Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
|
|||
|
When Stardust Crusaders hit, the Stand concept was groundbreaking, I'm not sure if it was the first ever, but it sure as hell influenced everything that came out after it, even Yoshihiro Togashi admits that he kind of ripped off the concept in the second half of Yu Yu Hakusho. And don't quote me on this but I belileve that Stardust Crusaders was the first shonen manga with travelling around the world as part of its plot, and not travelling in a fantasy setting. Not only that, Araki nails the feeling of world-travel like no one.
And Araki went all for it, the thing was so fresh and cool that he went all out for it: tarot card naming (absolutely unimportant), types of Stand and rules, and all that Hamon could not do with a human body, a Stand could. That's why he makes up as many Stand users as possible, and then ran out of naming sakes so he went for Egyptian Gods, that also didn't matter much and then literally he stopped caring and named everything after his favorite rock songs and bands. But also, Araki always wanted to go all out with his lower-tier villains, it's just that he couldn't find an equal ground between Hamon and Vampire powers, and in trying to not obscure his major villains, all of the minor villains are forgettable and not presented like in Crusaders or Diamond with titles such as "Bruford, Part 1", that's where Stands allowed him to put his creativity to test. To me, having a Stand of the week formula is great, because I just love how creative they are; in a similar way, I also like Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency's "Hamon Bullcrap" of the week. True, some are quite boring and so out there that you just want to get over it, but others are particularly entertaining to read and watch. |
||||
|
||||
NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2357 |
|
|||
Yes, my expectations/image of the show were established very strongly by parts 1 and 2. I've been disappointed in parts 3 and 4 because of what I came to love about the show in parts 1 and 2. Secondarily, I also just don't think it does slice-of-life, or villain-of-the-week particularly well, and I think it's a mediocre work by most traditional criteria (emotional engagement with the viewer, character development, character interactions, plot, etc), but I was happy to look past all that for what I really loved about it. But I digress!
Yes, I also disliked this about part 3; it's one of the major problems I had with part 3, as I mentioned somewhere a few posts above this one. I don't think part 4 really left this format, though; 'villain of the week' just transformed into 'tense but ultimately sanguine encounter with slice of life character of the week.' |
||||
|
||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
The latter half of Yu Yu Hakusho nothing. It's Hunter X Hunter's Nen system where Togashi ripped off the concept, from how a lot of people manifest objects, the rule-based nature of Nen powers, the way everyone tries to use their powers as resourcefully as possible while keeping information about themselves as secret as possible, the way limitations allow a power to be more potent, and how inferior powers can overcome stronger foes by staying one step ahead.
I should be more clear: I'm enjoying Part 4 more than Part 3, despite how they both share a villain-of-the-week nature, because Part 4's fighters, on both sides, have to rely more on their heads to keep an advantage, because most of them don't really have direct damage Stands. If you think about it, every member of Josuke's team, including Josuke, have powers that seem more fitting for assistance, between Josuke's healing, Koichi's sound creation, Okayasu's spatial warping, Jotaro's time-stopping, and Rohan's information manipulation, but they all use them for direct combat. They have to rely on tricks and craftiness to win. For that same reason, it's why I liked Part 2 so much: Joseph was always dealing with adversaries way beyond his league and would've easily died every time if it weren't for his fast thinking and sleight-of-hand skills. Joseph was highly pragmatic and relied on deception and misdirection at every turn to eke out whatever he could, never using brute force, which is fun for me to watch. (My favorite was his fight against Kars in the ruins, where he was thrown into Kars's rope trap, but by playing stage magician, he completely redirected the trap back at Kars.) He's my favorite protagonist so far, as he was at the most severe disadvantage when fighting. |
||||
|
||||
|
YoodiHoshi
Posts: 15 |
|
|||
|
If you so please, NeverConvex, riddle me this - without stating any non-shonen (young boys' demographic), what show would you say actually did the episodic/MotW formula good enough in your view?
Just so you know, on the side - Stardust Crusaders predated a few shows that were similar like, as you mentioned, Power Rangers by around 5 years (concluding maybe the year before it premiered) and Digimon's anime by exactly a whole decade - early in the year of 1989. All-in-all, characters with their own individual powers portrayed in such a way (with each their own obstacles to overcome) in JUMP wasn't exactly a commonality around that time. By complaining about this tidbit you are essentially preaching both to the choir (I see people talk about this on practically any JoJo-centric forum) AND the author of JoJo's, who, by one point or another I'd imagine had to have been tired of hearing of SC by the time of its American localization (the demographic and some dynamics of the series, apart from the episodic format, had long been changed by this point [I won't say further on this]). He's a man who mainly lives for the present, and prefers to keep his mind there. All in all, what you are watching is a series that consists of style-over-substance for a good deal of it, so perhaps it's just meant to be enjoyed for what it is. Now, since I'm on mobile, it's harder to find where your direct quote I'm responding to was. Despite that, I hope you still catch this and Valhern's post. |
||||
|
||||
crosswithyou
 Posts: 2894 Location: California |
|
|||
|
After falling back over a month's worth of episodes due to work, I've finally caught up! And man am I enjoying the ride!
