Ever since the part 4 anime was announced, I have been rereading the part before the anime comes out. This way, the media is fresh in my mind and I can more easily find differences between the manga and the anime, such as what the anime cuts out or what they decide to add that the manga chose not to. One of the more prominent examples of this is from part 5, where the manga chose to go more in depth with some of the backstory of the protagonists of Team Buccellati. If you would like to, you can also do this read along with me and a couple friends who are doing this with me. We will be reading ten chapters per week, come together to talk about it and then afterwards I will write up my thoughts combined with some of their thoughts in this blog. Due to this being a read along, I won't be going over everything that happens in the chapters, as I assume you the reader have also read the chapters recently; I will just be going over the important parts, my thoughts on them a...

JoJo's premiered in Weekly Sh ō nen Jump back in 1987 and ran in that popular magazine until 2004 which is about when part 6 ended. Part 7 and onward is now running in the monthly magazine Ultra Jump. This leads many people to believe that JoJo's is a cross between a sh ō nen (meant for younger male audience) manga and a seinen (meant for younger adult males) manga. With that being said, JoJo's is an anime and manga that has done things that many others cannot do or replicate even if they try: combine many genres and thematics all into one great storyline. Let's tackle these one at a time and have it all come together at the end. Typical of sh ō nen manga and sh ō nen anime, JoJo's has many fights that occur within the series. Some of the most memorable fight in all of anime happen in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Who hasn't heard of the fast-paced, hard-hitting fight between Jotaro and DIO? However, JoJo's is not just a battle anime, which i...

No one is safe in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Abbacchio was killed by the boss of Passione. We knew from the boss's previous statements that Abbacchio was one of his main targets due to the fact that once Abbacchio uses Moody Blues's replay ability where the boss took a photo, they could discover his real face. The audience knew that he was a target and yet it was still a surprise to everyone who witnessed this moment for the first time. We haven't had a main character die in Golden Wind and the closest thing we had to a main character dying in Diamond is Unbreakable was when Yoshikage Kira blew up Shigechi. Before that we had the deaths of Kakyoin, Iggy and Avdol in Stardust Crusaders, which was a heavy blow to everyone watching JoJo's at the time. So the JoJo fan base has been blessed with no major character deaths for all of part 4 and a majority of part 5. Abbacchio was a character who was hard to hate in my opinion. Sure, he didn't like the main charact...

Trish understands that if she moves towards Giorno's brooch on the ground, Notorious B.I.G will attack her. She contemplates running to the closet and hiding, but Trish notices the fact that the chairs on the plane all have a button to automatically recline them. She click it and Notorious B.I.G attacks the chair. Trish realizes that she must move slower than the speed at which the reclining chair is moving, else the enemy stand will strike. She slowly makes her way towards the brooch while reclining more chairs along the way. Suddenly, Notorious B.I.G attacks her boot. There is dripping liquid falling from her boot from a broken bottle, which is what attracted Notorious B.I.G's attention. Trish's boot slips right off of her foot, almost like her boot split in two to allow her foot out. Trish hears a voice, which turns out to be her new stand Spice Girl (subbed to Spicy Lady). Spice Girl tells Trish that she was the one that slipped her boot off; she also instructs Trish to...

Last week the staff from David Productions took time off for the New Year, so we had somewhat of a recap episode last week. We start back up in JoJo's with the gang driving to a train station in Naples to use the key that they obtained from the dog mosaic. Abbacchio's arm was reattached thanks to Sticky Fingers. Once they arrive at the station, they are instructed by the boss to use the key near a drinking fountain at the station and take the train to Venice. Mista makes fun of Fugo, who was looking at Trish and wondering how it must feel to be a target all her life. At the train station, we see two members from the Hitman Team, Prosciutto and Pesci, looking at Buccellati (who is near a drinking fountain). Buccellati cannot figure out where he is supposed to use the key, but then he notices that the turtle near the fountain has an indentation on its shell that resembles the shape of the key. Buccellati takes the turtle and goes on the train. Pesci and Prosciutto decide to try t...

Buccellati's gang are at a bathroom stitching up Mista's stomach wound, which Fugo does with a stapler. Buccellati states that they are close to the treasure, but Narancia notices people outside. Investigating, he is met by two janitors. Narancia pulls a knife on one, but she twists his arm and turns the scuffle. It is then revealed that the other janitor is actually a capo of Passione, Mr. Pericolo. He is there to collect the treasure Buccellati hid. Buccellati uses Sticky Fingers to hit a urinal, revealing the treasure hidden within. After checking the treasure, Mr. Pericolo gives Buccellati the title of capo, officially taking Polpo's place. Pericolo reveals that there was a job left unfinished that Polpo was assigned. The job is guarding the daughter of the mysterious boss of Passione. The other janitor is that daughter; her name is Trish. Her mother had died a couple of months ago and she asked a man named Solido Naso to be found. That name is one of many aliases that ...

