JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E14 Review: Epic JoJo Poses

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 14: Elite Ancient Warriors

[Revised 10/2018]

So after that whole Santana arc is over, we get transported to Rome with a brief time-skip as Joseph and Speedwagon follow a lead there and meet the descendant of William Zeppeli. It's basically the same segment as that part in Phantom Blood after Jonathan's defeated Dio the first time, but then has to meet with a mentor to train him in Hamon.

Not actually knowing what Zeppeli's grandson looks like, Joseph ends up accidentally picking a fight with Caesar Zeppeli himself, who insults Joseph when he was... well, Joseph was being a gigantic ass regarding that squid-ink spaghetti, let's be frank. And then trying to bully Caesar with hamon, of course, ends up with Joseph embarrassing himself. As Joseph puts into words in English, "OH, NO!" It's not quite the bombastic OH NO that Joseph would come to have as his catchphrase later on, but it's still pretty fun.

Caesar Zeppeli is... he's a pretty fun, if slightly flamboyant, character. As Joseph points out, "did he have to grand-stand just to sit down?" And by grandstand, I mean Caesar straight-up leaps three meters into the air to pirouette just to sit down on a cafe's chair. Caesar and Speedwagon give us a bit of a backstory about the Speedwagon Foundation's creation to find out information about the Stone Masks. We get the little bit of revelation that Santana's stone corpse is placed within a UV light prison, and the carvings on a wall show that Santana is actually of a lower caste compared to three other faces on it.

We get one of the less entertaining fights between Caesar and Joseph, as Caesar uses his Hamon kiss to take control of a girl, and Joseph uses his hamon to shove a pigeon into the girl's mouth... which honestly feels rather weird. We do see Caesar's so-called ultimate attack, which is using hamon bubbles to blast people. The animation in this scene reverts back to Phantom Blood's "change the colour palette randomly", something we haven't seen a whole lot in Battle Tendency. 

Speedwagon is apparently in cooperation with the Nazis (who are not referred to by name) and we meet their contact, Mark the nice soldier. And, well, Mark is obviously going to die a tragic death because 100% of the scene establishes that he's a nice guy, and he's going to get married, and he's such a nice guy, all right?

"AWAKEN MY MASTERS!"

The three of them wakes up in this episode, because some Nazi moron is too stupid to look directly into a hole that appeared on the wall, and, of course, the Pillar Men wakes up. A long, long tentacle-like horn shoots through the front rank of the soldiers, and the blood cakes the UV lights, and the Pillar Man emerge to fantastic music (Pillar Men Awaken), and immediately strikes series a glorious pose. We get an extra-nightmarish bit where he dance-moves through the Nazi soldiers, sticking everyone's hands together with the Pillar Men's "move to flesh" ability, and then drains everyone up like a straw.

I'm not quite sure why he has to hammily shout out his name as he revives his two masters and prostrates himself before the turban-headed Kars and the funky-haired ACDC (Esidisi, technically, but this is funnier). Kudos to the anime for making all three distinctly different from the get-go -- I knew I had trouble telling them apart in this part of the manga, and it's not until later in the story that I appreciate the three as distinct characters.

They have a tendency to strike hilarious JoJo poses, too, and Wamuu quickly makes himself subservient before ACDC and Kars -- I forgot that ACDC outranks Wamuu! They talk a bit about the Great Red Stone of Aja, our new plot device, as well as the Pillar Men's role as rulers of the world... and we cut back to our heroes, who basically go through a bit of a horror show.

Joseph steps on something gross, and the group discovers that it's the husks of the soldiers drained by Wamuu. The three Pillar Men walk past them and ignores them completely. Poor Mark gets bumped into and half of his body gets eaten, and his family picture locket clatters down to the ground. It does drag on a bit too long but it does make Caesar and Joseph's rage of justice so much more poignant.

Amidst Joseph and Caesar's screaming, though, the Pillar Men go through this weird unfunny-funny scene where Kars steps on Wamuu's shadow, causing Wamuu to reflexively kick Kars in the face before prostrating himself and apologizing. Kars is forgiving of this assault, instead apologizing himself for forgetting that Wamuu is very, very sensitive to people stepping in his shadow. This entire exchange adds nothing significant, isn't even funny or really relevant to the story, and it genuinely stands out as being a bit too bizarre without the mixture of hammy-but-scary deal that the Pillar Men had before.

The episode ends with the iconic Joseph/Caesar pose as they promise vengeance, which is shown up above. The entire episode is just introductions and a huge setup, and it's kind of clear that this isn't going to end particularly well for our heroes.

For my part, this was, I think, when I realized how much I would love this series when I came across it in the manga. The whole shadow bit aside, I really ended up liking just how... just how utterly out there the concept of the Pillar Men are. The fact that these Elder Race monsters are built like Mayan-Aztec bodybuilders with less clothes than a Victoria's Secret Model, have unsettling flesh powers, and, best of all, are called Wham, Cars and ACDC (yes, Wamuu, Kars and Esidisi, but it's really hard not to hear the actual bands). This usage of Western bands as character (or superpower) names is going to be a hallmark of JJBA, and, as ridiculous as everything is, this just adds a whole layer of fun into it all.


The JoJo Playlist:

• Wamuu is, of course, a reference to the UK band Wham! though the katakana is apparently slightly corrupted compared to how you would normally say 'wham' in Japanese (without a prolonged u, I think?) Wham! is responsible for some iconic songs you may have heard of like Careless Whisper, The Edge of Heaven and Last Christmas.  
• Kars is a reference to the Cars, a 70's rock band. I'm not as familiar with the Cars' work as Wham or ACDC, but Drive is a pretty good song by them.
• ACDC (well, AC/DC, but I'm to lazy to put in the slash half the time) is a rock band that's also from the 70's, and I'm kind of a huge fan. Selected works from AC/DC include Highway to Hell, Back in Black, Shoot to Thrill.
• While I'm sticking to the official English transliterations seen in JoJo guidebooks for how to write Wamuu and Kars' name, I like the idea of a character just named 'ACDC' so much that I hope you'll forgive me referring to him as that instead of Esidisi.
• The Red Stone of Aja is a reference to Aja, a jazz album by the band Steely Dan (who's going to referenced for a villain in Stardust Crusaders), as well as one of the songs within said album.
• I'm not sure if Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli is a reference to anything in particular (beyond sharing the Led Zeppelin reference with his grandfather).