One thing I really love about the JoJo series is that the casting is spot-on. Sad that Hatano and Kamiya couldn't reprise their roles for the anime, but the casting of people such as Yamaguchi as Shigechi and Morikawa as Kira is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I like Koyama but I think Morikawa brings more sexiness to Kira. I squeed the moment Shigechi spoke. Yamaguchi is so perfect as him! Sad to see him go though... The bouncing noises they had whenever he walked and such made me giggle. It's these little attention to details that make JoJo so special. |
||||
|
||||
Souther
 Posts: 604 |
|
|||
Valhern's referring to the Territories in YYH. In a Q&A , Togashi talks about their inspiration being "you-know-what" and the translator's note talks about how fans discussed whether or not Togashi was copying Araki's stands. That part's here and the rest of the Q&A's here. (sorry for going slightly off-topic). |
||||
|
||||
|
Valhern
Posts: 916 |
|
|||
Yup, that's what I was talking about. The Nen system is a bit more iconic by itself. The interesting thing with the Territories is that Togashi inserted it like a new mechanic when Crusaders was finishing (I think), yet it's not that obvious compared to, I don't know, Shaman King and everybody that took the idea of characters summoning spirits and the like, so Togashi doing that with Nen was him just joining the fray. Funnily enough, Nen is famous for how consistently wild it can get, whil eStands and Araki himself is famous for how wildly INCONSISTENT it can get. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
Ah, I see. It's referring to a direct reference (or indirect, depending on how you look at it) spoken by Togashi himself. I didn't realize that arc was just a little bit after Stardust Crusaders ended either. I thought it was long after, but that's probably because I had only heard of Yu Yu Hakusho through Toonami.
|
||||
|
||||
MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5417 |
|
|||
|
So how did Rohan get a hold of the baby?
|
||||
|
||||
|
Edl01
Posts: 117 |
|
|||
The same way he can fly and cause a truck to swerve by jumping in front of it. OT: I'm kind of surprised to see this episode getting a B. Maybe I'm actually the minority here, but this has always been one of my absolute favorite arcs in part 4. It is so utterly absurd, even by Jojo standards, and is what solidified Rohan as my favorite character in this part. There is so many wonderful gags, all of which somehow involve him proudly beating a kid half his age. David Production also did a great job of bringing this weeks episode to life with all sorts of ridiculous shots and angles to make this seem closer to Goku vs Frieza than a fully grown man playing Rock Paper Scissors. This kinda stuff is why I'm such a big Jojo fan. |
||||
|
||||
Revolutionary
 Posts: 603 Location: New England |
|
|||
|
And I'm the opposite. I think this episode just moves to validate a lot of complaints mentioned in this topic recently. All of the tension created in the last several episodes was lost, just like that. All so we could go back to the MOTW format, and this was very likely my least favorite JJBA episode I have ever watched.
Not only have we gone back so predictably to the MOTW format, but this 'arc' just wasn't a good example of how to make that format entertaining at all, IMO. It was just silly. I couldn't take it seriously at all. And then when you combine that with Kira's dad being the extremely annoying archetype of the commentating villain on the sidelines, this episode just didn't work for me at all. I hope this is just an exception and the rest will be better than this. |
||||
|
||||
gedata
 Posts: 615 |
|
|||
Yeah I know. It's almost like that might have been the point or something. |
||||
|
||||
|
Revolutionary
Posts: 603 Location: New England |
|
|||
Well then there's a problem, because it took being silly far too seriously, and came off as very lame - for lack of a better term. It didn't work for me, whatever it was trying to accomplish. |
||||
|
||||
|
leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||
|
Personally, I felt the pacing of this episode was too inconsistent. It was rather slow at the start, then moved at breakneck speed in the third act. Also, that boy is incredibly annoying. The episode was still fun, but I felt it wasn't quite as fun as some of the other silly conflicts like when Joseph finds the baby or when Josuke and Okuyasu fight Shigechi.
Also, why didn't Josuke and Joseph notice the photograph hanging from the lamppost? Isn't Josuke still looking for Yoshihiro and knows he's taking the form of a flying photograph? |
||||
|
||||
|
Revolutionary
Posts: 603 Location: New England |
|
|||
I was saying the same thing, it should be obvious. And he's also sitting there in that photograph yacking out annoying commentary. But... For plot reasons he wasn't seen. Annoying plot reasons in this case. I don't know how many more episodes of that I can take. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group