Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders – Episodes 9 & 10: Cherry-licking and menacing toilets

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There’s absolutely no chance of me not using the legendary rero for my post opener. Seriously, that was fucking amazing. I have never been so weird-ed out in my life, I love it. I’m happy, Jojo is really starting to pick things up. It’s all starting to come together a lot more coherently, the characters are beginning to show some real (mostly) endearing quirks and the series is really starting to live up to its bizarre namesake. The narrative, in Part 3 at least, may never exceed certain levels of quality, but it just nails it in presentation. Wonky colours, lots of posing and incredibly weird characters, it’s all part of what makes Jojo so off-putting, so disturbing and so much fun to watch.

My opening paragraph probably applies to episode 9 more than 10 though, since 10 takes a more traditional approach while 9 had all sorts of weird body horror shots and Kakyoin being such a fucking weirdo, eating beetles and shit. Last week’s episode even had a man’s face being sliced off his head, YES HIS WHOLE FACE, so naturally you can’t top that in episode 10. There was some amazing animation during the cherry licking scene too, it was so brilliant. I was so freaked out and yet I burst out laughing. I can’t begin to describe the feelings I felt watching episode 9 in any coherent manner because it was just so weird and awesome.

Also, I loved the scene where Jotaro just jumps into the cable car but no one on it gave a shit. It’s little nuances like this that make the Jojo world and logic so wonderful. And all that animal killing. Geez, judging by the number of animals that were killed and/or beaten up in Jojo you’d think the mangaka really hated animals. But I guess it could be true, except for that time he made a monkey a stand user. That was awful. I’d prefer it if he stuck with killing animals.

Episode 10 wasn’t bad either, but it’s not on 9’s  level, even with the pig in the toilet. Gotta admit that was really something though, and I was so sure that the waiter at the toilet was a stand user. Just look at his face. I’m not good with picking up death flags and foreshadowing unless I rewatch the episode, so Avdol’s death was really something. I mean, anyone would know that shit was going to go down with Avdol and Polnareff duking it out on the streets, and they even cut out the ED, but the death was still unexpected for me, since I assumed Avdol’d be a key member of the cast all the way through. (PART 2 SPOILER) The Zeppelis only died much later in Part 1 and 2, but eh. Good to shake up the tension a bit.

I didn’t really feel that much for Avdol’s death though. He was boring, really, and there wasn’t much depth to Polnareff’s revenge story either. I really couldn’t care less if his sister was killed with two right hands or two right feet, there simply wasn’t enough time given to flesh out Polnareff’s motives so as the audience I just stuck him to the role of the goofball in the group. It’s quite difficult to change that initial impression of a character after you’ve already relegated them to a certain role in the story without time for them to properly develop and such.

The fight itself was well executed visually though. There were some really cool shots and the little bit of their stands I saw were impressive enough, and I did like the scene with Hol Horse and Centerfold before the battle where they killed a snake (see, animal cruelty!). They make a pretty badass pair, and with Avdol’s death it does raise the stakes significantly, even without the manly tears for Avdol’s swift exit from the cast.