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Forum - View topicEpisode Review: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders
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rosebrook11
 Posts: 1181 |
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This basically sumarizes why I love Jojo so much. It has its flaws, but manages to be entertaining enough that those flaws do not bother me.
Great review! |
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gedata
 Posts: 617 |
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eh Stardust Crusaders has always had somewhat of a nasty edge to it. Like that time a few eps back when we saw spoiler[a lingering shot of a dog having it's head sliced open by scythe-wielding stand] Asides from that good review. I prefer season one of the series to what we have of Stardust Crusaders mainly due to having a bit more narrative propulsion to lend each fight a bit of weight. Stardust does get better as it goes along though so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more. Last edited by gedata on Sat Aug 30, 2014 12:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Barbobot
 Posts: 460 |
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You chose the perfect image to go along with your 1-21 episode review. I couldn't help but laugh everytime I looked at it and made the lerolerolerolero sounds in my head.
Great review and describes perfectly everything that just makes watching JoJo so much fun. It took me some time to finally get into the JoJo series, but as soon as I started on Part 2 of season 1, Battle Tendency, I was hooked. Only disappointment is now I can't marathon through large batches of episodes and have to wait week to week. |
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danilo07
 Posts: 1580 |
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Really? I think that it is blatantly obvious that Araki was coming up with stuff as he went along. |
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sainta
 Posts: 989 |
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Loving this series so far. Started with Battle Tendency because Part 1 was kinda bland and Stardust turned out to be awesome.
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nightjuan
 Posts: 1473 |
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That's essentially how I tend to look at Jojo too, right from the beginning, and the current season still hasn't really changed my impression. If anything, I think that the overarching formula is becoming a bit more transparent and dragged out this time around, even if the specific details can still be surprising and undeniably creative. New Stands with more ways to defeat, overwhelm or otherwise make light of them every other week. You get the idea. Sometimes Araki is too busy having fun to care about going anywhere with the plot, as thin as it is despite its seemingly convoluted surface. Not that it particularly needs to be any different. I'm having a great time, for most of the reasons that have already been mentioned, but I can't shower the script's structure with nearly as much praise, at least not without being fully aware of the inherently improvised nature of a lot of what's going on. Hope doesn't quite see it that way, seeing more cohesion where we might find less, but that's fine. Either way, Stardust Crusaders still remains consistently entertaining and funny, which is nonetheless a virtue of the writing, even if I tend to think its more formal weaknesses can be considered a flaw, albeit one far too common to this particular anime/manga genre. |
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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I picked up Jojo's on a whim last spring because Anitwitter was so obsessed with it, and because I was told you can go into Stardust Crusaders with no context from the earlier seasons (which is correct). And man, am I glad I have. It's the only show continuing from spring that hasn't lost one ounce of momentum, and along with Nozaki-kun it's the series I find myself looking forward to the most each week.
I do agree with Hope that the animation can be stilted, but to me that's part of the show's over-the-top charm. It's "stilted" in a very comic-book-y kind of way (like, it often feels like literally animating one) that contributes to the '80s-action-movie aesthetic of the show, I think. I think my favorite single technical thing about Jojo's is the music, though. I'm a musicologist, so I tend to pay a lot of attention to the scores of whatever I watch, but man, this one's is SO good and always used so well in the show. And it's not just the rousing power-rock anthems that accompany the battle scenes, either; the creepy atonal string and piano stuff whenever they're first getting attacked, the rompy jazzy stuff that plays during the more lighthearted scenes, etc. ....it's all fantastic and timed perfectly. Also, isn't it great to spoiler[have Avdol back]? He was always my favorite, though I suspect I'm alone in that opinion. |
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danilo07
Posts: 1580 |
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To be honest to Araki he definitely changes the formula in later parts, after a while Jojo becomes a playground for him to explore every setting and genre possible. But it is still obvious how he is just improvising, which is quite charming to me actually. The way he doesn't care at all about consistency, somehow increases the bizarreness of Jojo universe and makes his writing weirdly endearing.
The first season was so barely animated that it might as well be considered a comic book with a voice over. The second season is animated really well though and the art is major improvement over the first season. In keeping with the spirit of original, there is a focus on poses but it is always balanced by dynamic zooms and swooping camera. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Oh, I should clarify. I don't see cohesion on a large scale. He's clearly making stuff up as he goes, I agree. It's on a micro scale that everything is tight. Individual chapters where they face down a Stand don't waste time with anything that isn't funny, an important detail, or weaving a new character's weird catchphrase into the rhythm o' Jojo's. It's paced super-tight, no standing around wasting time with anything that isn't interesting or part of the developing fight or solution to it. (Unless it's a really foul joke.) But yeah, I am under noooo impression that there is an overall planned arc to Jojo's, because it's very free-association-nutty on a larger scale. It's a story that seems "planned by vignette," like Araki thought really hard about how to do those two or three chapters where they fight a new Stand, but everything after that was "Okay, now what? Let's shift gears completely next time." |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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It is less about what is written when, but more about how well things are written when they become final. And that Final Draft is what we're all so glad to have!
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gedata
Posts: 617 |
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Reminder that Stardust Crusaders is still a shonen story. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure doesn't make the demographic jump until after Stone Ocean (arc 6) Last edited by gedata on Sun Aug 31, 2014 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tanteikingdomkey
 Posts: 2350 |
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I dropped the original series shortly into episode 4 of the original series. The scene with the house going up in flames did it for with the description of Jojo after it did it for me.
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Generic #757858
 Posts: 1354 |
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Yeah, Araki was/is definetily making the story up as he goes along. This can result in plenty foreshadowing that just gets abandoned later and even straightout continuity errors (spoiler[like DIO's two coffins]), but somehow it all works out in the end.
Any chance of the first season being reviewed now that it's being streamed legally? |
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jeffinitelyjeff
 Posts: 12 |
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I really loved the episodes 1-21 review. It did a really great job of summarizing what JoJo's is and why it's so appealing. (As someone who only just came into the series with this season, it's fascinating to see how the same stuff that draws me in now—the "bizarre"—is what turned me off initially)
The episode 22 review... It was good, but the balance of recap-to-commentary was a bit high for my taste. That was probably just a consequence of picking up episodic reviews in the middle of a 2-parter, but I hope future reviews have a higher ratio of insight and commentary to recap. Great work, and looking forward to more! |
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Durga
 Posts: 103 |
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Minor correction: The new Stand is High Priestess. The Empress was already fought several episodes ago.
The biggest surprise for me was the inclusion of Suzie Q, since all of those scenes weren't originally in the manga. While they felt a little out of place and slowed the episode down, I did appreciate seeing her again and the attempt at reminding the audience that Jotaro's a sweeter guy than he appears. |
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