Jojo's Bizarre Adventure 2 (parts 3 and 4)

[sub_divided]

I totally overestimated my ability to blow through this series in a hurry. ^^ Just finished Part Four. IT IS MY FAVORITE PART SO FAR. What does it mean that the 'normal' arc is my favorite? I don't know, maybe it only means that Araki is getting better and better.

I mean. Three was mostly about delivering beatdowns in exotic locales -- very straightforward -- but sometimes the attack set-up would mimic a horror movie, right? And when this happened it never made sense, except according to horror-movie logic. A stand in the shape of a ship, controlled by an orangutan? Only makes sense as a set-up for creepy haunted ship shenanigans (with underaged girl fanservice...-_-;). Later, when Jotaro and Co. are fighting the user of The Lovers, they say he's the lowest, won't forgive him! Which is fine, this is shounen manga after all, BUT. Just before this they fought the user of Justice, who killed off an entire town of people so she could attack with their corpses. Why wasn't she the worst person in the world? They even purposefully let her live! Obviously, it's because the entire town of corpses was just part of the horror-movie background, to which the reader is not suppsed to apply normal shounen logic. So it's weird to see it applied in the next scene, and the whole arc oscillates back and forth between these two modes.

Part Four, on the other hand, is horror. ALL THE TIME. And yet (almost) no one dies! That's why it's awesome. Also because it fills in gaps left by part Three, like where stand users come from. And it takes Jotaro and his Godlike power and puts him in a normal setting XD. A whole arc devoted to proving how awesome(ly powerful) he is, and then, BAMN, small town hijinx. It's only when you have constructed a character with an unassailable reputation as a TOTAL BADASS that you can mess with him like this. (Next up, watch Batman change a diaper! HILARITY.)

But enough about Jotaro, the real best part of this arc is Josuke AND HIS GOOFY SPACED-OUT EXPRESSIONS. ♡ easy-going, unprepossessing teenage males with healing powers and gangster haircuts. Josuke, don't listen to those people, your hair is awesome! (The way he flipped out about this was...good for a strong first impression, but not a very interesting character trait. So I was glad when Araki gradually phased it out.) Also, maybe because he's had his stand for most of his life (since he was five!), he really knows how to use it. He's definitely the best stand user in this arc.

Josuke is just cool okay.

From here on out is spoilers. These are from the notes I kept as I was reading, so some (okay, a lot) are just dumb fangirl squeal.


Part Three

• 1. That is totally a bidet.
  
• 2. First Midler, then Mariah! Where are the female villains who aren't going to lust after the Joestars?
  
• 3. Ooooh, neat trick with the magnets. This may be the first genuinely cool thing Abdul has done this arc, I'm so glad he got that personality transplant while he was pretending to be dead.
  
• 4. On the subject, WHAT A TERRIBLE THING TO DO TO POLNAREFF. He was in mourning, you sick freaks! The readers were in mourning! (Okay, maybe not, the old Abdul's was not really worth crying over. But it's extremely uncool to milk a death for all it's worth if you are only going to bring the character back to life! That is SO NOT ON.)
  
• 5. Jotaro has, naturally, the world's best poker face. XD
  
• 6. HEY NOW THIS VIDEOGAME IS TOTALLLY F-ZERO. I love f-zero but...but!
  
• 7. It makes sense that Time Stop is the ultimate ability, because it's uncounterable. There are ways around other "uncounterable" stands, but in this case no one but Dio can take action, so no one can work out an ingenious strategy. (And here I was wondering how, after so much buildup, Dio's power could possibly live up to expectations. ^^;)
  

Part Four

• 1. Evil liquid man gets out of a bottle by pretending to be a cognac label. THAT IS SO COOL. Also, this guy is seriously dangerous -- and to think we all laughed at Zan for having the exact same power. (He wasn't nearly as good at it, though.)
  
