JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E12 Review: Joseph's Amazing Disguise

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 12: Pillar Man

[Revised 10/2018]

So the episode begins with the rather bizarre and kind of redundant fight against the SS assassin Donovan, who uses camouflage to try and get the drop on Joseph. Joseph basically beats him in record time, which involves yet another creative use of the Hamon to weaponize cactus thorns.  It's quite a while before we get to the iconic Stands that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is known for, but at the same time it's also great to see that even before that we're still having relatively creative usages of our hero's skills. Also, kudos for the anime team to just get rid of Donovan and not prolong this fight.

The episode sort of acts as a "Worf Effect" showcase of how much more powerful the new villains are compared to Dio and his vampire kin, and shows just how insanely powerful the enigmatic Pillar Man that Stroheim releases from the pillar with blood is. Nicknamed Santana by Stroheim, the Pillar Man initially looks more confused than anything, so much that Stroheim and Speedwagon even question his intelligence, but then quickly proves to be pretty damn horrifying by absolutely curb-stomping a vampire that Stroheim creates with the Stone Mask, who gets effortlessly consumed by Santana.

It's a great visual look, too, with the sheer unnatural way that the vampire just seems to go through Santana's body, before Santana basically absorbs and erases every single part of the vampire's body that overlaps. And after realizing that they have awakened an apex predator that preys on vampires, Santana proves that, hey, he's intelligent, able to get the grasp of their language by observing lip movements.


And, oh boy, I forgot how entertaining this scene is, with both Stroheim and Speedwagon trying to out-ham each other.  Stroheim's evil villain laugh, his rants about the ultimate life form, his accentuation of Speedwagon's name, and Speedwagon doing his Part 1 role of giving commentary... it's a glorious scene.

Of course, we cut away from the horror show of Santana's awakening to... to Joseph's gloriously amazing disguise as he tries to get into the Nazi base by making use of how the perverts take the opportunity to grope up delivery ladies. "I bought some tequila!" indeed, Joseph. That's a glorious, glorious look.

The fact that Joseph's straight up surprised at how the soldiers are able to see through his disguise is an extra layer of hilarity.

Also, in the time it took for the audience to catch up to Joseph's antics, Santana has disappeared from the science observation deck, and I absolutely agree with Stroheim -- for what they have just witnessed, that one random scientist dude is just calmly drinking coffee. Santana shows an even greater degree of body horror, able to twist himself like silly putty. Stroheim's nasty monologue that  Santana broke every single bone in his skeleton in order to gain enough flexibility is an effective, morbid way to add extra horror to that scene, too.


And to show just even more alien Santana is, he pulls off a trick out of the xenomorph handbook and starts doing orifice invasions, going inside the nose of that one soldier who's too stupid to listen to Stroheim's orders to stay away from ventilation shafts. The realization that Santana isn't just mimicking words and is actually learning their language in the relatively brief time that he's been unleashed also throws in some pretty horrific implications.

And then... dramatic entry! Joseph sadly ditches the tequila disguise, but he manages to save Stroheim and Speedwagon from Santana with a "Hamon Hair Attack" that deflects Santana's horrifying attempt to mimic a machinegun by... by using the soldier he's taken over as a machinegun. Overall, it's a pretty great episode that intertwines hilarity and the horror show that is the Pillar Men into a very cohesive piece. I've  always loved just how eerily unnatural Santana is, and the fact that he's honestly visually not that different from humans adds an extra layer of horror to him.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Santana is named after the 60's Latin band of the same name, and some of their best songs include Smooth, Corazon Espinado and Maria Maria.
• Donovan borrows his name, apparently,  from the Scottish musician Donovan Philips Leitch.  Selected discography include Catch the Wind, Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow.