Spice Girl

In today’s review, we were finally introduced to Trish’s stand, Spice Girl. And, while I will say that Spice Girl’s ability is an interesting one, I don’t like the fact that she’s her own character. Has there ever been another stand with a mind of its own? I can’t think of one.

But, the fact that Spice Girl has her own personality and the ability to talk aside, her actual ability wasn’t particularly suited to the fight at hand. We’ll get into whether or not it’s a generally good or bad ability later on, but nothing about it hard countered Notorious B.I.G.

So, what is this ability? Spice Girl is able to turn objects into rubber.

When it was first revealed that Trish had a stand, but before we knew anything about it, we saw that her hand created a large imprint in the ground. Because of this I thought her stand would be giant and have superhuman strength, but apparently that was supposed to be depicting the ground molding around her hand because it was rubberized.

But, while this rubber ability doesn’t necessarily counter Notorious B.I.G, it does give Trish a fighting gold chance. Not only can she use this ability to escape from the enemy stand by turning the seats of the plane into rubber, but she can also use it to defend herself by turning walls and doors to rubber.

And, since Notorious B.I.G is considered an immortal stand, the fact that Spice Girl doesn’t really seem to have much in the way of offensive capabilities doesn’t come into play. However, we’ll be discussing the potential for offensive ways to use Trish’s stand later on.

“Defeat” of Notorious B.I.G

So, if Notorious B.I.G can’t be defeated, just how does Trish stop it from taking out her and the rest of the JoBros? Well, the first step was to save Giorno’s broach from the monster so that it can grow into a new left hand for him to use to heal himself and his friends.

To do this, Trish uses the automatic reclining feature of the plane seats to attract Notorious B.I.G’s attention. Then, once the monster is distracted, the can inch her way closer to the brooch without being noticed. Unfortunately, once acquiring the broach she makes the wrong choice.

Instead of heading toward the cockpit where Buccellati and the others are, she runs towards the closet at the back of the plane. While this saves the rest of the group from the enemy stand temporarily, it doesn’t actually solve the problem they’re all in.

Without Trish, Giorno can’t recover his hand and then heal himself, Narancia, and Mista. And without the rest of the JoBros, Trish won’t be able to survive for very long. This means they need to all escape from Notorious B.I.G together, which is hard when they’re split up.

However, Trish does eventually make her way into the cockpit with the others and then turns the door to rubber so the enemy stand can’t get in. It’s at this point that they can begin planning how to escape from their pursuer.

Buccellati believes attempting to make an emergency landing on the water is the best course of action, but that still doesn’t actually solve the issue of being chased by the stand. Trish, on the other hand, has a more extreme solution: crash the plane straight into the ocean.

And, like the true alpha she is, she doesn’t even ask the rest of the group before going ahead with her plan. She turns the cockpit of the plane to rubber, and then somehow disconnects it from the rest of the plane. I’m still not quite sure how she was able to do that, but whatever.

Then, while the main portion of the plane is plummeting toward the ocean below, Trish and the rest of the gang are slowly floating down on a parachute made from the rubberized cockpit. Again, I’m not sure how she does this because rubber doesn’t work as a parachute, but whatever.

Is Spice Girl Good?

So now that we know what Spice Girl’s abilities are, is she any good? My initial thought is yes. While her ability seems a bit strange, it’s fairly versatile, and as you should all know by now, those are the best kinds of abilities to have in any series.

For starters, by turning objects in her surrounding area to rubber, Trish could potentially increase her mobility with a bit of practice. This may not seem like much, but mobility is pretty important when you’re fighting against other stand users who could attack from literally anywhere.

Next, as we saw, Spice Girl is an exceptionally good stand when it comes to defense. By turning things like walls into rubber, she can stop them from being shattered by brute force alone. However, I will mention that a stand like Ghiaccio’s White Album would just be able to freeze the rubber and then shatter it, so it’s not invincible.

But, what about offensive capabilities? Does Spice Girl have any? We haven’t seen Trish use her stand in an offensive manner just yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. She could either use her rubber to bounce enemies into harms way, or possibly even create rubber weapons like bullets for Mista’s gun.

