“The name of your stand is…Star Platinum!”
I’m honestly surprised at the slow pace for this season of Jojo, given how everything felt like they progressed faster in Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency. I do know Stardust Crusaders is one of the longer arcs in Jojo compared to the two, and if I put two and two together I guess this means we should be getting at least 3 cours of Stardust Crusaders? Oh wow. Just the thought of spending the remainder of my anime year with Jojo airing makes me so happy.
The past two weeks have been much slower in comparison to the first episode (whose pacing was more on par with Battle Tendency I feel), and have only covered one fight and a couple of events – Noriaki Kakyoin’s introduction, him joining Jojo in the fight against Dio, Holly getting a stand, Dio finding out about Jonathan’s descendants….hey, that’s quite a bit of stuff. I wonder why it felt slow.
Still, even at a slower pace Jojo doesn’t disappoint. With such wacky visual direction and the most kickass music even five minutes of Holly sleeping would’ve been entertaining to watch. Speaking of Holly, I didn’t expect her to have a Stand, and the whole thing felt a /little/ cliche to me, but if this means we get to see Grandpa Joseph brushing his precious daughter’s teeth and hair and being the perfect otou-san I don’t mind. Once again, it’s little things like this that keep Jojo fresh and entertaining – even without the ridiculous battles, colours and poses the characters are still great fun to watch. I wish I could say the same for some of the other anime airing as of late.
This week also put quite a bit of focus on Noriaki, he’s probably a big softie just like Jotaro, except he’s a lot more open about it. He doesn’t want to admit it (and doesn’t need to because boy was he obvious), but he’s shocked that Jotaro would actually help save his life, and when Jotaro brushed it off like the BADASS DELINQUENT BOY he was trying to be Noriaki got all googly-eyed. I swear I could see some tears welling up in his eyes. Their relationship is definitely going to be very enjoyable to witness, and I particularly like Noriaki’s character so far, so it’s only looking up for Stardust Crusaders.
One worry I have is Avdol though. Compared to the rest of the cast he really doesn’t stand out much, and we’re already on episode 3. I really hope there’ll be something of greater substance in his character, because right now he doesn’t have the trademark zaniness the rest of the cast has, and every moment with him as the main focus were the parts I cared about the least. The scene where he encountered Dio for the first time is an exception though, but that’s because of Dio, not Avdol. This episode did a great job of re-establishing Dio as the villain by the way. In Phantom Blood he was this major dickhead but never felt extremely dangerous (although the ending of Phantom Blood did make me consider retracting that statement), but here he truly feels menacing and evil. The colours used in that scene was just so ridiculously fantastic. David Production nailed that part.
The episode previews seem to be introducing a new Stand user that’ll probably be a new ally of the Joestars, and damn am I excited to see him. Based on his voice alone I could tell he was probably going to be one of the more eccentric members of the cast, and for Jojo, that’s really saying something. I love this show’s brand of craziness, and I seriously cannot wait for next week.
*ALSO THE NEW ED THEME. HOLY CRAP. WHODATHUNKIT. David Production is the gift that keeps on giving, gracing me with things I never knew I wanted ;_; Best ED of the year, I don’t care.
JOJO WALKS LIKE AN EGYPTIAN