Review of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

You know, I will be relentless when writing this review, but I do feel compassion for Araki’s situation when writing this story. Coming out of his enormous success with previous Jojo’s parts, having a huge follow up by fans, and probably being laurelled by praise of his editors, it would be simple for him to accommodate. To stop trying, challenging himself and coming with ways for improvement. This movement is something Araki does not fall into, though to the expense of failing hard the ceiling of his own works above him. The general premise of a Jojo part, is no brainers for anyone familiar with theseries, we have our megalomaniac villain to defeat, a group of idealistic heroes, the clear distinction between good and evil. And, of course the oldest way of resolving conflict, proving your rightness, by simply eliminating the other guy, and his objection. Fighting and beating the crap of bad guys is the main element of Jojo, with its bombastic, masculine fights and weird powers. To an extent I am not much of a fan of mega complex power systems in general, those are simply endless rules, limitations, specific powers, which mean nothing, and just amount for the author playing really complicated logistic chess with himself in every battle (with endless exposition). Nevertheless, I respect the variability, and immense number of circumstance those create.

Really, there is nothing wrong with this premise; it can amount to some of the more interesting works of fiction. Araki himself, has already proved repeatedly, he can spun this mold, to something at least interesting. Playing such stupidity earnestly, filling simple narratives with energy, a grand scope, and comprehensible dramatic and logistical stakes, can generate great entertainment.

This was sadly not the case here. Araki takes out most of his dry stupid humor, the situation awareness, and pleasure in indulging in baffling scenarios. There was always a tendency at looking at the humorous, seeing conflict, world and the general scenarios as a joke in Jojo’s, the climax of part 2 being exactly about how nothing makes sense, and the protagonist poking fun at the antagonist, and chain of events. There was always an unbelievably childish humor, filled with eschatological occurrences (fezzes everywhere), pointless gore (lots of killed animals), endless sadistic unbelievable murders, waiting at every corner. The characters were smartasses, just throwing one liners, and witty dialogue at one another, overreacting to everything in the most enjoyable way possible.

Now most of this is gone, or toned down. The bizarreness remains in name, but is sadly lacking in attitude. Those were replaced with more drama, serious naturalistic reactions, and long moments of people staring at another, rationally thinking the best course of option. Or in the endless joyless fights, that comprised most of any specific episode. Levity is kept to a minimum, self-importance of specific situations and conflicts raises to unbelievable heights. Character interactions, witty dialogues and bouncing personalities, that were mandatory in any episode of parts 3 or 4, are barely here.

A shame none of this serves to make a more meaningful narrative. Characters are barely anything more than skilled stand users, which fight really well. There is strange case to be made for them, because they seem to make the impossible, start to get less interesting the more the story progress. It is as if you know less about this people at the end of the line, than at the end of first quarter. The flashbacks and introductions are promising, presenting group dynamics, personalities, their wants, needs and troubles in life. When finishing their specific episodes, any main character narrative is over, their motivations go nowhere, development is nonexistent, ideals are barely there, specific quirks and attitudes are so rarely remembered they barely count as there. There is no one with a comprehensible, well-developed mentality, and specific mindset. The cast mostly consist of the same guy, all mechanically dealing with the next enemy of the week most of the time, with not much else going on.

However, those pale in comparison, to the disastrous structure. Events and objectives come and go, with seemingly very little progression, or any meaningful change. There is no reason for the climax to not have happened maybe 15, or even more episodes earlier, and nothing occurs of substance in most of the side quests. You have these awful character deaths being sold as grand twists, when they actually mean nothing in the grand scheme, change nothing, and are not even culminating or cathartic for the characters themselves (with one exception). Those amount only to sappy excuses for everybody to get sad for a moment, and then quickly move on as if nothing happened. This ends in a climax, where the main conflict is resolved with no internal change, or the protagonist learning something, but by being granted the ultimate bullshit power up, and everybody stands (including the audience) having no idea what the fuck it does. Of course, there is an even better epilogue, about a minor story before the events of the main series, which helps not to inform or close character or story, but just to give a better sense of the brilliant recurring theme of destiny. Those priorities are just so completely wrong.

Despite still considering Araki a good writer, there is no other label than disappointment to part 5. Because of overextending a simple story, while removing everything that made it fun. While some individual moments, and battles are actually enjoyable (Araki is a master at twists, constantly changing and messing a fight scene), those are completely eclipsed by a messy whole. Obscuring the weirdness and coolness of narrative, in cloth of self-importance and pretentions is a mistake I did not expect from the man, and found nothing in his vision to compensate.