While the rubber itself would be considered a less than lethal weapon, it can still be used to harm or even put someone in a lethal position. And, I’m sure there are countless other ways to use her ability in an offensive way that I can’t even think of right now. Araki’s mind knows no bounds.

The Boss’ Identity

Finally, as the JoBros are closing in on discovering the boss’ identity, it appears that he’s beginning to crack. Not only did he just now discover that there’s evidence of his past in Sardinia, but he doesn’t even seem to be taking the necessary, current precautions to hide his identity.

While working in a hotel room, a woman enters his room to clean it because she thought he was out. Not only would this woman have seen his face, but she also saw all the maps and pictures he had up on the wall. However, he doesn’t do anything to her.

You’d expect this woman to be killed in order to silence her, but instead the boss just uses his King Crimson’s ability to skip time forward until he’s long gone. And, I feel the need to mention that this time his stand ability didn’t work as previously explained.

This time around, time skipped forward in a way that made it so only the boss’ movements happened. When the ability was explained before, we were told that everyone’s movements happened during the skipped time, just that they were all predetermined other than the boss’.

The way his ability seemed to work this time around made it more like DIO’s The World and its time freezing than how King Crimson’s time skipping ability is supposed to work. And, the proof for this is that the woman who was supposed to clean his room was still standing in the doorway after the time skip.

Normally, she would have moved from that position during all the time it would take him to pack everything up and leave, but she didn’t.

And, going back to the boss’ identity being discoverable in Sardinia, we’re told that it requires Abbacchio’s Moody Blues. Further, we’re even briefly shown what the boss looked like 15 years ago, although his face is hidden behind a camera.

Conclusion

So, what were your thoughts on this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? And, what are your thoughts on Spice Girl? Do you like the fact that she has an actual personality? Do you think she has a good ability? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed today’s post, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. And, give me a follow over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any of my future content.

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.

Notorious B.I.G

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

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

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

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

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

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

A New Worst Stand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Zombie Stand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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My review of the next episode is available here.

Clash and Talking Head

Today I’m going to be forgoing the usual episode summary for the most part and instead discussing some glaring issues I had with the episode. Now, to start, this isn’t really an issue with the episode, but Narancia is my least favorite of the current JoBros, so any episode focused on him is automatically lower tier.

He’s simply too unpredictable for me to enjoy his character. Sometimes he’s extremely stupid, other times he’s a genius. But, it’s not as if his character is actually growing in any way, because right after making a 200 IQ play, he’ll go back to his usual 50 IQ state.

Basically, Narancia has some pretty hefty plot armor, and that’s what I don’t like about him. But, as we’ll see, Narancia’s fluctuating brain power isn’t the only set of plot armor featured in today’s episode.

And, before moving on to discuss those various sets of plot armor, I’d also like to mention that I’ve heard people complained about the animation quality in this episode compared to the previous 22 episodes. All I have to say on that matter is this, JoJo’s is known for its shots of manly men striking manly poses, not for its sakuga.

Plot Armor or Stand Ability?

I never really felt like Abbacchio’s Moody Blues was a very good stand. Of course it has its uses, but it’s an extremely niche ability, and as we know, niche abilities are pretty bad. Think of it this way, it would be nice to have a stand that makes your eyes bulletproof, but how many times are you getting shot in the eyes?

Now, I get that Abbacchio’s stand has a more general purpose than the stand in my example, but the fact of the matter still stands that he’s useless in combat. Would it have been so bad to give his stand some sort of secondary ability?

But, the fact that Moody Blues can’t do anything outside of its specific purpose isn’t merely a general complaint I have, it opens the door to my real complaint, which is that it isn’t even all that good at what it specializes in.

Although he wasn’t a major player in today’s episode, we do see Abbacchio use Moody Blues briefly. And, to be honest, it was extremely disappointing. While Moody Blues was replaying the movements of Clash, we learn that while Clash can teleport, Moody Blues can’t.

So, why is this such a big deal? You might be thinking, “well of course Moody Blues can’t teleport, that’s not one of his stand abilities!” And, you’re right, except there are a few issues with that line of thinking when it comes to Moody Blues specifically.