• 2. Using a stand is "like driving a car," now that is a metaphor I can get behind. *flashes back to Initial D*
  
• 3. OH MY GOD IT'S A LITTLE GREEN ARMY MEN STAND
  
• 4. If the power of a stand depends on the speed and strength of the mind, why was Hermit Purple...OH RIGHT. Thinking about it, Joseph never did like effort, always wanted to do everything the easy way. (The easy way WITH STYLE, that is. He made cheating look good XD.)
  
• 5. On Koichi's would-be girlfriend: "She is the kind of person who can weave a sweater in a single night!" XD That really says it all. (SHADES OF STEPHAN KING ZOMG)
  
• 6. I am still not over the way Koisuke's power is creating SOUND EFFECTS.
  
• 7. There are really police who arrest criminals for "theft with supernatural powers"?
  
• 8. INVISIBLE BABY ZOMG. (I was kidding when I said the quickest route to comedy is to give a stone-faced man a baby, I swear.)
  
• 9. ROHAN. His manga is bloody and he thinks that to write about something, you need to experience it first hand. ^^; "I finaly found the perfect topic for my work!" <-- I bet you did. Also, is Koichi a freak magnet or something?
  
• 10. Huh well that rat thing was okay (much more sensible that the animal stand users in part three), but did we really need to see Josuke learning to be level-headed? He seemed pretty level-headed to me already.
  
• 11. And the final villain emerges. BTW, this is not a last minute thing, because it was mentioned on the very first page that Moire has a much higher than average number of missing persons.
  
• 12. Koichi on Rohan: "He looks mean on the outside but he's a pretty nice guy". UM. Someone who doesn't mean any harm, maybe. (Then again his idea of what constitutes harm is NOT NORMAL.)
  
• 13. I am pretty much in love with the way "Fatty" is too unimaginative to see that coming up with the idea of harvesting coupons is work just like using the stand to physically gather them is. It's so...true. That there are short-sighted people like that.
  
• 14. Kira = Gambit?!
  
• 15. Is this the beginning of "stands mysteriously develop new powers to keep the fights interesting"? I've heard stories. XD
  
• 16. Josuke on Kira: "Does he even have distinguishing characteristics?" His lack of distinguishing characteristics is his distinguishing characteristic, XD. (There is something that hints at what made Kira this way? Only I totally missed it. Something to do with his father?)
  
• 17. See, Araki understands the coolness of staying in one place and building a self-contained environment.
  
• 18. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, EARTH PHYSICS? *fang* Physics is the same everywhere! That's the whole point! ...then again, this is an alien who is unable duplicate complicated objects, like toasters, because he doesn't understand them. ^^ I think that's awesome.
  
• 19. Escher stand XD. If he stand can only fold you up after you show fear (a perfectly sensible retriction, given how powerful that ability is), how can the user fold up inanimate objects? Are the rules different?
  
• 20. And now it's 'can't show your back'...really, this is reminding me of kid games. In the future, I predict there will be stands where you:
  -can't step on the cracks
  -have to cross a room without touching the ground
  -must walk in a straight line, climbing over or finding a way through all objects in the way
  -can't pass a car going the other direction when there's no yellow line to separate it (what, am I the only one?)
  
• 21. That poor man, does this mean he'll never be able to turn around again? Ever?
  
• 22. Somehow I can't see the other Jojo's reacting to a dead friend this way. They'd accept the reality of the situation right away, wouldn't they? Then again, Josuke never kills.
  
• 23. Ahaha Koichi guilting Rohan into confessing he'l miss Reimi. That was a sweet sendoff. Also sweet, for different reason, was how many different kinds of dead Kira was by the end. ^^; he hung on for an unexpectedly long time, but when he went down he went down hard. Seven on one! (Eight if you count the baby.)

Gonna start Part Five later this week, but probably not for a few days, I mean I do have school. ^^; Speaking of, I may not be around much for the next few months, and I'm going to have to go back to reading the flist on a filter/maaaaaybe catching up on the weekends. Sorry, that's just the way it is.