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(03/24/19 5:00pm)
by Allyson McClain
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
“The 'G' in Guts” is an appropriate name for this installment of Jojo after the 21st episode and the events that took place between Bucciarati’s crew and Passione. Bucciarati and his gang are now on the run from Passione after Bucciarati refuses to let the boss kill Trish. With a miracle, Bucciarati is alive once more and all who fled with Bucciarati and Giorno are willing to risk their lives. They had the guts to go against Passione and it shows as they strategically leave by gondola, with Narancia using “Little Bomber” to be on the lookout for any assassins or guards sent by the Boss. The Boss’s elite guards, in particular, will most likely be searching for them and be out for their heads. Oddly enough, this was never mentioned before in the show and this is the first time Bucciarati brings them up. It seems sudden but believable after seeing what type of man he is. In terms of direction, this was probably the best way to introduce the boss without adding any extra paranoia to the man.
Back to the story, Mista’s stand, “The Sex Pistols," gets really hungry and wants to eat. This is curious as no other stand that we have seen so far has been so needy and apparent with their stand user. Mista’s relationship with his stand is similar to him being a pet owner, feeding them and putting up with their fighting. We saw a bit of a similar situation with a stand user in Part 3, but it was still a stand user dominated relationship while as here we see more of a give and take relationship between Mista and “Sex Pistols." Then came an aspect of the show that I don’t enjoy as much, the new opening: ”Traitor’s Requiem." Of course as a who watches mostly anime, I cannot judge how fitting this opening is with what we know right now, but it certainly doesn’t have that punch I was expecting from the second part of such an action packed season of Jojo. The ED however is interesting; the order that they are placed in on the totem is specific and might suggest that it is somehow ordered based on the order of how the enemies will appear or how characters in the main crew will disappear.
Either way, everyone in Bucciarati’s crew pulls their gondola over to eat at a restaurant where they have playful banter. In a funny turn of events, Narancia beats up on some guy and Mista joins in. Just when you think that’s it, Abbacchio decides to join in the childish fun after sipping wine so elegantly, which is definitely a little irony to make viewers laugh. It is amusing, but a little out of place with the current atmosphere after previous events in the plot. It just doesn’t seem to be the right time to add comedy. Immediately after this funny scene, they bring up Giorno’s suspicions about what is happening to Bucciarati’s body. It would have been better to put the humor after Giorno’s serious thoughts about Buccirati, then have the enemy attack when they let their guard down with playful banter. The narration here is noticeably spoiling the flow within the story.
Trish then tells everyone that she knows something about the identity of her father based on how he met her mother and where he was born in Sardegna. Trish is fully on board to fight on their side, which is great, but then everything gets crazy when an enemy stand, “Clash,” appears. Narancia starts to choke on his tongue as the enemy stand takes off a chunk of it, but there is a serious issue with how Giorno knows how to stab a pen in the throat to help Narancia breathe. He is one of the youngest in the group; the only one who might know that would be likely be Abbacchio since he was a police officer. The amount of germs on that pen that came from Mista’s boot though was probably not the most sanitary thing to get stabbed with.
Then enters two of the elite guard of Passione (who are very touchy feely with one another), Tiziano and Squalo, whose two stands work together. Squalo’s “Clash,” called Crush in the sub, attacks and then Tiziano’s stand “Talking Head” (Talking Mouth in the sub) attaches itself to the tongue of Clash’s prey. Talking Head can control what one says and can even extend and manipulate its host tongue to act like a third hand. Narancia tries to physically protect the crew but his words confuse them, leading towards dangerous water where Clash could attack. Giorno, being very intuitive, picks up that something is wrong. Giorno figures it out, but it is too late! He is bitten, neck-first, by Clash, which leaves viewers genuinely interested in what will happen next.
(03/19/19 5:05pm)
by Oilvia Weinzapfel
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte and Byte’s editorial board.
(03/07/19 9:46pm)
by Katherine Simon
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
Now that the Vento Aureo anime is over halfway through its 39-episode run (not including the two recap episodes) and the main antagonist has finally made his first appearance, the series’ turning point has officially begun and the stakes are only getting higher from this point on. Episode 21 of Vento Aureo does an excellent job establishing that things are about to get real while also showing some development in its cast.
After learning of the boss’s true intentions of wanting to murder Trish, Bruno rushes to try and save her. However, he is ambushed by the boss’ Stand, King Crimson, and is left in critical condition. Meanwhile, on the boat, Narancia and Fugo are fighting over chocolate and Fugo asks Giorno to hand him a bottle of water. With no explanation, Fugo suddenly ends up with a bottle of water in his hand and Narancia has a mouthful of chocolate. The gang starts to suspect that something is wrong and Giorno attempts to contact Bruno to warn him about the boss, which is right when the encounter with King Crimson happens.