First up, while stands are considered a “physical” manifestation of one’s willpower, they aren’t really all that physical. They can appear and disappear at will, and so a stand like Moody Blues which isn’t directly tied to its users body should theoretically be capable of close-range teleportation if it’s replaying a scene.

But, more importantly, if Moody Blues can’t replay teleportation simply because it isn’t physically possible for it to do, then what about other movements which it can’t physically do? What if it’s replaying someone standing on a table which is no longer in the room? Can Moody Blues not replay that because it would have to be standing in mid-air?

Either Moody Blues is a much worse stand than I previously thought because it has many more constraints on how it can be used, or this was just one of the many instances of plot armor in this episode.

The Worst Stand?

And now, for the introduction of potentially the worst stand in all of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure up until this point, Talking Head. Talking Head is another niche stand, but one that’s far less effective than Moody Blues, despite what some of you may think at first.

I went over how this stand ability works in my review of the previous episode, but this week we were given a few more details regarding the specifics. I had thought that Talking Head actually put words into the mouths of its victims, and was able to control the rest of their body slightly, but that’s not really the case.

Instead, Talking Head simply causes the victim to say, or do, the opposite of what they mean when they’re attempting to convey information.

So, what does this really mean? For starters, it means that Talking Head doesn’t actually control what its victim says or does. Narancia can still say and do whatever he wants, with the exception of sharing information. He can point upwards for no reason, but he can’t do so in order to tell someone to look up.

But, more importantly is the fact that Talking Head merely causes its victim to say or do the opposite of what they mean. It can’t cause Narancia to tell Mista to shoot unprovoked, but it can make him say “shoot” when he intends to say “don’t shoot.”

Why does this make Talking Head a bad stand? Because not only is it a niche, non-offensive ability, but it’s extremely easy to counter. For example, let’s pretend Narancia wants to tell Giorno that the enemy is to his right, there are two possible scenarios.

The first is when Narancia means to say right, but ends up saying left due to the stand affecting him. This would be a success for Talking Head. However, the second is when Narancia purposely intends to say left so that the stand causes him to say the correct direction, right.

This is exactly what Narancia ends up doing in order to defeat both Squalo and Tiziano on his own. He first purposely makes them believe he lost track of Clash, and then later purposely makes them believe that he knows their whereabouts in order to flush them out.

Seriously, a stand with such an obvious and simplistic weakness should be stronger than Talking Head was in order to compensate.

Unnecessary Sacrifice

Once the secret of Talking Head is figured out, Tiziano knows that his usefulness has come to an end and that it’s up to Squalo to complete the mission. However, Squalo can’t use Clash to defeat Narancia in the city square due to a lack of nearby water.

It’s the combination of these two situations that prompts Tiziano to make the ultimate sacrifice. He jumps in front of his partner and takes the bullets from Narancia’s Aerosmith for him. Not only does this save Squalo, but now Tiziano’s blood can be used to summon Clash into the square.

So, was Tiziano’s sacrifice worth it? No. Why not? Because there was already blood in the square that could have been used to summon clash.

Maybe you didn’t notice, but Narancia was already covered with blood when he entered the square in search of the enemy stand users. Not only could this blood have been used to summon Clash, but it could have been used to summon Clash before Aerosmith would have shot Squalo.

Essentially, there were two reasons Tiziano gave his life, to protect Squalo and to generate a liquid for Clash to use, but both were unnecessary. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is plot armor at its finest. There wasn’t really any reason for Narancia to win that fight regardless of how bad of a stand Talking Head is.

Conclusion

So, what are your thoughts on today’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? Do you think there were too many cases of plot armor or plot holes? Do you think Talking Head and Moody Blues are actually as bad as I say? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed today’s review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below. And, if you prefer this style of review over the more summary-based ones that I usually do, let me know as well. But, regardless of what style of review you prefer, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on the newest ones.

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, then check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama for more details regarding the benefits you’ll receive for doing so.

My review of the next episode is available here.

The “G” in Guts

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind is back from last week’s break, and with the return of the series comes a new OP and ED. And, unfortunately, I have to admit that I liked the previous OP and ED more than these new ones.

The new OP song just isn’t as good as Fighting Gold by CODA, and the art isn’t as stylized, which makes it feel less unique. As for the ED, the art isn’t really all that different from the previous ED, but the song is slightly worse. Maybe the ED song will grow on me, but I don’t think it will overtake the original.

