’re safe.

But, Buccellati isn’t so sure. He notices that one of Risotto’s feet had been cut off and comes to the conclusion that someone else must have been involved because Aerosmith couldn’t make such a wound. He also assumes that this other person is severely injured, and that their fight was a struggle back and forth, but there’s not really any way for him to tell.

Meanwhile, the boss is slowly crawling away from Buccellati and Narancia, and in the direction of a populated beach where it will be easier to conceal his presence. Along the way, he eats a live frog in order to replenish the iron in his body, but this isn’t enough.

Shortly after the frog incident, he seems to have used King Crimson’s ability to capture a child from the nearby beach. I don’t really understand how he did this, but the reason for doing it is so that he could drain the child’s blood to replenish his own.

Unfortunately for the child, Buccellati and Narancia don’t seem to be feeling generous when they discover him, and I can only assume that they left him with his mouth sewn shut and wrist slashed as they found him. After this point, the boss seems to have successfully evaded the pair searching for him.

Leone Abbacchio

Leone Abbacchio is the reason I felt that this episode was so good. His entire life up to this point was all just to prepare him for this mission to discover the boss’ identity. In fact, he’s the only person who can discover the boss’ identity at this point without directly facing the boss.

But, the boss knows this. He knows that Abbacchio is currently the most dangerous of Buccellati’s team despite not being the most deadly. And, it’s because of this fact that the boss sets his sights on Abbacchio.

While Buccellati and Narancia were confirming the death of Risotto, Abbacchio was left alone to use his Moody Blues to determine the boss’ identity. Meanwhile, Giorno, Mista, and Trish were inside the turtle located somewhere nearby.

Now, I get that Giorno and Mista were supposed to be protecting Trish at this time, but it seems a bit strange to leave Abbacchio out in the middle of the open unguarded. While Moody Blues is using its ability, it’s unable to protect him from incoming attacks.

It’s during this time that a group of children get their soccer ball stuck in a nearby tree. At first, Abbacchio tells them to get lost, but it doesn’t take long for him to decide to help the kids. Once a protector of the people, always a protector of the people I suppose.

And, this is where Abbacchio’s story ends. The child who the boss had previously captured to replenish his blood was one of these soccer players, and the boss has now slipped into their ranks. After Abbacchio retrieves the ball, the boss kills him with King Crimson while passing by.

Moving On

I really thought that maybe Abbacchio was going to survive this injury, but once Moody Blues shattered I knew it was too late for him. Thus, Abbacchio is our first JoBro death of Part 5. Luckily, his death wasn’t in vain because Moody Blues was able to imprint the boss’ face into the statue with its last

Now that I’ve gotten what happens out of the way, I really want to discuss the impact of Abbacchio’s death and how it was handled, because I think it’s what makes the episode.

Abbacchio’s death isn’t something that was long and drawn out. It happens suddenly, which isn’t something we often see of important characters in anime or any other form of media. However, the suddenness is what makes it hit even harder.

Everything after his death just adds onto the pain. We see him reunited with his former partner from his days as a cop, he tries to “go back” because his friends still need him, and we see him come to the realization that his time is up when he’s told there is no going back.

Then, when his friends find his body, it keeps getting worse. Giorno, Mista, and Buccellati all realize that it’s too late for Abbacchio to be brought back, but Narancia refuses. He pleads for Giorno to save Abbacchio, but there’s nothing that can be done.

And, as they leave Abbacchio’s body alone on the beach, with Narancia crying for them to not leave Abbacchio behind, we see that Buccellati is just putting on a brave face as the team leader. He’s just as devastated as Narancia is, maybe even more so, but if he shows weakness then their team will fall apart.

This whole section of the episode which revolved around Abbacchio’s death really made all of the main characters a lot more personable. They’ve shown emotion before, but nothing like this. I’m sure there will be cooler episodes in the future, but I don’t know if any will hit this hard.

Conclusion

So, what did you think of Abbacchio’s final episode in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Did you feel anything during the ending scenes of the episode? And, who do you think will be the next to die? I don’t think everyone is going to die, but something tells me Mista will.

