JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S04E02 Review: Gentleman Thief

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo, Episode 2: Bucciarati is Coming

CONSENT, Giorno, jeez

God damn, though, this episode is utterly gorgeous. Honestly, while the animation for the first three seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has never really been bad, this episode completely and utterly blew me away in terms of how absolutely gorgeous it is. That fight between Bucciarati and Giorno at the climax of the episode? Absolutely love the sound and visual effects as the Stands manifest partially -- with the user's arms being replaced with the Stand's arm. That is such a simple yet awesome way to really show off just how physical this fight is going to get.

But before we discuss the fight, we end up with around eight minutes of exposition, which... definitely could've been done a bit better, but definitely does a great job at informing the audience of Giorno's motivations and backstory. We start off with a flashback of how it's a "mystery" how Dio's mother survived giving birth to Giorno, especially considering how Dio previously only saw women as food. Giorno was apparently raised by Ms. Shiobana in Japan, but moved to Italy where she married an asshole who was physically abusive to Giorno, and the local kids are racist.

Oh, and I completely forgot to mention last episode how Giorno had black hair as a kid, and it's not until recently that the Dio genes "kicked in" and transformed his hair into blond... presumably around the same time his Stand powers manifested as well. We learn how as a child, Giorno helped out a random Speedwagon-lookalike gangster from being killed by his rivals, as well as having his Gold Experience powers manifest subconsciously by making the grass grow. As gratitude, this gentleman-gangster ended up befriending Giorno, intimidating Giorno's dad and friends to be nice to him.

And while neither the gangster nor the narrative tries to play down how Giorno's benefactor was still a gangster that killed people for a living, it also showed just how much this man meant to Giorno -- who ended up seeing gangsters as far, far more idealized in his mind -- he wanted to be like that gangster who saved him, and not be like the weak civilians or the corrupt police. Or, in other words, a gangSTAR, as most romanizations emphasize.

And then we return to the present day with the Bucciarati fight, and we get an interesting bit where this is actually Giorno's very first fight -- and he has never actually used Gold Experience's powers on a living human. It's... it's an interesting sequence for sure as Giorno uses Gold Experience to strike Bucciarati, with some utterly badass background music. Honestly, that's one of my biggest favourite parts of this part -- it has easily some of the best background music in JoJo, and we're only two episodes in!

Hilariously, it initially turns out that Bucciarati ended up having super-strength and super-speed by Gold Experience seemingly 'enhancing' his pre-existing powers and senses... but it turns out that all Gold Experience enhances is his mind, causing Bucciarati to experience this out-of-body sensation while Gold Experience delivers this slow-motion punch with a glorious mudaaaaaaaa!

It's an interesting variation of the "JoJo protagonists must punch!" mentality while doing the delicate art of balancing mystical superpowers, because for all the talk about Crazy Diamond's powers being more restoration than combat, it still delivered a whole ton of punching. Gold Experience, on the other hand, is described by Bucciarati as having a pitiful punch no stronger than an average man, but it's the fact that it's slowed down and he's made to experience the pain for a long time due to his heightened senses that made the Muda-Muda barrage hurt so much. Also a neat bit of balance to the multiple things Gold Experience seems to be able to do already (bring things to life and reflect damage).

And the Giorno strikes a fancy-ass pose that has him... kind of... grope his own Stand? Consent, Giorno. Consent.

Meanwhile, after a bit of a standoff and the acknowledgement that both Gold Experience and Sticky Fingers have short range, Bucciarati uses his Stand to create a zipper on the side of the train -- pretty badass bit of animation and effects, by the way. Again, that's what really impressed me about this entire episode as a whole. It's not just the music and the animation, but the audio effects for both Sticky Fingers and Gold Experience really, really ended up being pretty damn awesome.

Also, y'know, the fact that Bucciarati basically weaponizes the creation of zippers, of all things, something that's itself a joke on a zipper on a Rolling Stones album. For all of its flaws, it's this wacky creativity that makes JJBA so entertaining.

We get a brief bit of Giorno pursuing Bucciarati, noting how problematic it is to have a Stand user with Bucciarati's powers as his enemy, and we get a pretty fun bit as Bucciarati uses his zipper abilities to hide inside one of four civilians... which Giorno then tracks by turning Bucciarati's tooth into a fly that then chases Bucciarati's main body.

And then we get the actual Stand Fight between Bucciarati and Giorno and it's just... so damn badass. The user's arms transforming into Stand-hands is awesome, the little Mexican standoff they have at the beginning of the battle is great, and Sticky Fingers showing off that he has the ability to create zippes all over Giorno's body, splaying him apart, is pretty damn badass.

And then Giorno launches his zipper-severed arm to enhance his range and use Gold Experience's effects onto Bucciarati... which, in turn, heightens his senses once more and Bucciarati acknowledges that he's going to "die from the shock of the pain I will experience". But Giorno... ends up not unleashing any sort of beatdown and just walks past Bucciarati, because he notes that Bucciarati is a good man. Apparently Giorno realizes Bucciarati's hesitation and look of disgust during a portion of their fight where Bucciarati replaces his arm with that of the kid he hid inside, and the drug injection remnants disgusted Bucciarati.

Giorno then tells Bucciarati his mission statement, since he deems Bucciarati a kindred spirit -- he wants to take over the city and be the new gangster (or gang-STAR, whatever) boss, one that will wipe out drugs from the street.

Overall, it's clearly meant to be an introduction of the Polnareff/Caesar/Okuyasu/Speedwagon-style enemy-turned-loyal-ally character of this Part. Bucciarati really sells it as a honourable villain of sorts, though, jumping back and forth between being an asshole gangster and an honourable combatant. It's a neat way to combine both Bucciarati's introduction and Giorno's mission statement together, and the fact that this is all wrapped up in such a gloriously-animated episode ends up being a very, very pleasant bonus over an already-awesome episode.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Sticky Fingers, Bucciarati's Stand, is named after the Rolling Stones' album of the same name, released in 1971. The vinyl release of the real-world Sticky Fingers album famously featured a functional zipper located on the pants featured on the album cover, which is what the Stand is referencing. Notable songs from the Sticky Fingers album include Brown Sugar, Bitch, Wild Horses and Sway. 
• The opening for this season is Fighting Gold, performed by Coda. A fancy enough tune and some absolutely kickass imagery in the opening. 
• As usual, the closing piece of this season is another English song, this time the 1995 song Freek'n You by Jodeci. Hilariously, the band Jodeci featured a performer with the stage name of "JoJo", Joel Hailey.