Luckily, Bruno is able to use Sticky Fingers to zip up his wounds and go after the boss again, but not before it uses its time erasing ability to attack Bruno. Just as the boss is preparing to finish his daughter off, the broach planted on him is revealed to be a cloned version of the turtle and he is briefly transported inside the turtle, allowing Bruno and Trish time to escape. However, the boss predicted this attack and strikes Bruno again, but Bruno is able to escape promptly afterward and meets up with Giorno, who heals his wounds and essentially saves him from death.
A common complaint/in-joke within the Jojo fandom is that King Crimson’s ability to erase time is very difficult to understand, and for very good reason. Aside from the original fan translation not doing a good job at explaining stand abilities in general, King Crimson’s ability is very difficult to convey in manga format and lends itself better to being shown in motion. The anime isn’t the first time King Crimson has been shown in motion, since Vento Aureo did have a Japan-exclusive game adaptation for the PlayStation 2 and King Crimson’s user makes an appearance in the PlayStation 3 fighting games All Star Battle and Eyes of Heaven as part of their playable rosters, which does help give people a better visual representation of what his ability does. However, there are still a few logistical implications that King Crimson brings up that begin to complicate things even in motion, such as how he's technically “erasing” time that has yet to exist, or if he’s only erasing the memories of what happened instead of actually erasing it.
This stuff does get cleared up a little bit in later arcs but to keep things simple for now, just imagine The World’s ability of freezing time from Stardust Crusaders, but instead of time continuing where it left off, it moves on as if those five seconds have actually passed and nobody remembers what happened in that time. It’s among the same lines as playing an online game with a laggy connection or cutting a few frames out of an animation. It really isn’t the easiest ability to explain and my explanation isn’t perfect, but the stand actually does make a bit of sense once you’re able to wrap your head around some of the messier implications. As far as the stand’s implementation in the anime goes, it’s surprisingly very well done and the fight between King Crimson and Bruno is extremely intense, especially with Bucciarati being on the verge of death several times in this episode.
After escaping from the church, Bruno explains what happened to the team, telling them that he’s betrayed the boss for rescuing Trish. Bruno invites anyone who wants to go against the boss to come with him on the boat or stay behind if they want to leave the team. Everyone except for Fugo agrees to join Team Bucciarati. Narancia initially hesitates to join Bruno, but after noticing Trish’s injuries and how she was betrayed by her father much like how he was betrayed by the people close to him, he decides to join the team and leaves Fugo behind.
For many people, the departure of Fugo from the team seems like a bit of a letdown, considering he only had one fight and didn’t leave much of an impact on Vento Aureo’s story, though this could be explained by Hirohiko Araki having to change the story at the last minute. Originally, Fugo was supposed to be a spy for the boss and was going to betray everyone near the climax, but due to issues in Araki’s personal life, he didn’t feel comfortable going through with that plot point and decided to have Fugo simply leave the team of his own volition instead. This also explains why betrayal is such a prevalent theme in this episode and Narancia’s extreme empathy towards Trish. While this would account for why Purple Haze feels like it was more suited towards being a villain stand and why Fugo wasn’t all too prevalent in Vento Aureo’s narrative, it still stings that he wasn’t able to do more in the story before his departure.
Some fans have accused Fugo of selfishly betraying his team, but it’s completely understandable why he didn’t want to say in fear of putting his life at further risk. Keep in mind that the boss’ stand is extremely powerful, so opposing him seems like a death wish in Fugo’s mind. Plus, Bucciarati gave him a choice to stay behind and nobody villainized him for it, so it’s not like he was going behind anyone’s back by leaving. For those who are still disappointed by Vento Aureo’s lack of Fugo as a prominent character, I’d highly recommend reading the light novel spin-off Purple Haze Feedback, which deals with the aftermath of Fugo leaving Team Bucciarati and is considered by many to be one of the best Jojo spinoffs by far, though I’d recommend waiting for the anime to finish before seeking it out due to it taking place after the events of Vento Aureo. Fugo’s backstory in the anime was actually partly derived from that light novel despite it being considered non-canon, which should speak volumes for its quality.
One of the best aspects about this episode and the arc as a whole is how well it develops Trish by drawing parallels to her and the rest of the gang. While Trish did technically have a more privileged upbringing than most of the team, she was still dragged into this mess by a father that actively wants her dead. Up until the moments before the King Crimson fight, Trish is unable to find anyone in Team Bucciarati to confide in due to not being able to relate with them and believing that they only saw her as a means to an end.
