REVIEW: ‘Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo’ Episode 21: “The Mystery of King Crimson”
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
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Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
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.
Disclaimer: This playthrough is based on the Switch version and was played primarily in handheld mode. This copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.
by Katherine Simon Disclaimer: This playthrough is based on the Switch version and was played primarily in handheld mode. This copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes. As someone whose experience with the point-and-click adventure genre is rather limited, I didn’t know what to expect going into The Raven: Remastered. The game itself is a remaster of 2013’s The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, a game I never played due to not very many people talking about it — a fair outcome considering it was a niche game released near the end of the Xbox 360 and PS3’s lifespans. Despite this, The Raven: Remastered is a surprisingly solid game that should not be overlooked by fans of point-and-click games. However, players should be aware of a few major issues before diving in. The game takes place in 1964 and follows Constable Zellner, a Swiss police officer who finds himself wrapped up in a case involving an infamous thief known as The Raven. Despite The Raven being assumed dead for five years, there are signs that they are making their comeback and it is unknown whether the thief is still alive or if there’s a copycat following in their footsteps. After a murder takes place, it’s up to Zellner to investigate The Raven's involvement, root out the culprit, and uncover the mystery surrounding the infamous thief. If you’re a fan of classic murder mysteries, then this game is right up your alley. Things only start to get interesting about an hour into the game but once it gets going, it really gets going. The game’s story really keeps the player on the edge of their seats wondering what will happen next through the intrigue of its mystery and its various twists and turns. The game’s cast is incredibly likeable, with Zellner himself being quite an endearing protagonist. The side characters you meet on the journey are also really interesting once you start to learn more about them and piece together parts of their personalities and motives from your interactions. The only minor gripe I have with the narrative is that some plot points are a bit predictable, but the ride itself is so enjoyable that it makes up for it. If you’re in the mood for a good murder-mystery plot, you should definitely consider giving this game a shot. I say “consider” because the game itself has quite a few glaring flaws that hold it back from being an excellent experience overall, most of which have to do with the actual gameplay. The gameplay is more or less your standard point-and-click fare. You’re going to be spending most of your time interacting with nearby people or objects by “clicking” on them, using them to either gather clues for the greater mystery or to solve puzzles, with only slight variations throughout. It’s one of those games where you’re encouraged to look in every nook and cranny for objects to interact with because you never know what’s going to be important later on. If you aren’t already a fan of the point-and-click genre or slower games in general, chances are this game isn’t going to appeal to you. If you do like this style of game, The Raven: Remastered accomplishes what it sets out to do. As someone who hasn’t played very many of these games, I really enjoyed interacting with the various bystanders and seeing what they had to say about the events unfolding around them, as well as searching the areas for possible clues. When it comes to the pointing and clicking, the gameplay is incredibly solid. However, what ends up killing the gameplay for me is the way Zellner himself controls. His movement feels incredibly stiff, moving at the speed of molasses — overall, he isn’t fun to play as. This isn’t a huge problem most of the time because most of the areas are small, enclosed spaces that don’t require a ton of movement. However, when the game forces you to explore larger areas or you’re required to backtrack to find an important item, it starts to become monotonous. If it weren’t for the protagonist’s wonky controls, I wouldn’t have very many complaints with the gameplay overall, but this is such a huge blemish on an otherwise solid game that it almost makes it kinda hard to recommend. I don’t know if these issues are present in other versions of this game or if they’re a problem exclusive to the Switch, but the game has some minor performance issues that, while not game breaking, are noticeable and distracting. The most irritating of these being the load times, which are not only frustratingly long but are also fairly frequent if you plan on doing a lot of backtracking — something I found myself doing quite often. If you want a good frame of reference for what the loading times are like, they’re very reminiscent of something you’d see out of a PS1 era game, specifically its port of Chrono Trigger. If you’re in any way familiar with that era of gaming, you can see how that could be a bit of an issue, especially when paired with the sluggish controls. Another minor issue that I ran into less frequently is that the game would sometimes stutter in certain areas. Overall, the game generally runs at a consistent framerate, but there were a handful of areas such as the lounge in front of the ship in which the game’s framerate would start to stutter a little bit.. The game generally runs fine in handheld mode otherwise, but those two issues are big enough to end up affecting the overall experience. Visually, the game looks fine. Even when compared to the other versions of this remaster, the graphics really aren’t anything to write home about but they’re completely serviceable. The audio in this game is excellent, with the voice acting being a real standout. The voice actors do a great job portraying their characters and breathing life into them without coming off as too corny like a lot of period pieces that take place in that era tend to. Although the soundtrack isn’t something I’d ever listen to on my free time, it does a great job setting the tone for each scene and creating atmosphere, which is all it really needed to do.