This week our JoBros decide to stop at a restaurant in Venice before attempting to escape from the city. By now the Boss’ special protection squad has likely been notified of Buccellati’s betrayal, and will likely ambush him and his team on the sea when they make their escape.

However, little do Buccellati and his team know that they’re already being observed by two members of the Boss’ special team while they “fill their guts” with lunch. As far as I can tell, that one line by Buccellati is where the title of this episode comes from, and it’s a pretty bad title if you ask me.

What does the phrase “filling their guts” really have to do with the episode at hand? I get that they’re having lunch in the episode, but that’s such a strange way to phrase it that you’d think it would hold some significance. But, no.

And, as for the “G” in guts, I can only assume it stands for gangster (or gangstar if you’re Giorno Giovanna). I’ll give the title for this episode a 3/10. They tried to be clever with it, but it turned out to be a worse title than when they just name the episodes after the enemy stand of the week.

The Next Clue

After determining that it would be safer to stay in Venice for a short while rather than being intercepted by the Boss’ men on the open sea, the JoBros get down to business discussing their next step. Now that the Boss’ stand ability has been revealed, Buccellati believes him to be invincible.

However, just because he’s invincible doesn’t mean he can’t be defeated. His invincibility only comes into play when he’s “in control” of a situation. This means that if he’s taken by surprise, he could theoretically be killed before he even realizes he’s come under attack.

In one of my previous episode reviews I mentioned how Mista’s stand is the perfect one for defeating the Boss simply because once the Boss is shot, it’s too late for his “invincible” stand to take effect. But, if Buccellati’s team is to surprise the Boss, they first need to learn his identity.

This is where Trish comes into play. I think at this point it’s safe to say that Trish is a member of Buccellati’s team because she has nowhere else to go. And, luckily, she isn’t merely dead weight. Not only does she have a yet unseen stand, but she’s also remembered a clue which might lead to the Boss’ identity.

When Trish was younger, her mother once told her that she had met her father in Sardinia, which is an island off the west coast of Italy. This is the only information they have to go on, but apparently the JoBros find it to be much more conclusive than I do.

Personally, I’d question what this information really has to do with the Boss’ identity at all. Just because you know he was in Sardinia 15 years ago doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where he’s originally from. The fact that even back then, before becoming the Boss of Passione, he was hiding his identity, just seems to reinforce this.

But, no matter. Sardinia is going to be the next stop on the JoBros’ journey across Italy after they escape from Venice.

Squalo’s Clash

And, just as Buccellati’s team is about to go back to enjoying their lunch after discussing the new clue about the Boss’ identity, an enemy stand attacks! This time it’s a shark-like stand called Clash which is remotely controlled by its user, Squalo.

Squalo is a member of the Boss’ special protection team, along with his partner, Tiziano. However, despite being part of a two-man team, Squalo attacks on his own first because he’s confident that his Clash will be enough to take down at least one of Buccellati’s men.

I should also point out that this is slightly different from when antagonists in JoJo’s simply throw themselves at our heroes one-by-one, when they would have a much better chance working together. Yes, Squalo attacks on his own first, but Tiziano is there with him as backup if things go south.

So, how does Clash work? As I mentioned, it’s a shark-like stand, which means it’s tied to the water, or at least it’s tied to any exposed liquid. It originally appears in Narancia’s soup, but then also jumps to other liquids such as glasses of water and wine, Narancia’s tears, and even his blood.

My guess for how this stand is going to be defeated is that it’s going to be trapped inside a bottle. Theoretically, if it’s inside a water bottle and then the cap is put on, it can’t jump to another liquid because the container it’s in is sealed.

But, when it attacks Narancia, we see it bit off his tongue, stopping him from warning his teammates about the impending threat. And, at the same time it bit off his tongue, Clash also planted the next enemy stand in Narancia’s mouth.

Tiziano’s Talking Head

While Clash’s name doesn’t really have all that much to do with the stand itself, Tiziano’s stand, Talking Head, is the perfect name/ability combination. Talking Head attaches itself to the tongue of its victim and is then able to control what they say, and do to an extent.