This changes when Trish finally opens up to Bruno about her feelings as he attempts to comfort her before meeting the boss. This is further punctuated with Narancia proclaiming that Trish’s injuries are his and that they’re the same, showing that she has more in common with the gang than initially thought, encouraging her to start opening up to the rest of the team from this point on. It would’ve been easy to write Trish as the token girl who constantly needs to be protected from harm, but these past few episodes have done an excellent job at giving her depth beyond being a plot device and cementing her as Jojo’s best written female character bar-none.
(03/04/19 12:00pm)
by Daniel O'Connell
Disclaimer: This review is of the Xbox One version of the game. This review may contain spoilers for the previous Metro games.
Back in 2010, the developers of the cult hit S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl released Metro 2033, a first-person survival horror game based on the novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It took place in the ruins of Moscow after a nuclear war, where the survivors live in the underground metro tunnels. It followed Artyom, a young man who must save his home from the forces that threaten it. While criticized for its poor technical aspects in bugs and graphical issues, it received praise for its engaging plot and its horror elements, namely its claustrophobic and oppressive atmosphere. The game gained a devoted fanbase, and a sequel — Metro: Last Light, followed in 2013. Now, 4A Games takes Metro out of the tunnels and into the open world with Metro Exodus.
(02/25/19 10:18pm)
by Matthew Yapp
(02/24/19 9:26pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
After a whirlwind of controversy involving Kevin Hart, who was originally meant to be the host of the 91st Oscars, this Sunday will officially bring us the first ceremony since 1989 with no host.
Every year, the ceremony relies on a host to make the show flow from one corny joke to the next amidst the numerous awards. The last time they didn’t have a host… well… it didn’t go so well.
The ceremony featured an 11-minute long musical number featuring people in unsettling faceless star costumes as well as awkward and poor acting from Eileen Bowman who did the performance dressed as Snow White with the high-pitched voice to match. She walked around the crowd singing to the audience members — who looked beyond unimpressed — in a falsetto tone that was almost painful to listen to.
The whole performance seemed forced and, quite frankly, it was easy to tell they did not know what to do without a host.
For a while, awards shows have been struggling with viewership. Since this is the case, they seem to be getting more and more desperate to find something that is both humorous and attention-grabbing. Without a host, there is no telling what they might come up with. The whole Snow White mess happened when people were still watching.
For example, the 2018 Emmys featured a tactless segment about how progressive awards shows are nowadays and giving “reparation Emmys” to people of color to make up for the past whitewashing of awards shows. Keep in mind that this was featured during an awards show where most of the televised awards were given to white nominees.
This was a desperate attempt to boost views in the name of diversity. Given that Kevin Hart was removed from his position as host because of a scandal involving homophobic tweets, is it safe to assume that we will see the same kind of skit giving reparation Oscars to gay people? Will we get another 11-minute disaster-fest like the last hostless Oscars? Will they bring Snow White back to pierce all of our eardrums with her falsetto? These are all questions that I am terrified to learn the answers to.
All I can ask for is that they don’t bring back those ominous, faceless stars with legs. Whatever the Oscars bring us on Sunday, I am sure we will be disappointed… but not surprised.
(02/22/19 7:19pm)
by Katherine Simon
As anyone keeping up with these reviews would know, the pacing of Vento Aureo’s fights has recently become somewhat problematic. It felt like the team behind the anime couldn’t quite figure out how much time they should spend on the past two fights, which lead to Grateful Dead being way too bloated and Babyface feeling incredibly rushed and insignificant in the grand scheme. Fortunately, the team managed to rebound from their recent missteps and delivered one of the anime’s most enjoyable fights in a while.
Continuing from where the previous episode left off, Giorno has been almost completely frozen over by White Album’s ice and it’s up to Mista to take on Ghiaccio. After managing to break from the ice, Giorno uses Gold Experience to form a makeshift snowboard out of grass for Mista, which he uses to sled on White Album’s ice in one of the episode’s most absurdly awesome scenes. Ghiaccio promptly melts the ice and leaves Mista in the water, where he has a higher chance of being frozen. Giorno urges Mista to escape while Ghiaccio is unconscious, but after noticing a breathing hole on White Album, Mista decides that he should kill him sooner by aiming for it. However, this proves unsuccessful as Ghiaccio reveals his stand’s secret ability, Gently Weeps, which allows him to freeze the air solid and deflect the bullet back at Mista.
Fun fact about White Album, its ability “Gently Weeps” is a reference to the Beatles song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which appeared on, you guessed it, The White Album. Despite White Album being renamed to White Ice in the Crunchyroll subs, “Gently Weeps” remains unchanged despite being just as blatant of a Beatles reference. The English localizations have always been weird and wishy-washy with what names get changed (keeping explicit references to REO Speedwagon and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” but changing stand names that are as nonspecific as Echoes or Kiss, for example) so I’m not too surprised, but it’s still weird that they changed the name to avoid getting in legal trouble with The Beatles yet they kept a reference to one of their songs.
