The episode begins with a brief recap of the end of last episode and I end up giggling all over again. Because, the word used for ‘join me’ in the japanese is ‘Nakama’, which makes me think of One Piece, so basically to me Giorno is saying “Join my crew, i’m going to be king of the Gang-Star’s.”, also Gang-Star, why? Araki, baby, this pun is awful and you should feel bad. It pains me to read, but it’s also delightfully innocent. Which I suppose fits, since he wants to be a Gangster that cleans up what it means to be a Gangster, to not sell drugs to children.
Joining your enemy, rising through the ranks and then pulling a coup. This is going to be deeply interesting.
Bucciarati agrees to claim he couldn’t find the guy who attacked Luca and introduce Giorno to the gang. However, he would not back him if it was ever found out that he was targeting the bosses life. Traitors can’t be saved, otherwise, he’d back him and believe in the golden dream.
To get into the organization, Giorno needs to undergo an interview by a man named Polpo. While not the boss of the organization, he is one of the people who passes along orders from above. What’s odd about Polpo is that he gives his orders from a jail, a jail that he has no interest in escaping. Why? Well, welp, okay. Yup, I have zero words to describe what I am witnessing right now. I can do nothing but sit and stare at Polpo and ask myself “What?”
His ability seems to be that to shift forms? Perhaps? Since he first appeared as a bed when Giorno walked in? You know what? That’s not actually important and I can’t bring myself to care, because his entire character design has shut my brain down. You come across certain things in life that stall your ability to think properly and this is one of those moments. Also, what the heck is that voice filter they are using on him? It’s making it three times more creepy to watch and listen too!
Well, anyway, Giorno’s interview/initiation test begins.
The test is to determine how trustworthy Giorno is. He is given a lighter and told to make sure the flame does not go out. “He who is my friend speaks well of me behind my back.”, in other words, how trustworthy you are is based on behavior when you are not being watched. So to keep the flame going for 24 hours. Which honestly sounds pretty easy, but when you factor in the fact that he was told by the guards that he wasn’t allowed to take anything from Polpo and they were going to do another bodycheck on the way out, it becomes a lot harder.
So as soon as he’s out of the cell, he faces his first challenge in keep the lighter aflame.
Using his stand ability, he disguises the lighter as a flower and is allowed to take it out of the facility.
Second phase, getting it home safely isn’t too hard. He gets it into the house and places it upright in a thing of bread to keep it from falling over and barricade it with various items from his desk to keep the wind and air changes from putting it out. Honestly, it’s pretty clever.
Too bad Koichi chooses this time to come into Giorno’s apartment looking for any remnants of his luggage, even his passport. A series of mishaps leads to Giorno getting the lighter back and Koichi finding his passport.
I was lied too! I was told we weren’t going to see Koichi again. Though does this really count? Since he didn’t interact with Giorno at all in this scene and I guess it doesn’t count for much.
After escaping from Koichi with the flame still lit, he’s running outside when Giorno is hit by some water that was thrown accidently by an old man who was cleaning the stairs. He doesn’t know what to do, but the old man tells him the lighter isn’t broken and can be turned back on.
Something about this seems wrong to Giorno. If it can be turned back on, why make it the test in the first place? While he is busy mulling it over, the old man restarts the lighter. Which leads them to be attacked by a stand, most likely Polpo’s stand. That rips the old man’s soul from his body and attacks it with an arrow, killing the old man. Though it realizes quickly that it’s not the soul of someone trying to join the gang, not one of the chosen ones and turns on Giorno.
Which leads me to wonder, is Polpo’s stand blind? It was unable to tell immediately that it had the wrong soul, and didn’t notice Giorno there until he stepped in the water and made some noise. We don’t get to learn anything about it this episode, but we’ll learn more next I suppose. We don’t get to learn the name of the stand, so I don’t get to wrap up this review with any cool music trivia, but I will end with this.
I’ve been reading posts from people who actually live in Nepal praising Golden Wind for it’s perfect depiction of the streets there, so maybe part of the reason part 5 took so long to get an anime confirmation was so the team could do some research. Just something to think about!
This episode was absolutely wild, man. I loved every second of it! The prison meeting was like if Deku met All For One in prison but Deku was actually a Yuya-Sakaki-style entertainer and All For One was crossed with Jabba the Hutt. The myriad of methods Giorno came up with to keep the flame lit and a secret from prison guards, schoolkids, janitors, and angry Japanese tourists was ridiculous. Classic Jojo craziness right here!
I’m really curious about how Jabba’s stand fits into all of this, too. The arrow of his Stand looks suspiciously like Dio’s arrow (how does that thing keep getting around the world, good lord!), and a person on MAL theorized that it might serve a double purpose of not just proving loyalty but also giving deserving members Stands- even if you lose, you’re still a part of the Passione for life.