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
by Katherine Simon
Welcome back to the last episode of Animation A-Team for this semester! On this week's episode, we discuss the many live-action adaptations of anime that have had many difficulties. Why do these films keep missing the mark, and how should they improve for the future? Join us on this week's episode of Animation A-Team to hear our thoughts on the matter.
This week’s episode of Vento Aureo was focused on accomplishing two things: introducing Trish Una as the newest member of Team Bucciarati and setting up Narancia’s first Stand battle. Yeah, Trish! You know, that pink-haired girl that’s very prominently featured in both the OP and ED despite being strangely absent from the anime’s promotional material? Well, spoilers, she’s actually the last member of the main cast despite the series excluding her from promo art featuring her contemporaries. Though to be fair, it’s possible they didn’t want to spoil Trish’s prominence to the story by flaunting her with the rest of the gang, though the OP and ED already kind of do that (notice how she’s the only character in the ED without a Stand). Anyway, enough about that, time to talk about the actual episode.
by Katherine Simon This week’s episode of Vento Aureo was focused on accomplishing two things: introducing Trish Una as the newest member of Team Bucciarati and setting up Narancia’s first Stand battle. Yeah, Trish! You know, that pink-haired girl that’s very prominently featured in both the OP and ED despite being strangely absent from the anime’s promotional material? Well, spoilers, she’s actually the last member of the main cast despite the series excluding her from promo art featuring her contemporaries. Though to be fair, it’s possible they didn’t want to spoil Trish’s prominence to the story by flaunting her with the rest of the gang, though the OP and ED already kind of do that (notice how she’s the only character in the ED without a Stand). Anyway, enough about that, time to talk about the actual episode. After Mista took down Sale in the last episode, both him and Mario are left unconscious in the boat, and Team Bucciarati meets up in a public restroom. There, they meet with one of Passione’s capos, Pericolo, and retrieve Polpo’s fortune, which was hidden inside one of the urinals, using Bruno’s Sticky Fingers. After the treasure is retrieved, Pericolo tasks the group with protecting the boss’s daughter, Trish Una. Although Trish is the boss’s daughter, the “Una” name comes from her mother, Donatella, who was the boss’s lover back when he operated under the alias “Solido Naso.” Prior to her death, Donatella began investigating the boss’s identity, which caught the attention of many Passione members, most notably a group of rogues attempting to overthrow the boss. With this knowledge, the group is currently pursuing Trish in hopes of getting information about the boss out of her. To keep her safe, Pericolo asks Bruno to keep her hidden until the rogues are taken care of since they are suspected Stand users. As briefly touched upon earlier, Trish is somewhat of an anomaly among the main cast. She’s been absent from all the part’s promo material and merchandising leading up to the anime, and she’s the only member of Team Bucciarati that didn’t get her own trailer. Up until the part’s opening, nobody even knew what her anime appearance looked like, but when “Fighting Gold” made its debut as Vento Aureo’s first opening, it featured Trish very prominently. Granted she was isolated from the rest of the cast in that OP, but they made it very clear that she’s going to be a key player in Part 5’s narrative, being the boss’s daughter and all. Aside from the context of the anime’s advertising, Trish is a very fascinating character in that she acts as almost a parallel to Giorno. Both of their fathers are major antagonists in the series, and both have had close ties to the gangster lifestyle since childhood. However, that’s about where the similarities end, since the two cannot be more different in terms of personality. While Giorno is charismatic, selfless, and chose to join Passione to fulfill his ambition of becoming a “Gang-Star,” Trish is very introverted, self-centered, and seems like she wants nothing to do with the organization. While there’s a lot that’s still unknown about Trish’s character, the contrast between her and the protagonist makes for an interesting dynamic between the two. It’ll be interesting to see how or if they expand upon that dynamic further as Trish gets more screen time. Later on, the group relocates to a house in the countryside and Narancia is asked by Bruno to buy groceries for the gang and beauty products for Trish, despite Fugo’s reservations about his ability to avoid being followed back. Even with that concern, it’s explained that Narancia’s stand is able to target anyone who tries following him back, making him the ideal person for the task. After Narancia is finished shopping, he finds that one of the rogues, Formaggio, managed to get inside the car while he was gone. He attempts to question Narancia about what he’s