JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E21 Review: Gunpowder Gelatin

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 21: Kira Yoshikage  Just Wants To Live Quietly, Pt. 1

Kira time!

So yeah, Kira Yoshikage is our main villain for Diamond is Unbreakable, the mysterious, long-foreshadowed mystery serial killer. Unlike the previous three Parts, the main antagonist doesn't really show up and engage our heroes until well halfway through the story arc, but while Dio is clearly a stylish, hammy and likable villain, Kira is a villain that the narration actually follows around a fair amount of time. That's one of the biggest strengths of Diamond is Unbreakable, something that arguably very few other parts have really managed to do, is to make most of the characters grow throughout the Part.

The episode starts off with Kira clipping some nails, and then doing more creepy shit with the disembodied hand-girlfriend, something that is kind of... slightly repetitive considering the anime did add a bunch of extra scenes of Kira being creepy with Ms. Handy. Still, the episode does a pretty great job at showcasing just how unremarkable Kira is in his day job, working seriously but without any real passion, friendly with his co-workers but doesn't socialize much, basically ending up as someone who's not exactly trying to hide, but just your Average Joe in a community.

And then you cut to a pretty simple scene of buying bread at a bakery,  and then Kira starts having a one-sided conversation with his hand-girlfriend, telling her not to be jealous of the women to talked to him, and monologuing about bread freshness, and licking the sauce off that ended up sticking onto the hand's fingers... (Also, everyone at St. Gentleman's Bakery have really, really poor vision) and eventually going for a picnic with the disembodied hand... it's one thing to be a mere psychopath that kills people and dismembers them. Hell, we've got Angelo earlier this season, which is your typical cold-blooded, gory and ruthless serial killer, but Kira just takes disturbing to a whole new level with his insane antics with the disembodied parts of his victims.

And while Kira has crossed paths with our heroes -- quite literally -- multiple times before, this is the first time where fate ended up having them quite literally encounter each other. Shigechi, Josuke and Okuyasu are walking to school and just palling around, but thanks to Shigechi holding the same sort of sandwich bag that Kira has (and has put the hand within the bag when he's startled by a dog), a misunderstanding an a moment of inattention on Kira's part causes Shigechi to take the sandwich bag by mistake. Also, a round of applause for Hirohiko Araki's restraint in not having Kira grotesquely murder the dog that fucked up his plans. God job!

Kira knows he has to get the bag back, because if they discover it, the police could probably trace both fingerprints and the ring back to him, and what follows is a combination of tense and comedic scenes as Kira just tails Shigechi and tries to get the bag back from him.

The sequence in the gym is definitely well-shot, as Shigechi sneaks in there to steal some free coffee meant for the teachers while having a pretty secluded place to eat his lunch. There are several times when Shigechi leaves the bag behind to brew coffee,  and then Josuke and Okuyasu show up. There's definitely a lot tense moments as Kira later uses a hook to drag the bag towards him, and eventually manages to take the bag while hiding within some gym equipment. Even when Shigechi gets angry that his sandwich bag is gone and is about to unleash Harvest, the three students end up having to escape out of the window when the gym teacher arrive, allowing Kira to praise his luck and make his getaway.

There's admittedly a bit of a dumb move on Kira's part for not immediately hiding the severed hand within his jacket and still walk around carrying the dumb paper bag, but then we wouldn't have a plot, would we?

Shigechi ends up confronting Kira with Harvest, intending to take the sandwich back from him (poor boy really just wants to eat his sandwich) and the ensuing scuffle exposes the hand. And all throughout this episode, we've been led to note that Kira might potentially just be a regular dude without a Stand, especially when he goes "what the fuck are these kids yammering on about" when Shigechi talked about using Harvest earlier in the gym room... and then Kira notes that he "has the same sort of powers" as him.

Kira then re-states the title of the episode. That he's just a regular dude who wants to live quietly, and he's going to get rid of anyone who's going to cause him to 'lose sleep' as he summons his Stand... Killer Queen, who looks pretty damn menacing.

Yeah, I tend to combine any episode with parts 1 and 2 together, but I ended up splitting this up because I actually find that I do have a fair bit to talk about when it comes to these episodes. And this very Kira-centric episode certainly ends up illuminating just what's going on behind this sociopath's mind, and how twisted he is yet still  able to exist in the same society as the rest of our cast. The cliffhanger is definitely pretty damn great, too,  because for the first time since Red Hot Chili Pepper, we actually have an antagonist in Diamond is Unbreakable that's no-nonsense and is going straight for the kill, something that several non-villains and misunderstood antagonists have made us somewhat lose our guard. Pretty damn effective episode for sure.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Killer Queen is, of course, named after the iconic Queen single, Killer Queen. She's a killer queen / gunpowder gelatin / dynamite with a laser beam / guaranteed to blow your mind / anytimeee. I am a HUGE Queen fan and I am so happy that one of their songs ended up being the name of the Stand of one of my favourite JoJo characters.