Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind Episode 2 Discussion

In the newest episode, episode 2, of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind, we learn of Giorno's past and what lead him towards eventually wanting to become a gangster. Giorno's father, whom his mother married when Giorno was young, was rather abusive, paving the way for Giorno to look up towards a mob member whose life Giorno had saved. The mob member looked after Giorno from afar, serving as a guardian and as an influence to young Giorno. With that flashback, we now know what drives Giorno. Giorno and Buccellati continue their fight inside the train and eventually outside it, with the fight ending by Giorno about to punch Buccellati, but drawing back at the last second, stating Buccellati is a good person. Giorno then tells Buccellati his plan to reform the mob syndicate that Buccellati is affiliated with by infiltrating it. His first step is killing the boss. After telling Buccellati this, Giorno asks him to join him in this endeavor, realizing that both of them know the mob needs reform after seeing a kid with needle marks on his arm from drug usage. Who else would sell hard drugs like that to a kid but a mob member. This is where the episode comes to a close.

The anime did a fantastic job showing something that could be confusing to manga readers: Gold Experience's ability to punch people and heighten their senses immensely, thus having their body appear sluggish by comparison. While this concept gets scraped later in the series, the anime still does a good job of portraying that ability. However, we Jojo fans have learned to take the good with the bad, and the bad I am referring to is the obvious attempts to change the subtitles to avoid copyright issues. The first offender of this is Girono's stand, Gold Experience, subtitled as Golden Wind. Not a bad change, since it fits with the name of this part. In episode 2, Buccellati shows off Sticky Fingers, subtitled poorly as Zipper Man. I know I chucked when I read this for the first time, as Zipper Man just sounds like a lame superhero name a small child would give someone. The Jojo anime has seen its fair share of subtitles not matching what the characters are saying for the sake of dodging a copyright bullet, but some of the changes can be really bad. I'll admit, some of the changes aren't bad ones, such as Highway Star being changed to Highway Go-Go, or Crazy Diamond being changed to Shining Diamond. Some of the bad ones include, but are not limited to: Steely Dan changed to Dan of Steel, Killer Queen becoming Deadly Queen, Bad Company being changed to Worse Company and the aforementioned Sticky Fingers being changed to Zipper Man. With some of these sub changes being rather cringy, I am afraid what stand names that come up later in part 5 will be changed to. Some stand names simply cannot be changed, otherwise it just ruins the musical reference and the immersion of watching an episode and reading one thing and hearing the character saying something different. Rolling Stones, Metallica, Aerosmith, Spice Girl, Man in the Mirror, White Album, Green Day: all of these are stand names that I am sure will be changed and the subtitle change will not do the stand justice.

Going back to the episode, this one also covered about 4-5 manga chapters, so the pacing is staying rather consistent so far. And with this episode we got to bear witness to the new opening to Jojo part 5, Fighting Gold. This amazing opening is sung by Coda, the same people who sang Bloody Stream form part 2 and lyrics were written by Neko Oikawa, the same person who wrote the iconic Cruel Angel's Thesis, the opening from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Just from knowing who sings Fighting Gold and who wrote it, fan expectations were high. In this writer's opinion, Fighting Gold did not disappoint; this OP is one hell of an opening that instantly became one of my favorite Jojo openings (maybe not Great Days or Sono Chi No Kioku level, but definitely up there with the greats!) This opening is also packed with symbolism and it's really cool to see all the main cast's stand powers in action in this OP. We also get a look at Trish, a prominent character who comes later in the series. As for the ending, Freek'n You by Jodeci, I was surprised to hear this as the ending for sure. I do like the song and it is exceptionally catchy and it does somewhat fit part 5's themes, however it was still semi-jarring to hear this song at the end of a Jojo episode. Either way, the second episode, from beginning to end, was very great and watching it made me even more excited to see more of part 5 animated, which has been top notch, so kudos to David Productions for another fantastic looking episode, I hope the production quality stays this good throughout part 5.