JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 30: The Cat Loves Kira Yoshikage

We get an episode that centers all around Kira again, and this really is why Kira Yoshikage ends up being one of the most memorable villains in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Dio may show up in more Parts than Kira, but he tends to be offscreen for huge chunks of it, sitting on his throne or lurking in the darkness, whereas most of the other villains tended to either only show up or be relevant at the end (Kars, Diavolo) or to mostly act as someone who sends evil minions to hound the good guys (Pucci, Dio). The only other main villain that really ends up being arguably as developed as Kira is Part VII's Funny Valentine, but it's going to take 2025 or something when we do reach Part VII in anime format.
Anyway, this episode sort of shows the things that Kira does to avoid suspicion. He ends up noting that he needs to buy new shoes because his feet is one size larger than Kosaku, he is practicing how to copy Kosaku's penmanship, manages to handwave eating the mushrooms that Kosaku hates by making it look like he just enjoys his wife's cooking... and while Shinobu doesn't really notice it, the kid, Hayato, is pretty suspicious. Mind you, Hayato himself is kind of a creepy kid himself. Who the fuck puts a camera in their parents' room and mutters to himself "it's been some time since my parents got naked together"? What the fuck, little boy.

Stray Cat (as Kira dubs it later in the episode) ends up attacking Shinobu, remembering her as the human who killed it, and after blowing up part of Shinobu's toe, Kira shows up and decides to immediately kill the cat. Interestingly, Stray Cat's ability to manipulate air pressures makes it kind of immune to Kira's bombs, which cannot detonate. Killer Queen mashing the finger-trigger confusedly is pretty funny.

And in one of the more horrifying bits that sort of makes up for the nonsensical "I drink IV fluid to replenish my lost fluids" nonsense from the previous episode, Stray Cat apparently took Medicine 101 and uses an air bubble to send a little embolism into Kira's veins, which is way, way more horrifying than exploding compressed air bubbles have any right to be. Kira blows up part of his vein to get rid of it, of course, but that was pretty creative, I think.
The way Kira wins, though, ends up being pretty simple because apparently Stray Cat isn't as intelligent as Iggy or Pet Shop from Part III, not really being able to reason and ends up just behaving like a normal cat and gets distracted when Kira throws a ball at it.

Kira, meanwhile, realizing that Hayato isn't with his schoolmates, ends up going back to investigate. Hayato manages to make it look like Stray Cat 'broke out' on its own and it's not because of Hayato discovering it... but then Kira ends up monologuing like a goddamn moron, alerting Hayato that his "dad" isn't really his dad but someone else. It's definitely a bit of a silly ending to what is a pretty great episode -- surely there are a lot of better ways to make Hayato realize that Kosaku is actually Kira other than these observations leading to Kira mouthing off and monologuing like a moron? Still, the episode's honestly pretty neat, a nice, little self-contained episode starring the Kawajiri family, Kira's psyche and Hayato's little investigations into his "father".
The JoJo Playlist:
- The Stand, Stray Cat, is apparently a reference to the 70's American band Stray Cats, known for the songs Stray Cat Strut, Rock This Town and I Won't Stand In Your Way.
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