We start episode 7 of Golden Wind with the members of Buccellati's gang kicking the shit out of Zuccjero's body for all the trouble he put the gang through. Mista chooses to interrogate his severed head (still alive and functioning due to Sticky Finger's ability) as they head towards Capri, the location of Polpo's hidden treasure. Mista fastens eye glasses to Zucchero's face while keeping one of his eyes open with a fishing hook, so the sun shines into the eye glasses and is intensified onto one eye of Zucchero. Narancia proceeds to dance like never before to some funky music, prompting Fugo and Mista to join in on this torture dance. Abbacchio cuts off the gang before they can torture the severed head more, showing them that Zucchero notified someone via radio on the island of Capri, likely his partner, that they are headed to Capri on a boat. Moody Blues plays back that message and the gang decided to ambush that mysterious partner on Capri before he realizes that...

We begin episode 5 with Buccellati talking to Giorno about the hierarchy of Passione. The boss is the head honcho and everyone answers to him, even though no one knows anything about him. Next are the Capos, who answer to the boss and give orders to the rest of the gang members. Buccellati tells Giorno that in order to take down the boss, they must have a team and get close to him so they can learn everything they can about him. We cut to two Passione gang members talking about how Polpo committed suicide, so his hidden treasure is up for the taking. After this short encounter with potentially villainous gang members, we meet the rest of the gang. Fugo is teaching Narancia math (and Narancia is failing), Mista is freaking out about there being four pieces of cake and Abbacchio is listening to music. Giorno meets them and Abbacchio urinates in the tea kettle and urges Giorno to drink it. He does so, but he turned one of his teeth into a jellyfish that sucks up the liquid he just drank. ...

In the fourth episode of Jojo's part 5 anime, we pick up where we left off with Black Sabbath attacking Giorno and Black Sabbath pulling Giorno's soul (it shows Gold Experience being pulled from Giorno's body) and Giorno then gets serious. Giorno attacks Polpo's stand, but it disappears. The fight goes on a little longer before Giorno discovers Black Sabbath's weakness: the sun. He then notices that Black Sabbath can only move within the shadows. Koichi enters the scene, thinking Giorno attacked the old man that Black Sabbath killed. Koichi is attacked by Black Sabbath, but Giorno saves him. Koichi notices the stand arrow, baffled as to why it is in Italy. Giorno convinces Koichi that his actions are right and that he is on the right path. Revealing that Black Sabbath is a long range stand type, they hatch a plan to trap Black Sabbath in a shadow that the object making the shadow can be destroyed, thus defeating Polpo's stand. The plan backfires when Black Sabba...

A quick note about this blog post: this post will be talking about the part 5 Jojo's manga, so if you are either reading part 5 and not quite finished or if you are an anime watcher only, please do not read this if you do not want to be spoiled. This post contains a LARGE amount of spoilers for the part 5 manga. You have been warned. White Album Now onto the actual discussion. This mini-series of blog posts will be random thoughts and discussion points about Golden Wind's manga. To start things off, I was always interested in how Araki chose to really branch out with his stand ideas with this part. Sure, we had unique stands before, such as autonomous stands, a stand that was a tower, stands that shape shift and stands that stop/reverse time. All of these are very interesting stands, but part 5 blew it out of the water when it comes to unique stands. There are two stands that are basically suits for the users (Oasis and White Album), other autonomous stands (Green Day), ...

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...

The first Jojo Friday of the new season and come and past, and ample time has been given to watch and digest this masterpiece, so now we discuss! A quick note, I won't be going over most of the plot (maybe just a general summary sometimes) since I assume all who are reading this blog post have seen the first episode. With that being said, David Production went all out on this episode, making all the scenes look phenomenal. You can tell the art design is still Jojo-esque, but still feels like it is evolving. For example, Koichi still looks and feels like the Koichi we know from part 4, and yet feel more matured, perhaps even a tad older thanks to his character development and the changing art style from David Production. I'll post a couple pictures to help emphasize my point, but damn does it look nice. As for the plot, it seemed to cover the first four-ish chapters of Golden Wind, and the pacing felt very smooth and not forced. We meet the new Jojo - Giorn...

As an up and coming English major and anime watcher, I have been in love with Jojo's for as long as I can remember, and I want to share the experience of part 5 with the rest of the Araki-loving world! New episodes of Jojo's will be coming out on Fridays, so I would like to create blog posts a couple days after so people have ample time to watch the newest episode and digest it. Also, waiting a couple days to create a post will have hype remain in the early and middle parts of the week, even though Jojo Friday seems so far away! I hope you all enjoy this blog. Critiques are welcome and discussion is appreciated!