Out of all the fights in Vento Aureo thus far, White Album is by far the most entertaining. There are so many creative setpieces that make the fight incredibly entertaining, the snowboarding scene, in particular, is a huge highlight. Compared to the Grateful Dead and Babyface arcs, the progression of this fight is near perfection. There’s a lot going on in the fight to keep viewers entertained, but none of it feels too padded or rushed. It also helps that Ghiaccio himself is one of the part’s most memorable antagonists thanks to his eccentric personality and entertaining rants.
The episode is also visually impressive. The Jojo anime has always been infamous for switching color palettes for dramatic effect, and this episode uses that motif to its full effect. To match with White Album’s freezing abilities, certain scenes shift to a cooler color scheme with blue as the predominant color. When Giorno steps in to finish Ghiaccio off, the color scheme shifts again to a warmer color scheme as the sun rises, which is one of the most clever uses of shifting color schemes in the series. The animation is also really solid, with movement feeling especially fluid during certain action scenes. The art direction in this episode is absolutely phenomenal and showcases why David Productions is the best equipped to adapt this story.
Aside from the spectacular fight scene, this episode also shows the rest of Mista’s backstory, like when Bucciarati bailed him out of jail and he first joined Passione. It elaborates on the aftermath of the backstory shown during the Kraftwerk fight and shows how he has come to view Team Bucciarati as family. After the fight is over, the episode ends with Giorno attempting to heal Mista’s multiple — and by multiple, I mean more than any normal human would be able to withstand — gunshot wounds by turning the bullets into flesh. While searching for the two, Narancia gets a glance at Giorno healing Mista, gets the wrong idea about what’s going on due to missing context, and pretends to be oblivious. Needless to say, this is possibly the first time “Freek’n You” has been 100% fitting as the ED for the series.
After the credits, we get our first glimpse of the boss as he prepares the final mission for Team Bucciarati. Up to this point, the boss’s identity has been one of the biggest mysteries of the part thus far and now that we’re finally getting a glimpse of him, it’s a sign that the part is beginning to reach its climax. Right now the series is more or less at its halfway point, so it makes sense that the stakes are going to be ramped up in the latter half as the gang gets closer to confronting the boss, which is what Vento Aureo has been building up to for most of its runtime. Regardless, it’s going to be interesting to see how the series is going to play out moving forward as we get closer and closer to the climax.
(02/18/19 8:00pm)
The recent exhibit at The David Owsley Museum of Art (DOMA) honors some of Muncie’s most famous and influential painters, including their artwork and their marriage.
(02/16/19 5:00pm)
by Blake Chapman
Film adaptations of any piece of media have always seemed to be a mixed bag. Writers and directors are handed the monumental task of portraying the source material with accuracy while also not alienating those who are not current fans. This complex process is not confined to Hollywood, however. For years, the anime and manga industry in Japan has been trying to perfect their own formula with a somewhat mixed reception.
“Alita: Battle Angel” along with these five other live-action retellings choose to head straight for the silver screen.
(02/10/19 11:30am)
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHOPC-2gKFw[/embed]
This week on Pop Tabs Matthew, Tt, and McKenna discuss the Super Bowl hitting an all time low, Zac Efron's Ted Bundy controversy, and Liam Neeson's brief racist past.
Time Stamps:
Super Bowl: 00:22
Liam Neeson: 14:57
Ted Bundy: 25:33
Pop Tabs is Byte's news commentary podcast, focusing on popular culture and how it relates to issues in the media world.
Host: Matthew Yapp
Guests: Tt Shinkan, McKenna Kolb
Executive Producer: Phil Akin
Video Editing: Malia Hutton
Audio Editing: Tyler Wheatley
Graphics: Daley Wilhelm, Sarah James, Luis Pulido, Tt Shinkan
Music: Jack McGinnis
(02/08/19 6:42pm)
by Trevor Sheffield
Over the course of my time analyzing film —and mainly getting angry at films made for children— I’ve come to accept the fact that Hollywood is no stranger to curses. You’ve got things like the Superman curse, where it seems like any actor cast to play the Man of Steel has their career go up in flames after doing so. You’ve also got something like the Poltergeist curse, where the cast of the original films was marred by death and despair under mysterious circumstances to the point where some have asserted that the entire set of actors were paranormally marked for death. In recent years, however, I’ve come across what may be a new Hollywood hex that is sweeping the nation.
The Lord-Miller Curse.