doing shopping in an attempt to make him disclose Trish’s location, but he insists he’s not doing anything suspicious. Frustrated at his inability to get an answer from Narancia, Formaggio uses his Stand, Little Feet, to scratch his face. In retaliation, Narancia summons his own Stand, Aerosmith, to gun the enemy down. To evade the attack, Formaggio uses Little Feet to shrink himself down and hide in Narancia’s pocket. From there, he notices a set of women’s products inside the car, which leads him to the conclusion that Trish is with Team Bucciarati. Knowing that Narancia is aware of her location, Formaggio slowly shrinks him down so to put him at a disadvantage, ending the episode on a cliffhanger. This is another one of those “set up for the next big fight” episodes that seems to be a trend with every odd numbered episode in Vento Aureo. While this format might not make the individual episodes all that interesting to talk about on their own, it works with getting the viewers acquainted with the new characters before they have their first major fight. This is the first time viewers are seeing Team Bucciarati in action, so it makes sense that the show would take some time to introduce their abilities first before throwing them into a fight. On the subject of abilities, the two stands introduced in the episode are pretty neat. The concept of Aerosmith being a miniature fighter plane is very unique from the mostly humanoid Stands seen thus far, and Tiny Feet’s shrinking ability can lead to some very creative fight scenarios, as seen with Formaggio’s utilization of it earlier. With these two unique Stand abilities pitted against each other, the next episode is going to be a very interesting one, to say the least.
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
by Katherine Simon After Abbacchio and his stand, Moody Blues, got their time to shine in the last episode, Mista is the next Passione member to get an episode dedicated to showcasing his stand and seeing him in action, or rather two since this episode is a two-parter. More importantly, this is the episode diehard fans of the series have been waiting for since the anime was announced, because this is where we finally get to see the infamous dancing torture scene animated, and boy was it worth the wait. Continuing where the last episode left off, Team Bucciarati has recovered from the effects of Soft Machine and have decided to give Mario his just desserts in the most hilariously brutal way possible. After kicking his body around, Mista hangs Mario’s dismembered head with a fish hook through the eyelid and points his glasses towards the sun to burn his retinas, all while being forced to watch Narancia, Mista, and Fugo dance in front of him. Jojo has a knack for torturing its villain characters in darkly humorous ways (see: Kars’ fate at the end of Battle Tendency, Angelo Rock from Diamond is Unbreakable,) and out of all the methods thus far, the torture dance is easily the most bizarre. The fact that David Productions managed to translate a six-panel gag from the manga into a whole minute of extremely well-animated dance choreography with an original song to back it up (which sounds eerily similar to “P. Control” by Prince, as if having “Freek’n You” as the ED wasn’t explicit enough) is simply awe-inspiring. The animators really went all out on this scene, and it really shows with how stunning it all looks. As an aside, I hope everyone’s ready for the hundreds of Fortnite edits this scene is going to inevitably spawn, because we all know Jojo fans aren’t usually the ones to pass up the opportunity to meme an exploitable scene to death. After the dance, Abbacchio uses Moody Blues to find out that Mario had previously contacted Sale to tell him that Polpo’s fortune is in Capri. Since the crew had taken a detour in their fight against Mario, they expect to be ambushed by Sale as soon as they arrive. To beat him to the treasure, Giorno proposes that he uses Gold Experience to get to shore early and take care of him before the boat arrives to the marina. Mista agrees to tag along with him and by using Gold Experience to turn a life preserver into a fish, the two arrive at Capri 20 minutes early. It is at this point where we are introduced to Mista’s stand, Sex Pistols, which takes the form of six small humanoid entities inside Mista’s revolver. Their main function is that they’re able to redirect the gun’s bullets in any direction by riding and kicking them towards their target. Functionally, the stand is very similar to Hol Horse’s Emperor from Stardust Crusaders in that they’re both gun-based stands that are able to redirect their projectiles. The main difference is that instead of the gun itself being the stand, Sex Pistols exists independently from the gun and is limited to the number of bullets inside Mista’s revolver. For a part that introduced so many creative stands, it’s kind of weird to see Araki retread an old stand idea like this, but when you’re writing the fifth part of a series that’s been running for almost a decade at this point, recycling some ideas is almost inevitable. Even with Sex Pistols