Part 1 of the Stone Ocean anime has now come to a close. This is a pretty good stopping point until the next part gets released on Netflix later this year, even though the ending did feel slightly abrupt. Still, lots of answers this time around pertaining to who Pucci is and why Jotaro’s discs are so important.
Just when you think Dio’s grasp on the Joestar family been severed, it comes back all over again thanks to Pucci. Pucci had met Dio back in 1988, the very same year that Jotaro and the crusaders set out to Egypt to take down Dio and save Holly. Befriending Dio, Pucci became curious of Dio’s idea of heaven. True victory was whether or not someone would be able to reach heaven, but heaven in this case being about their spirits and not the typical definition of heaven. A place where their spirits can evolve and thrive. Dio claimed he knew a way to achieve it and wanted to test the theory out, but in the end was never able to do that. He explained that he had written everything down in a notebook, but Pucci was also never able to lay eyes on the notebook because it had been destroyed. By who? After Dio’s death, sometime afterward Jotaro had found the notebook and read the contents of it before completely burning and destroying it. Being intrigued by the idea of Dio’s heaven and just holding him in high reverence, Pucci has made it his mission to find out the contents of the notebook and make Dio’s heaven come to fruition, to honor and avenge him. And the only way to do that is to look through Jotaro’s memories in his memory disc. Whatever it was, Jotaro knew that the information in the notebook would only be trouble. I mean, this IS Dio we’re talking about so of course it must involve some sort of destruction. And this is random, but I love that every person that ever talks about Dio always has to mention how beautiful he is. I’m pretty sure Avdol had said the same thing.
And so now we know why Jotaro was a target. He was a target the moment he killed Dio, as well as the second he burned that notebook. He holds precious information that Pucci wants, and he will use any means necessary to get it. He has the most important disc with him, being the memory disc. The Star Platinum wasn’t exactly the most important as keeping that particular disc away from Jotaro would mean that he would slowly rot away and eventually die. That was more towards avenging Dio. Though even when he gets the disc back, he’ll revive but won’t be able to function well because he doesn’t have the memory disc. He won’t even remember Jolyne, or maybe who he even is. We still don’t know the extent of that.
But even so, Jotaro will be alive. After “convincing” Pucci to let her go to the courtyard, Jolyne heads out and approaches a man who she thinks is part of the Speedwagon Foundation. Turns out, it was a guard that Pucci placed there ahead of time. Being shot multiple times, things were looking really bad for Jolyne until Weather Report used up the last bit of his strength to help her and boy he did help. With many many poison dart frogs. Being able to control that is really terrifying, especially when we saw the effects of the venom. And in typical Jojo fashion, Jolyne used the frogs to her advantage. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to find out that White Snake belonged to Pucci, but she was able to do what she needed. She had Savage Guardian, a messenger pigeon of the Foundation, take the disc back and save her father’s life. So while it was tough, and Jolyne almost lost her life plenty of times, she was still able to complete her mission. Next: the memory disc.
Also! It looks like Pucci has a connection with Weather Report since he knew his name and recognized his Stand ability. Now what on earth could that mean? Hmmm…
And this brings us to the end of the Stone Ocean’s first batch of episodes. Overall, this was pretty great. I love Stone Ocean so getting an anime adaptation for it was basically a dream and I’m SO excited to see the rest of the adaptation. Jolyne is fantastic and she’s an interesting character, and learning her dynamic with Jotaro made things even more interesting. Obviously there’s more to Jotaro that hasn’t been revealed yet, but him knowing about Dio’s notebook is really huge. We’ll explore their relationship more and you can bet I’ll write an essay on it.
This part is pretty different in that the setting only takes place at the Dolphin Street Prison. We have different parts of the prison but it’s still a rigid environment, so Jolyne and the others have to be creative with what they have available, same with the enemies. The characters this part are great, even though it did take awhile for most of them to get introduced. Jolyne is entertaining on her own but add Hermes, F.F., Emporio, and now Weather Report into the mix and the group gets even more fun, even if they all haven’t worked together yet. I love them all and we still have another person to join the group….who I don’t like but anyway. Pucci is already pretty interesting with his connection to Dio, which shocked me when I first read it in the manga. Even when Dio isn’t around he still is. And hmm, that bone in the post credits scene? The fights are fun as well and the Stand abilities, though maybe a couple fights were clunkers. But all in all, so far the adaptation is doing really well and I’m happy with it.
If I had to complain about some things, the animation is lacking in many spots. On top of the models looking wonky at times, I feel like the animation team is holding back. I feel like other parts had more dynamic transitions and angles, and I didn’t feel there was enough of that here with Stone Ocean. And this isn’t a problem with the anime team but more with the manga itself, but man the designs are weird lol. Some of the human designs are plain ugly, and the Stand designs are nice and sleek but again they’re really starting to look same-y. Even if they look nice in the anime. And speaking of designs, I’ve always LOVED Jolyne’s design and she looks so pretty in the anime AAAAH!
So, so far so good. This was a joy to watch, and apologies for the weird way this review went. I had computer issues and then personal things as well, but I reviewed all the episodes like promised! And I’m so looking forward to the next batch. Though the way Netflix is handling the way they’re distributing the episodes, it really is frustrating. I don’t think they revealed how many episodes Stone Ocean is going to be getting but I’m guessing it’ll be 39 episodes like both Golden Wind and Diamond is Unbreakable. Meaning with them only wanting to release a batch of episodes each year, Stone Ocean should end…December 2023? It’s extremely frustrating and stupid and I just don’t understand why they’re doing it this way. The hype comes and goes, and it’s possible that people will forget or just not care once the episodes come out. I am glad that Stone Ocean finally got an anime, but I wish they could have handled it better.
Well, until next time!