Named after renowned writer/director duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller, this new curse (as I’ve come to define it) has a tendency to occur when the two create a surprise smash-hit (for instance, 2009’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs or 2014’s The LEGO Movie). This inevitably leads to a sequel getting greenlit. At that point, if Chris and Phil don’t return to direct (or serve some major function), then it’s all but doomed to be a major downgrade from the original. It’s how you get stuck with movies like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story (where the duo were kicked out of the production midway, leading to a microcosmic version of the curse), and The LEGO Ninjago Movie. Sequels where the gap in quality between it and the prior film are wide enough to pull a cruise ship through.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5J8XZdg1g[/embed]
This leads us to The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Released February 8, 2019 as the FOURTH entry in the Warner Bros’ theatrical LEGO franchise, the question of the hour for this film was simple: Had the Lord-Miller Curse claimed another victim?
(02/07/19 10:48pm)
by Katherine Simon
Disclaimer: This review contains references to sexual assault. If you’re sensitive to this subject, you might want to avoid this review and the episode itself by extension.
In the aftermath of the Grateful Dead and Beach Boy fight, the train to Venice has been left out of commission and Team Bucciarati must find another way to reach their destination. They’re able to sneak the turtle into someone’s truck, but after some hijinks involving Sex Pistols, the truck crashes and they’re stuck in a parking lot trying to figure out how they’re going to get to Venice. Meanwhile, a new enemy stand user named Melone encounters a female passenger and starts trying to analyze her so he can create a homunculus capable of taking out Team Bucciarati.
Before going any deeper with the review, it’d probably be best to address some of the more disturbing implications of Baby Face’s abilities. Mostly, the fact that in order to create the homunculus, the stand must use a woman’s DNA, likely through forced impregnation. While the anime doesn’t show anything happening to the victim and even implies that nothing sexual took place at all, the manga makes this less clear and even implies that she was raped. Even with the anime removing anything that could cause anyone to interpret the scene as sexual assault, the concept of forced impregnation still brings up some very questionable implications and I honestly can’t blame anyone for finding the concept disturbing.
The portrayal of sexual assault in anime has been a huge point of contention within the community for a while. Shows like Sword Art Online and more recently Goblin Slayer sparked a ton of discourse about the subject due to their lack of tact in handling such a traumatic event and using it for cheap shock value. As far as this particular scene is concerned, it’s still pretty cringe-worthy, even with the anime’s attempt to remove any sexual context. The fact that Melone collects the woman’s DNA without her consent and then she’s left unconscious after the process is enough to raise a few red flags, and the whole forced impregnation deal doesn’t help matters either. Even as someone who isn’t triggered by depictions of sexual assault, I thought the scene was super uncomfortable and almost hard to watch. While it could have been worse given how the anime went out of its way to show the victim wasn’t raped, the implications of sexual assault are still prominent enough that I’d recommend anyone who’s sensitive to those subjects skip this episode.
On to something a lot less heavy, if "Grateful Dead’s" main issue was that it dragged on for too long, then "Baby Face" suffers from the exact opposite problem of being too rushed. A lot of banter between Team Bucciarati was cut from the manga and the actual fight itself felt like it went by too fast. The best example I can think of is during the scene where the gang is contemplating how they’re going to reach their next destination. In the manga, there was a lot more time spent deliberating on how they’re going to steal a car without getting caught and even a humorous reaction to Giorno’s absolutely absurd idea to steal a hundred cars — which is still the funniest of Giorno’s ridiculous plans — but a lot of that has been trimmed down in the anime since he just turns all the cars into frogs before anyone can react to the absurdity of his plan. They even cut the scene of Narancia and Mista chasing the frogs in the background, which would’ve been a cute touch to give the scene a little character.
This isn’t to say the episode is completely void of any comedic edge, since there are still quite a few highlights. Giorno declaring that he’s going to steal a hundred cars is still hilarious even without the reaction, and Bruno’s overdramatic reaction to Trish asking where she’s going to use the bathroom got a good chuckle out of me.
As far as the fight itself is concerned, it also suffers from being incredibly rushed. Conceptually, the idea of pitting two stands with opposite abilities against each other, in this case, Gold Experience’s ability to give life to inanimate objects and Baby Face’s ability to turn living beings into objects, should lend itself well to an interesting fight. There could’ve been an interesting dynamic with how the two abilities play off each other, but the fight is so short that it really isn’t explored all that much. It’s over as soon as it begins and therefore doesn’t leave much of an impact. This is especially frustrating considering how the "Grateful Dead" arc dragged on for an episode longer than it needed to and that time could’ve been spent fleshing out the Baby Face fight. At least "Grateful Dead" ended on a high note to make the slog worth it instead of leaving me disappointed at all the missed potential. Vento Aureo has had a huge problem with pacing lately and I really hope these recent episodes were just flukes and not indicative of the quality of later episodes.
