Review of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
Now Golden Wind has truly ended. Giorno Giovanna has left his JoJo mark. The Italian JoJo, or GioGio. Been a hell of a journey these past 9 months. Neber watched a JoJo weekly as I got to Parts 3 and 4 late so doing it this way, even knowing what was gonna happen since I read the manga after seeing Part 3, was been such a trip. This ain't my favorite JoJo part, or even close really, but it has some of the best characters and best stands/stand battles in all of JoJo so it has merit out the wazoo. My biggest thing is theamount of plot conveniences. JoJo has always been wacky, some would say bizarre, but there's enough times where it breaks it's own logic for me to say something. The Diavolo fight being the biggest but smaller ones in the other battles too, I get the sense that Araki went for rule of cool over making sense in his own world. Which isn't inherently bad but makes me scratch my head more often than I'd like.
Regardless, and often in spite of that, Italy was pretty bonkers. The journey these Gang Stars went on rivals all the other JoJo journeys. The cast is full of amazing characters as I've said. Gio, Bruno the god, Narachia, Abbacchio, Mista, and even Fugo, made a badass crew. All their stand abilities fit well and gave us fucking killer moments. Bruno in the train battle, Gio against Green Day, Mista and Gio against Ghiaccio, Fugo vs the Man in the Mirror, there's a veritable smorgasbord for stand battle lovers. No question there. I ate it all up too. The characters themselves were really good too. Bruno obviously being my personal favorite, but Mista and Narachia were close behind him. Gio I think was merely serviceable. Took the backseat too much for my taste as he's the titular JoJo. Not a bad character but not that good. Sort of indifferent about him, until he gets Requiem of course then he's a fucking god who beats Diabolo's ass to shit. Excuse me. The ending with him being the new capo is kickass also. Deserved it after all that.
Speaking of, Diavolo was a good villain but I won't say great. His ability of removing slivers of time makes him a threat on par with previous JoJo villains but it think compared to the likes of DIO he ain't quite there. I do love particular scenes with him though. When he reveals himself to Polnareff, and when we first meet him a la his signature gut punch to Bruno were two moments I was hyped to see in the anime. Having Polnareff back even briefly was awesome too. Not the same as we last saw him but as I adore Stardust Crusaders having an og back adds positive. Trish too of course. Not much helpful expect against BIG, which is a big moment but still, and some against her dad but she was mostly human macguffin as Diavolo tried to kill her the whole show. Still liked her character as I love me a firecracker.
Production of the show was also I think good not great. Many bad frames and wonky moments but the big ones were done well so that's enough for me. The three recaps was some horseshit, especially the third only eight weeks after the second, so I feel this production was harder for David pro them previous JoJo, even Part 4. They're much busier than they've ever been and I think to showed at points. Not awful no way but faltering more often than I'd like. Music was on a whole nother level though, good Lord was the music used so well on top of being badass in its own right. Gio's theme is iconic at this point. Those violins raise it up a ton. The
Overall I liked the anime for Part 5 better than the manga for Part 5. Which is a testament to how much David pro cares about JoJo. The battles all pretty much looked great. The damned Torture Dance cracked me up how they showed it in the anime. The colors changing like they do was done so well. The story is I think the weakest link here but it's not bad just not *as good* as previous JoJo. I think Araki played this one more loosey goosey Part 5 still kicks ass and delivered the hype battles. Now we wait for the sweet butterfly Jolyne and the Stone Ocean, till next time JoJo.
8/10