having so much in common with Emperor, it’s still unique enough to stand on its own and isn’t as blatant of a ripoff as, say, In A Silent Way from Steel Ball Run copying Echoes Act 2’s ability. What makes Sex Pistols unique is that they have more personality than a majority of stands in the series. They’re prone to arguing with each other, spout one-liners during battle, and even require food in order to continue working for Mista. Up to this point, the only other stand we’ve seen with a personality independent from its user is Koichi’s Echoes, so it’s nice to see more stands that’re more than their user’s ghost puppets. Also, the Pistols are labeled 1-7 with the fourth one being absent due to Mista’s tetraphobia is a nice detail. After waiting around for nearly 20 minutes, Mista decides to pursue Sale and plans to ambush him in front of the radio room. However, Sale has already infiltrated the radio room to answer Giorno’s call, which prompts Giorno to use the same radio to warn Mista. Upon hearing this, Mista shoots at the window and lets Sex Pistols take care of Sale, managing to hit him in the leg. Sale manages to escape from the room, but Mista follows his blood trail up to a truck that’s just getting away, so Mista sets off in pursuit. The episode ends with Giorno hearing a loud gunshot, unaware of Mista’s whereabouts. This episode is very similar to “Moody Blues’s Counterattack” in that they both feature two characters working together to solve the episode’s conflict. In the last episode it was Bruno and Abbacchio teaming up to locate Mario and the missing members of Team Bucciarati, and in this one, it’s Giorno and Mista trying to ambush Sale before he can claim Polpo’s fortune for himself. Personally, this episode is more enjoyable than the previous just because I like Giorno and Mista’s dynamic more than Bruno and Abbacchio’s. While Moody Blues might have the more creative ability and that episode did more to flesh out its characters, Mista and Sex Pistols are still more likable. While Mista has been shown to be a bit of a jerk, he never comes off as overwhelmingly arrogant as Abbacchio did in the previous episode. Most of his behavior can be attributed to him being a cocky teenager unlike this grown adult’s weird vendetta against a kid he’s known for a total of 10 minutes. That, and seeing Giorno and Mista cooperate on a mission is pretty fun to watch. The two have a really good dynamic going on and seeing the two start to form a friendship is really endearing, especially with how hostile Team Bucciarati seemed at first. The episode is also really funny. Aside from the legendary dancing torture scene, Mista setting up a fancy lunch for Sex Pistols as soon as they arrived was quite humorous, and while this probably wasn’t intentional, Giorno giving his whole “I have a dream” speech to Team Bucciarati unprompted made me laugh way harder than it should have. The only problem I had with the episode is that it meandered too much toward the middle but other than that there really isn’t much wrong with the episode.
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.
by Katherine Simon 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. Super Smash Bros. is among one of Nintendo’s most hyped-up franchises, and for very good reason. Aside from the games just being incredibly fun and easily accessible to even the most casual of gamers, the series is arguably the most ambitious crossover in all of gaming, if not in all of media (sorry Infinity War). It’s hard to deny the appeal of seeing iconic characters from various Nintendo franchises duking it out in the same game, and when you add third party guest characters such as Castlevania’s Simon Belmont and Sonic the Hedgehog into the mix, the pool of potential newcomers is seemingly endless, which makes every new character announcement all the more exciting. However, Smash wasn’t always as extravagant as it is now. Like all great things, it started out small and only got bigger as time went on and subsequent games expanded on the foundation set by the original. To celebrate the upcoming release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I thought it would only be appropriate to look back on the franchise’s origins and see how far it’s come since its inception nearly 20 years ago.
The Nutcracker is not an easy piece of fiction to adapt into film by any means. Due to the Tchaikovsky ballet’s focus being mostly on visual presentation (set design, music, etc.) rather than story, it’s hard to create a compelling narrative for a film without taking a lot of creative liberties. When Disney decided to adapt the ballet in the form of Nutcracker and the Four Realms, they did it in the same fashion as their recent live-action film adaptations: by trying to appeal to an older demographic by presenting it as a grittier re-imagining of a classic story, and then completely removing any semblance of charm or originality. For a concept as stupid as “Disney’s edgy Nutcracker reboot,” I expected to at least be entertained by the absurdity of the film’s premise, but the movie just left me frustrated and bored by the end of it.