(02/07/19 9:14pm)
by Allyson McClain
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Jojo is well known for some crazy turnarounds and some close-calls in fights, but Part 5 takes the cake in this aspect. The amount of near-death experiences in Part 5 so far is leaving some of us a little exhausted since it has been happening almost every episode so far. Mista almost died last episode and basically the whole crew has been slowly dying too. The showdown between Bucciarati and the two enemies Pesci and Prosciutto is coming to a closing point. Prosciutto now barely keeping his ability going while Pesci fights Bucciarati by himself. It’s an intense fight that we did not expect from the weak-willed Pesci, but perhaps that makes it more intriguing.
To start with, Pesci’s “Beach Boy” (Called Fisherman in the English sub) is one of the stands we see that has a singular use that is really strong. Too bad Pesci is a wimp, but that changes when the cards are down and Prosciutto loses to Bucciarati. If Pesci had been able to draw his courage sooner, the two would have won early on, but it took the determination of Prosciutto to bring out Pesci’s strength. A small side note though would be that the voice actor for Pesci is super fun as a VA. It’s amusing to hear the change in his voice when he gathers his wits, while still keeping the key drawl to Pesci’s voice that makes the character unique. It makes Pesci’s character seem less annoying and more lovable, which is important for his development in this episode. It’s good to take this character seriously with a stand such as Pesci’s — Subaru Kimura voices him well in the anime and really draws in a good performance. While Pesci’s character and voice actor are great, notable plot holes start to show up in the logic behind the stands’ abilities.
Similar to Grateful Dead’s ability, people age and lose their hair and teeth. So when the ability stops, do hair and teeth grow back or does it reverse in some way? Also, how does the Grateful Dead, weak from Prosciutto hanging out from the train, barely alive, have enough power to kill a man dead while Pecsi just watches unaffected right next to him? Another plot hole is when Pesci could sense Bucciarati opening a zipper on his own hand, but earlier he couldn’t tell the switch between Bucciarati and Proscuitto other than the weight difference? He felt so sure of where Bucciarati was when he dipped his hook back into him the first time, even with Bucciarati’s acrobatic performance trying to evade the hook, which is weird considering later, Pesci can’t tell where Bucciarati is when he is disassembled in the train car.
The reason we have to bring this up that is stand logic — the limits to what certain stands can or can’t do — is very important in the Jojo franchise. It paves the way to show off character traits and skillful evaluation of opponents and allies. The fact that this episode is lacking explanations for certain attacks is a bit worrisome considering we don’t want Jojo to become some lawless power show like DragonBall Z. We like having some thought put into attacks and powers of the characters, it makes it more realistic when there are limits to what they can do and makes every win in a battle of skill that much more impressive.
One other thing that bugs me about “The Grateful Dead Part 2” is when Bucciarati twists Pesci’s neck later in the episode. There was no way Pesci should have been alive enough to even speak, much less be able to get Trish out of the turtle that housed Bucciarati’s crew, yet he just magicked her out of nowhere from behind his coat? It seems a bit far-fetched that he had that much energy to do that.
Something we need to address in this episode as well is Trish's character development. Trish is developing, or has developed, a stand. She wasn’t protecting herself from anything so why did her stand’s power appear? How has her stand not come out earlier in her life like many other characters we have met so far in JJBA? Usually, unless someone has developed a stand young or is hit by the arrow, you never gain a stand, yet Trish seems to be just developing one out of nowhere. It looks like a larger claw hand has touched the ground, the mark smoking, so it has to do with something like acid or heat? It’s only a guess but that seems like the most logical thought at the moment for her stand.
Overall, everything with the Grateful Dead fight — while satisfying to have two villains instead of one — is missing a lot of its plot logic with both of the enemy stands.The amount of attention given to their stands’ powers and their limits are being sacrificed for the thrill of watching Bucciarati fight two stand users at once in “The Grateful Dead, Part 2." Some of the plot holes between those affected by Grateful Dead’s ability and how Pesci’s hooks people, are among the bigger issues in this episode. There are also a lot of appealing things in this episode like Pesci’s character and VA as well as the music introduced during serious scenes.
The music, the voice acting, and the epicness of the fight scenes helped this episode a lot despite the amount of plot holes found in the stands’ abilities and their limits. Something that was amusing was when Bucciarati sees Pesci and started describing him as a ruthless killer. It is a pretty comical moment, which is a nice touch considering it is a serious scene with a new character appearing at the end. His name is Melone and his stand at this time in the anime is unknown, but we do know it has to do with Bucciarati’s blood. We can probably expect something a bit more interesting with the new character Melone than a simple tracking stand.