If you enjoyed this week’s review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. And, go follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content or schedule changes.

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, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

King Crimson vs. Metallica

It’s finally here; the final battle between the boss and Risotto Nero. Honestly, I would have liked for this battle to have ended in a draw at this point and been resumed later, but I still enjoyed the way it ended. It had a very JoJo ending, if you know what I mean.

But, while the ending is important, I don’t really have all that much to say about it. Risotto Nero lost the fight and was killed by Narancia’s Aerosmith. But, there were a lot of moving parts to this conclusion, so I suggest watching the episode if you haven’t already despite the fact that I just spoiled it.

What I found more interesting though were the abilities of Risotto’s Metallica, and the newly introduced abilities of King Crimson. I’ll be dissecting both of them in the sections to come, so let’s first just take a look at what’s unique about this fight: the fact that it was between two antagonists.

For potentially the first time (I know this will probably be fact checked by someone) we had a fight in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure which didn’t involve any of the heroes. This is significant because not only does it mean we’re being introduced to a new(ish) stand for each side, but it also serves to expand the world of stand users.

The latter point is the big one. Before this point, there was always an us vs. them mentality in the JoJo’s universe. Either a stand user was on the side of the heroes, or they were on the side of the villains. For the first time we’re shown that there aren’t just two sides, but many.

And, yes, we’ve known that this is the case because of the dynamic between Buccellati’s squad, the hitman squad, and those loyal to the boss, but for the first time we actually see these three sides clash. It also ties nicely into the whole “stand users attract other stand users” idea that proliferates the series.

Sure, we knew that stand users attract other stand users, but because of the us vs. them nature of the series it always felt like a plot device; like stand users were only attracted to one another so a new enemy was always on the horizon. However, we now see that this is true for all stand users despite their affiliation.

Basically, it’s world building through action.

Metallica’s Abilities

So, last week we were first introduced to Metallica’s abilities, but they weren’t explained. Now we know that Metallica enables Risotto to manipulate iron thanks to having the Magnet release kekkei genkai from Naruto.

Risotto can form weapons out of the iron found in dirt and sand, he can manipulate these weapons so they fly towards his opponent, and he can even create weapons out of the iron within his opponent’s blood. Overall, that’s an extremely powerful ability.

But, not only can he use his magnetic powers for offense, he can use them for defense too. By coating himself in iron dust, he can reflect light off his body in such a way that he becomes nearly invisible. This, combined with his medium ranged attacks, means he can take out even the most dangerous opponents from safety.

We also know that Risotto’s stand lives within his own blood. It’s made up of a bunch of tiny, mercury-like blobs with faces, sort of like Mista’s Sex Pistols.  And, due to the form of his stand, it means he can’t exactly use it to defend himself physically, just like Mista can’t.

And, defending himself physically seems to be the major downside to either Risotto’s fighting style or stand. Yes, he defends himself through hiding his location and attacking from a distance, but if his opponent figures out his stand like Doppio did, then he’s not invincible.

I would have thought that since he can control magnetism, he would be able to repel objects with iron in them, thus giving himself a sort of force field. However, we never actually see him repel anything away from his own body, which is interesting.

Even when Doppio was trying to find Risotto’s location by using the iron to point in his direction, Risotto uses his cut off foot to trick Doppio rather than swapping the pole of his body to repel the iron away from him. This all leads me to believe that Metallica can only attract iron, not repel it.

Though, I must say that this doesn’t make much sense when we look at how he’s able to control the iron weapons he creates by having them float.

The other possibility, which is probably more likely, is that Risotto’s fighting style just isn’t very defensive. This could be due to the fact that he’s never come up against another stand user capable of defeating him before, but the fact remains the same: he doesn’t defend himself.

Even if he couldn’t use his magnetic powers to repel the weapons which were coming towards him, you’d think he would be able to create an iron shield or something to protect whichever point was being attacked. He doesn’t do this though, and it’s this lack of defense which ultimately led to his downfall.

King Crimson’s Abilities (Doppio)

We’ve already known how King Crimson works, but it turns out that when Doppio is in control it doesn’t have all of the abilities it normally does.