So, not only was Narancia’s tongue bitten off by Clash, but once Giorno repaired it, he still wasn’t able to effectively warn his companions about the enemy stand that attacked him. Whenever he would try to warn everyone, Talking Head would make him say the opposite of what he wanted.

Eventually Narancia starts to recognize what’s happening, and so tries to use body language to explain what’s going on to his friends, but that’s when we learn that Talking Head can control his body too. However, it seems that its true power lies in its ability to make him say whatever it wants.

If Talking Head could really control all of Narancia’s body at will, then it would be a much more powerful stand than it seems to be at present. For now, Narancia can still cover his mouth with his hands, and even control most of his actions.

Further, since Talking Head seems to need to be implanted into its victim’s mouth, that’s just another reason why it’s not all that powerful. It’s a bit too situational, and considering it doesn’t appear to have any offensive capabilities, I’m not sure how viable it really is.

That said, because it was Narancia who was attacked by this stand, and because Mista is the one trying to figure out what’s wrong with him, it’s no wonder that it worked as well as it did. If Buccellati or Giorno were involved, we can be sure that this issue would be solved fairly quickly due to their superior problem solving skills.

Conclusion

So, how do you think Buccellati’s team is going to defeat Squalo and Tiziano? I’ve already explained how I think Squalo’s Clash is going to be taken down, but I’m not entirely sure about Tiziano and Talking Head. Maybe Buccellati will use Sticky Fingers to zip off Narancia’s tongue so the stand can be defeated.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this week’s review, then be sure to click the like button ❤ down below.

And, you can also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any new content. Along with continued content here on DoubleSama.com, I’ll be writing content for another site as well in the near future, so stay tuned on Twitter for that.

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

My review of the next episode is available here.

The Mystery of King Crimson

This week we’re back with even more analysis of the boss’ King Crimson stand, so let’s get right into it. King Crimson’s ability has been further explained in today’s episode by giving us a few more important details regarding how exactly it works.

The first thing I’d like to say about it is that it’s actually not all that different from DIO’s The World, and at this point I’d still say The World is a stronger stand than King Crimson. While The World stops time for everyone except its user, King Crimson merely fast forwards time for everyone except its user.

I say “merely,” but in fact there’s more to it than that. While time skips forward for everyone else, the boss is able to see the future time that’s being skipped for everyone else in slow motion and seemingly on repeat. This means that overall I’d say his ability is better than DIO’s, but The World is still stronger.

But, how can a stand ability be better and yet weaker than another? The simple answer is that King Crimson is a better stand for hiding and surviving while The World is better for defeating opponents. Basically, surviving is a better ability, but defeating your opponents is a stronger ability.

So, let’s take a look at exactly how this works. First of all, DIO’s The World has such a broken ability that the only reason it was defeated was because another stand, Star Platinum, randomly acquired the same ability. Unless you have the power to stop time, you cannot defeat someone else who does because they’ll just kill you while time is stopped.

As for King Crimson’s ability, it doesn’t seem like he can really interact with people while he’s skipping forward in time. This means that he can’t fast forward time, and punch someone in the face during that time skip to injure them like DIO could. Instead, he can just see what they’re going to do, and put himself in a position to act accordingly.

I should also mention that King Crimson has a relatively small area of effect. While he can see the future movements of anyone within that radius, everyone outside of it simply skips ahead without their movements being read.

Buccellati’s Escape

After attacking and being counterattacked by the boss, Buccellati is able to escape for a brief moment thanks to Giorno. The brooch which Giorno had given to Buccellati turned into a stand-using turtle (just like the one the group had previously hidden inside) and the boss was sucked into it.

Buccellati then grabs the turtle, opens up the floor with a zipper, and throws the turtle down into a sewer below to be washed away. However, as mentioned, this escape was brief, as the boss suddenly reappears on the stairs above Buccellati.

It’s still not completely clear to me how the boss managed this since we didn’t see time skip forward during this time, but maybe it’ll be explained as a separate power in a future episode. Buccellati then must come up with a new strategy for escaping with Trish, and this is when we learn one of the weaknesses of King Crimson

According to Buccellati’s calculations, King Crimson can only see about 5-10 seconds into the future, and we can also assume that there’s a slight cooldown on the use of this ability as well. This means that as long as whatever you plan to do happens after 10 seconds from when King Crimson uses its ability, your plan is still a secret.