(02/07/19 5:30pm)
by Makayla Hughes
Disclaimer: This review is of the PlayStation 4 version of Kingdom Hearts III.
Six years. For six years, I have been asking for this game for Christmas. And for six years, I have been disappointed. Kingdom Hearts III has probably been my most anticipated game ever. I was unsure if it would ever come out because those years were a little bleak. Even when the game shipped, I wasn’t expecting it to be real. I don’t think I even processed it actually existing until I held it in my hands. After waiting so long and just holding onto trailers and random snippets, I was eager to play through this game and continue on with a story that began so long ago in 2002.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DTM1XZcUfU[/embed]
(02/06/19 4:48pm)
by Joe Bursley
2018 was certainly a notable year for me and other fans of the animation industry. Amazing films such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Isle of Dogs, and Incredibles 2 premiered and got nominated for some prestigious awards. Shows such as Craig of the Creek, Disenchantment, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power all made their debut, and longer-standing shows such as Adventure Time, Big Hero 6: The Series, Ducktales, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, and Steven Universe all saw major developments in terms of story, many of which ended in explosive season and/or series finales. The Earth has rotated around the sun once more, and a new year brings us new content in the world of Western animation. Here are some of the most anticipated or intriguing movies and shows confirmed or expected to arrive in 2019.
(01/30/19 8:57pm)
by Katherine Simon
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.
Despite the episode’s title being “The Grateful Dead, Part 1,” this episode is more of a middle act for the actual Prosciutto and Pesci fight than anything else. Due to most of the main conflict’s setup taking place in the previous episode, this episode is primarily focused on actually getting into the fight and setting up the battle’s climax. Even though there is more going on in this episode, it still suffers from a lot of the same pacing issues as the previous episode and does very little to progress the show’s narrative or flesh out its characters.
After Team Bucciarati learns of The Grateful Dead’s aging effects, Mista is sent outside of Mr. President to locate Prosciutto and stop him, but not before being snagged by the fish hook of Pesci’s Beach Boy. With the hook deep inside his skin, Mista attempts to break the fishing line using Sex Pistols to no avail due to Beach Boy’s invulnerability. To work around this, Mista instead aims for Pesci’s glass of ice, cutting off his lifeline against The Grateful Dead. Pesci tries to escape from the train but ends up being stopped by one of the aging passengers. Mista corners Pesci and is then grabbed by the same passenger, who reveals himself as Prosciutto, who used his Stand’s aging effect to disguise himself. Now in direct contact with The Grateful Dead’s user, Mista begins to age rapidly in spite of the ice keeping his body temperature low. Prosciutto proceeds to shoot the aged Mista three times in the head with his own revolver, assuming him to be dead.
A strange pattern with a lot of Mista’s fights is that they tend to take place on moving vehicles. His first fight against Kraftwerk took place on top of a moving truck and the fight in this episode takes place on a train. Of course, moving vehicles usually make for exciting setpieces in intense fight scenes, but why it’s always Mista fighting in those settings is a mystery. My best guess would be that, out of all of the Stands in Team Bucciarati, Sex Pistols lends itself best to those kinds of fast-paced action scenes more than the Stands that are less direct combat-oriented like Aerosmith or Purple Haze. Observations about series trends aside, the episode does a pretty good job at showing how horrifying The Grateful Dead is. The previous episode did a good job having the Stand’s effects come off as genuinely creepy and this episode continues to deliver on the body horror. The disguised Prosciutto grabbing onto Pesci sent chills down my spine and the actual aging effect of The Grateful Dead is the closest I’ve come to physically cringing during this part. Considering how the staff over at David Productions were able to bring The Grateful Dead to life in such a horrifying way, I’m both looking forward to and dreading some of the later fights in this part, because Part 5 is notorious for having some of the most gruesome stand abilities in the series.
With the combination of being shot in the head three times and rapidly aged by The Grateful Dead, it’d be safe to assume that Mista was killed off, but it turns out that Sex Pistols Number 5 stopped the bullets before they could reach his brain and saved Mista’s life. Despite this, Mista has been severely damaged to the point of being unable to fight, so he sends Number 6 to warn Bucciarati about Pesci and Prosciutto. The two antagonists eventually find the turtle inside the train’s machinery, but when they look inside the key’s gem, they notice that Bucciarati is missing from the group. It is at that moment that Bucciarati ambushes the assassins and throws himself and Prosciutto outside the train, ending the episode on a cliffhanger.