Just to recap, under the boss, King Crimson has the ability to skip forward in time, thus bypassing any moments when he might take damage or be at a disadvantage. However, we don’t see Doppio use this ability at all during his fight against Risotto despite it being mentioned.

Instead, Doppio has the ability to see roughly 10 seconds into the future, which on its own, isn’t a very strong ability. The reason this ability isn’t all that strong is because even if Doppio can see the future, he can’t change it.

We actually already saw an ability just like this back in Part 3 with Boingo’s stand Tohth, a comic book which depicted the future. And, just as with Boingo’s visions, the things Doppio sees when he looks into the future are sometimes vague enough that they turn out to be the opposite of what you would expect.

But, the fact that Doppio can only see the future and not do anything about it is why he didn’t defeat Risotto. Risotto defeated himself due to his own fighting style. Yes, Doppio was able to set up Risotto’s defeat, but it wasn’t thanks to his own abilities.

I also think it’s strange that Doppio sees these visions projected onto his own hair in front of his eye, but stranger things have happened in this series so I can’t complain.

Before moving on though, I do want to bring up the fact that while Doppio’s ability isn’t very good on its own, it becomes much better when paired with the boss’ main ability. As the boss mentions in the episode, once Doppio sees the future, the boss can take over and skip past any point at which he would have taken damage.

We already saw the boss using both of these abilities in tandem during his fight against Buccellati, so there’s no reason to think that he would need to swap between personas in order to pull it off.

Conclusion

What did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Did you like the fight between Doppio and Risotto? I thought the fight itself was fairly entertaining, which is part of the reason I wish it didn’t end this episode.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. And, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content or schedule updates.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about becoming a supporter and the various benefits you’ll receive, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

A Little Story From the Past ~My Name Is Doppio~

In this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, we’re finally introduced to the boss’ identity, or at least one of his identities, as we’ll find out. So, let’s start from the very beginning of his life, when he was born.

The circumstances surrounding the boss’ birth don’t exactly make much sense. He was born in an all-female prison after his mother had already been incarcerated for two years. Further, his mother claims that his father died two years prior.

However, the fact that the boss, known as Doppio, was in his mother’s womb for at least 24 months rather than nine is only part of the mystery. Despite clearly looking pregnant on the day of Doppio’s birth, we’re told by one of the prison guards that Doppio’s mother showed no signs of pregnancy just the day before.

My assumption is that we’ll never get a real explanation for either of these two phenomena, and that they’re simply in place to add to the mystery of the boss. After all, this is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, so anything goes anyway.

Right from the start it was clear that Doppio was unusual. When he was born, his eyes were wide open and he didn’t cry at all. There may be some significance to this, but if there is I don’t know it. As far as I can tell, this is just further showing that he’s not your average person.

He was then sent to be raised in Sardinia because that’s where his mother was originally from. Here he lived with a priest until he was a teenager. We can also assume that up until this point he was going by a different name, and that he assumed the name Doppio (meaning “double”) afterwards.

It was during his teenage years that the priest he was living with discovered a woman trapped beneath the floor of his home. This woman had no space to move, her mouth was sewn shut, and she had been kept alive for years in this state.

The priest then comes to the conclusion that this was Doppio’s birth mother, but by then it was too late. Doppio killed the priest for discovering his secret and then burned the entire town to the ground. It was at this point that his true identity died (in the fire) and the boss turned to a life of secrecy.

My guess as to why Doppio was keeping his mother captive under the floor of his home is that it had something to do with abandonment issues. Perhaps after being taken away from her as a newborn due to the fact that he was in prison, he wanted to always have his mother close by, and this was his way of making that into a reality.

Split Personality

Alright, so Doppio has a strange background, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into him being strange in the present, right? Wrong.

Throughout the scenes of his childhood we were under the impression that this was the boss, and that he was simply hiding his dark, twisted nature. However, once the episode shifts to the present day it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t exactly the case.

The boss doesn’t hide behind a fake persona known as Doppio. Doppio is very real, and very separate from the boss. For all intents and purposes, they’re actually two different characters that just happen to be sharing the same physical body.

