JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E22 Review: Dynamite With A Laser Beam

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 22: Kira Yoshikage Just Wants To Live Quietly, Parts 2

So, yeah, that happened. The reason why Kira Yoshikage is so effective as a villain is how no-nonsense he is when he shows up in a Part that has been, for the most part, pretty light-hearted with minimal stakes. And for a character like Shigechi, who, annoying as he might be, is at his core a nice guy that's just trying to survive and protect his mama and papa, and only got into this whole mess because he's angry someone took his sandwich... poor kid. It is downright uncomfortable as you see Shigechi just trying his best to survive, while Kira is just this stone-cold fucker who's definitely willing and trying to actively murder a high school student.

And when Kira shows off his Stand, Killer Queen (who briefly gets a skull face with alien bug-eyes for no damn reason other than to just look extra unsettling), Shigechi unleashes his own Stand, Harvest, one of the easily more powerful Stands in the setting... but one thing about a majority of Diamond is Unbreakable's cast is that for all their talk, they're not killers. No one's been killed by the protagonists other than the rats, and even Angelo was shapeshifted into a stone -- there are definitely parts where Jotaro's cold-bloodedness is even brought up into question. It's perfectly normal for someone to, y'know, hesitate before killing another person, even if it's in self-defense. And that's all Shigechi managed to do -- threaten to rip off Kira's artery.


And then Killer Queen shows off his power. He might look like a naked cat-man wrestler, but Killer Queen's ability is to turn anything it touches into a bomb -- tricking Shigechi into taking a coin which blows up in the face. Also love the little detail that Kira and/or Killer Queen has to 'click' the detonator to blow up the thing it transforms into a bomb. (Killer Queen is also one of the biggest sources of JoJo poses in this Part, too)

And it's... it's a pretty difficult scene to watch as Shigechi just tries his god damn best to just escape from Kira, this poor kid who doesn't know what's going on, trying to survive. This isn't an epic last stand of a warrior like previous deaths such as Jonathan, Caesar, Kakyoin, Avdol or Iggy -- this is just a brutal murder of a kid who doesn't even want to be in this fight. And then Kira has to rub it in by threatening to kill this poor kid's parents if he doesn't give Kira what he wants, and kudos to Shigechi's massive balls for telling Kira to fuck off, that he knows Kira's the murderer of Reimi Sugimoto, and then summon an entire swarm of Harvest to spirit him away and hide him in a bush.

And all the while, the audience is under the safe misconception that, hey, we've seen grievous injuries in JoJo before, and Crazy Diamond have been seen reverting ridiculous amounts of damage, so Shigechi's split-up face and wounds can easily be cured as long as Shigechi can get to Josuke, right? And that's the main goal of this episode. As Shigechi just struggles and resolves to protect the city and his parents, he just tries his best to get to Josuke's class... only to find that Kira's already reached there, smirking from outside the class window as Shigechi touches the doorknob...

And then Shigechi just fucking blows up like a balloon and dies screaming in fear and pain. There's no nobility to the death of this likable character, there's no epic last stand, and Shigechi doesn't even manage to do anything. It's just a brutal, senseless murder, and I think that's what made this scene feel so disconcertingly tragic especially compared to previous and future JoJo deaths.

And, well, I guess it's not completely fair to say that Shigechi didn't do anything, because one final Harvest manages to walk up to Josuke and Okuyasu and give him a single button before blowing up into a puddle of blood.

And there's just something extra horrifying as Josuke and Okuyasu run around being absolutely confused about why Harvest just blew up into blood, when they had just been talking with Shigechi and dicking around about sandwiches and coffee not less than fifteen minutes ago. The shot of Shigechi's table, with the crude stick figure drawings of his parents, is an extra gut-punch.

But even worse is the next scene it cuts to, which is Reimi the ghost girl watching as Shigechi's spirit ascends, and it's not a "continue my will!" epic ascension like how the dead Crusaders were in Part 3. No, Shigechi dies ascending into heaven screaming and crying in terror and pain, and it's pretty hard to watch.

Flash-forward to a couple of days later and we get a brief montage of all the Stand-users in Morioh that's aligned with our heroes (except for Kobayashi for some reason? They even got Okuyasu's blob-dad to show up) meeting up near the ghost girl's alley, who confirms that Shigechi was the latest victim of the mysterious, still-unseen killer. And all they have to go on is a button. It's a bit odd why Josuke doesn't just 'repair' it with Crazy Diamond to see whose suit it leads to, but I suppose the button is counted as a different part or something? We get some clear anger from a significant portion of the cast, Okuyasu especially... and we get some pretty horrifyingly neat bit as Kira passes Josuke without the latter even realizing that his friend's murderer just passed him.

And then to rub insult to injury, Kira targets another woman with beautiful hands to serve as his new hand-girlfriend, after the previous one has started to 'stink up'.

Also, can I just say how neat of a vibe the Kai Harada radio segments are? They're a very great addition into the anime that I don't think existed in the manga (or are memorable in the manga, anyway) which really set up a good excuse to jump to another day and to build up the whole "small town" vibe.

The final scene of this episode is Jotaro and Koichi teaming up, probably the two smartest people in this team, to hunt down the owner of the button, with Jotaro ending up realizing that he never checked out things like shoe stores or whatever that'll handle repairs for clothes. It's a neat coincidence that they ended up finding Kira's suit just right as it was being repaired... but just as the nice tailor was just checking for the nametag, a completely different-looking Stand that looks like a toy tank shows up, blows up the poor sod's hand and then jumps into his mouth and then blows up! It's Killer Queen's "second bomb", and we're jumping straight into another Kira-centric mini-arc, this time around with actual experienced fighters thirsty for vengeance and retribution!

Overall, it's definitely a great first outing for Kira as a heinous villain, and Shigechi's death -- considering he's irritating at worst and tolerable at best -- ends up being unexpectedly brutal and tragic. Definitely sets up Kira as a villain that you really do want to see get taken down a huge notch, and kicks the entire anime into a far more serious mentality.

Also, kudos on the show's part for swapping the "Kira wants to live a quiet life" story arc with the Cinderella one in order, because having Yukako and Koichi's love-life stuck in the middle of two intense Kira stories is going to be too much of a weird mood swing. The intensity here is pretty well done and I love it.