As much as I harped on the Illuso fight for its contrived reasoning for keeping Giorno alive, the non-death of Mista is much less egregious because it actually makes sense within the context of his Stand. Obviously Sex Pistols isn’t going to want to harm their user, so it makes sense for them to try and stop the bullets from causing any fatal damage instead of having them unwillingly kill their user. Compared to the absurdity of Giorno conveniently creating a snake that’s immune to a fast-acting fatal virus, I think Sex Pistols protecting their user is a lot more reasonable. This is also the first time in a while that Bucciarati actually gets to fight on his own, which is great because Sticky Fingers is one of the coolest Stands in the series and he hasn’t been in the spotlight for a long time. It’ll be exciting to finally see him in the spotlight again in the next episode.
Aside from that, the Grateful Dead fight in general suffers from meandering a bit too much with not much else interesting going on. While the Narancia vs Formaggio arc was just as long as this, they used the extra time to flesh out La Squadra without dragging out the actual fight, which is not the case. Although the beginning and ending of the episode are really solid, the middle act just involves Prosciutto bickering at Pesci with some exposition sprinkled in until Bucciarati arrives, and it kinda makes the episode and the arc as a whole feel like a drag. If the exposition from the previous episode had been cut down a bit and it had ended with Mista’s “death,” the pacing issues in this string of episodes would’ve been mitigated. This feels like a two episode arc that was stretched out to meet the series’ 39 episode quota, which is odd because up to this point, Vento Aureo’s pacing has been excellent and has even made some weaker fights from the manga quite entertaining (“Moody Blues’ Counterattack” being a standout example of this). The Grateful Dead fight itself isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s kinda disappointing that the most exciting stuff in this arc is likely going to be packed into its next episode, since the last two were somewhat weak.
(01/29/19 9:39pm)
by Jeremy Rogers
The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow was about a superstorm of cold ravaging the northern hemisphere. Only 44% of critics liked it, and fewer will likely be fans of Wednesday’s weather which is projected to reach below a -35 degree wind chill in parts of Indiana. People are advised to stay indoors as much as possible, and that means people will be looking for ways to kill time.
(01/28/19 5:33pm)
by Tanner Kinney
Disclaimer: This review is of the Nintendo Switch version of the game and was played primarily in portable mode.
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is a game I’ve been following and anticipating for quite a while now. This game was never on Kickstarter, being mostly a passion project built by a small studio over the duration of five years. The game showed promise and was picked up by a publisher relatively quickly, and many people have been eagerly anticipating the game. Through much hardship and even a death in the family, the two brothers at Ackk Studios have done a ton of work to make their dream game come to life. And it shows; this game has a lot of genuine and honest heart and it was clearly constructed with love.
That makes it all the more painful that the end result is a game that is so charming and captivating in presentation, but is also such an absolute trainwreck in writing that it came under a number of controversies within the first few days of release. It’s tonally inconsistent, frequently cringey, occasionally misguided, but absolutely captivating to watch in motion. A lot of games are described as trainwrecks, but only YIIK has been able to capture the “can’t look away” element of the equation. To sum it up in a way the game itself would: the two parallel universes where I love and hate this game exist in this universe at the same time.
(01/25/19 8:10pm)
by Shwetha Sundarrajan
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
50 years after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., people across the United States will celebrate the legacy of the beloved icon by watching the countless documentaries and movies produced in his wake. Major news outlets will publish tearful commentaries on the late civil rights leader, and social media will be flooded with quotes and pictures of King.
He may be loved by the media today, but 50 years ago King’s popularity had sharply declined with the national papers. It all started with a speech he gave on April 4, 1967, popularly known as the ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech.
King said, “There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything on a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube.”
The backlash from the media was swift. The New York Times, in “Dr. King’s Error,” reminded King that his proper battlegrounds were “in Chicago and Harlem and Watts.”
In the Washington Post, they said that King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, and his people.”
This particular speech caused King to lose many of his followers, including African Americans and causing his white liberal supporters to jump ship due to his threateningly confrontational language.
50 years later, we don’t remember King as the open critic of the government and an opponent of the Vietnam War, we only remember a sanitized version of him. We remember him as a black man embracing all Americans, black and white.
Films such as the Oscar-winning film Selma help us cement the memory of 1965 King — a man who only wanted African Americans and white Americans to live equally. Misrepresentations of King are not only found in Films though. Recently, Congressman Steve King also misquoted King on Twitter.
(01/17/19 6:39pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
Cultural and political shifts in the last twenty years or so have created an entirely new social climate. From this shift has come different cultures and attitudes, especially online. In particular, what is often referred to as “cancel culture” has become a popular phenomenon among social media users.
So what is cancel culture? Cancel culture is the idea that if someone does something problematic they should be “canceled,” in other words they should lose support from fans, friends, etc. and they are dismissed and rejected.
For example, recently, comedian Kevin Hart came face-to-face with cancel culture when he stepped down from his position as the host of the Oscars after homophobic tweets from his past had surfaced.