While the boss’ character seems to be active in private and Doppio’s seems to be active in public, there is a bit of crossover. For example, when Doppio gets enraged, the boss’ personality takes control. This is most signified by a change in how his pupils are depicted.

However, we also see that the boss and Doppio have physical differences beyond their eyes despite the fact that they share one body. Doppio is depicted as younger, leaner, and all around more “boyish.” On the other hand, the boss is older, depicting his true age, and more muscular.

This was illustrated through Doppio’s interaction with the fortune-teller. After reading his fortune, the fortune-teller is confused because Doppio doesn’t appear old enough for the fortune that was read to be correct. Then, once the boss’ personality takes over, we see his body physically bulk up.

I should also point out that this physical changing of the boss’ body doesn’t appear to have anything to do with his stand, King Crimson.

But, how does Doppio’s split personality really work? Can the two personalities just swap at will? Are they aware of each other? How do they interact with each other? And, do they share the same memories?

First, it doesn’t seem like Doppio can become the active personality at his own will. The boss’ personality appears to be the dominant of the two and the one pulling the strings from the shadows. So, while Doppio isn’t going to randomly pop out while the boss’ personality is active, the other way around is very possible, and is preluded by Doppio experiencing a headache.

It also seems like the boss’ personality is aware that it shares the same body as Doppio, but Doppio’s personality is not. Part of the evidence for this is the fact that the boss can relay information to Doppio mentally, but Doppio doesn’t do the same to the boss.

This brings us to the next question, how do they interact with one another? As I just mentioned, the boss can relay information mentally, but for the most part we see that Doppio believes the boss is a separate person and so needs to talk to him externally.

He does this via telephone, although the telephone never really exists. Doppio makes the sound of a telephone ringing with his mouth, then grabs a random object like a frog, and proceeds to use that object as a phone through which to converse with the boss.

And, finally, we don’t know the extent to which the boss retains Doppio’s memories, but Doppio seems to be unaware of anything that happens while the boss’ personality is active.

Risotto Nero and Metallica

Along with finally being introduced to the boss’ second personality, we’re finally formally introduced to Risotto Nero. Risotto is the leader of the hitman squad which planned to capture Trish in order to discover the true identity of the boss.

At this point, he’s the final member of his squad left. Maybe he truly wants to finish the job he started by killing the boss, or maybe he wants to avenge his fallen comrades. However, I’m thinking that the only reason Risotto is still going forward with his plan is because he’s in too deep.

Risotto seems like a fairly competent guy. Not only can he read people’s emotions to determine if they’re lying to him, but he’s also an expert at reading his surroundings. After he determined that Doppio’s fear of him was real and so probably a civilian, he picked up on the fact that Doppio responded to the sound of Narancia’s Aerosmith in the distance.

With a small number of exceptions, stands can only be seen or heard by other stand users. So, the fact that Doppio responded to Aerosmith proves that he’s a stand user himself. Risotto then determines that Doppio must be someone the boss has complete trust in, because nobody else would be sent to such an important location.

If only he realized that Doppio and the boss are one and the same, he could have killed him right then and there (with the help of his plot armor). I bring up Risotto’s plot armor because it was established that King Crimson’s ability has a two meter radius, but even though Doppio got close enough for Risotto to be within that Radius, King Crismon wasn’t unleashed.

Plot armor aside, Risotto has a fairly deadly stand of his own, but not quite as overpowered as King Crimson is. From the title of the next episode we know its name is Metallica, and from what we’ve seen so far, it seems it can spontaneously create and control metallic objects.

He uses this ability to make razor blades appear in Doppio’s throat, and sewing needles burst through his face from the inside. However, we can assume he would also be able to make these objects appear directly in someone’s heart or brain, killing them instantly.

And, while we don’t yet know the exact distance from which this ability can be used, we know it has a longer range than King Crimson does, thus giving Risotto a distinct advantage.

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Did you like it? I know I did. What do you think of the boss’ split personality? Do you like Doppio as a character? And, what are your thoughts on Risotto’s stand ability?

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My review of the next episode is available here.