The example we see of this happening in the episode is Buccellati using a sneak attack on King Crimson to bait him into using his ability. When Buccellati’s fist hits King Crimson, the ability is activated so it can be dodged. However, Buccellati makes sure that the next 5-10 seconds looks like the sneak attack missed.

Once King Crimson is satisfied that Buccellati’s attack has missed and just hit a pillar in the distance, he resumes the future time and is surprised when Buccellati is able to escape by zipping up the pillar his fist hit. Since King Crimson couldn’t see that far into the future, he figured the plan ended upon Buccellati hitting the pillar.

Now that we know this weakness, the boss and King Crimson aren’t really all that big of a deal. If someone can bait the boss into using his ability, then Mista can simply shoot him as soon as time resumes normally and his ability is on a cooldown.

Buccellati’s Death?

But, although we learned a decent amount about how King Crimson functions in this episode, I think the most interesting thing to happen was Buccellati’s death. After escaping to the first floor of the church, Buccellati is found bleeding to death by Giorno, who then proceeds to heal him.

However, even though Giorno fixed everything that was wrong with Buccellati, stopped his bleeding, and even replenished his blood supply, Buccellati still succumbs to his injuries. He then appears as a ghost behind Giorno and tells him to escape with the rest of the team while they still can.

And, if Buccellati’s ghost appearing wasn’t bizarre enough, it quickly disappears and he reawakens. At first glance it might seem that this means Giorno’s healing finally took effect, but I don’t think that’s quite what happened considering Buccellati was definitely dead, and Giorno can’t revive the dead as far as we know.

Later on in the episode Buccellati also complains of lightheadedness due to blood loss from his injuries, but as Giorno knows, his blood should have been replenished when he was healed.

Further, Buccellati stabs a hole right through his hand and doesn’t seem to notice. Not only does he not feel any pain from this injury, but Giorno also notices no blood is flowing out of it. So, what’s going on with Buccellati?

My best guess is that this is the work of another enemy stand which has somehow turned Buccellati into a zombie. I doubt this is an effect of King Crimson, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that Giorno’s Gold Experience doesn’t actually heal wounds, it merely replaces what was broken.

The Truth Revealed

Once back outside the church and in relative safety, Buccellati explains to Abbachhio, Fugo, Narancia, and Mista that he’s just betrayed the boss by not handing Trish over to him. It’s easy to forget that up until this point these members of his team had no idea Buccellati was actually working against the boss.

And, although it’s never explicitly said, it’s implied to the rest of the team that Giorno is Buccellati’s accomplice in this betrayal. However, because this was never explicitly stated, we don’t really know to what extent the other team members think Giorno was involved.

It’s also interesting that Buccellati doesn’t mention that he and Giorno have been plotting the defeat of the boss from the very beginning. Perhaps he thought that his team would be more accepting of his explanation that he betrayed the boss to save Trish.

But, this opens up a new problem for Buccellati’s team. Now that Buccellati and Giorno are branded as traitors and marked for death by the boss, what will the other members of the team do? Technically speaking, they’re all still innocent and can theoretically return to Passione without being killed.

At first, all four decide to stick with the gang rather than Buccellati, but one by one they change their minds. First Abbacchio joins Buccellati because he enjoys following him. Then Mista joins as well because he trusts Buccellati wouldn’t have started a fight with the boss unless he was sure he could win.

Narancia and Fugo are a different story, however. They both originally stay behind as the now four traitors drive away in the speedboat, but Narancia has a change of heart and jumps into the water after Buccellati. In the end, only Fugo decides not to join the rest of the group because he’s too afraid of the boss.

Conclusion

So, what did you think of this week’s episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind? I actually thought it was one of the best episodes so far along with last week’s episode. Unfortunately, since it was so good it also flew past and felt like it was only a few minutes long.

Unfortunately, it seems that next week’s episode is going to be a recap or some other kind of non-important special, so we may have to wait two weeks for the next real episode.

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My review of the next episode is available here.