JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E05 Review: Genjutsu

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 5], Episode 5: Prisoner of Love

I wrote a version of this review that was just essentially a gigantic recap, but it wasn't particularly enteratining to read so I just kind of scrapped it. That's always been the problem with writing JJBA reviews for me -- I describe shit too much, and in any given JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fight, there's a lot of shit to describe. This fight, in particular, has a lot of things going on since we do a bit of an Inception thing with how we've got both Jotaro and Jolyne's dreams to deal with. 

The thing that I do have to say is how much better-framed and better-executed this three-parter ended up being, comparatively to the manga version. I didn't do an extensive read-through, but I did peek into the corresponding chapters in the manga and the anime flows so, so much better just by rearranging some scenes and showing some parts earlier. Again, the fact that the previous episode already set up audio and visual cues that something's not quite right with the Joestars' meeting does a great job of transitioning the dream-world Manhattan Transfer fight into the "how do we escape from the dream world" sequence here. 

There's a bunch of cool moments like Jotaro realizing that Jolyne shouldn't know the name of his Stand; or the bit with Jotaro punching Jolyne (to open the door!) and not feeling the slightest bit bad for it. A fair chunk of the focus of these scenes as Jotaro and Jolyne try to figure out the illusion and whatever, but I also do like that we also spend a decent amount of scene of Jolyne hoping -- and failing -- to receive the attention she seeks from her emotionally-stunted father. 

The two are in an emergency situation and have to cooperate to escape the prison, though, while being pursued both by the real Johngalli A, as well as the mysterious second stand Whitesnake, who's just lurking in the shadows all the while. Everything is paced very quickly but it does mirror how our heroes are feeling, so the confusion at 'wait, this thing from the dream world is actually real?' ends up feeling communicated pretty well. 

Of course, the moment that you could kind of see coming ends up happening. Jotaro uses Star Platinum: The World to stop time and do the only thing he can think of, which is to push Jolyne out of the way. But while Jotaro is busy deling with Manhattan Transfer; Whitesnake shows up and attacks -- doing the bizarre thing of punching two discs out of Jotaro's head. The mystery of the discs is something we'll explore over the next couple of episodes, but it is clear that the enemy Stand did something to Jotaro. 

And it's Jolyne's turn, and as her frazzled mind takes in everything that's going on, she gets absolutely shocked at how her seemingly inflappable and invincible dad is just lying there silent, near-death, with bullet wounds. Jotaro tells Jolyne that he's always cared for her, and while he has kind of been a shitty parent, when it comes down to giving up his life for hers, Jotaro is ready. I do like the little dichotomy that the episode does admittedly gloss over -- regardless of the reason (Stand-user hunting!) Jotaro was absent from Jolyne's life, and it does hurt her... but at the very least, everything Jotaro's doing right now is to save and help his daughter survive. 

And survive Jolyne does, because she does a pretty badass beatdown of Johngalli A. Sure, it comes down to an ORAORAORAORA barrage, but we do get to see Stone Free use its string ability to curve bullets after shoving the strings into Johngalli's gun. But honestly, Johngalli A feels more like a distraction at this point. It's a moment that doesn't hit quite as hard in the manga, but the moment when Jolyne drags Jotaro to the beach, where the escape submarine is in sight, and then Jotaro just slumps over dead with his face in the water? A great combination of the art, the music and the voice-acting really does sell this scene and while I knew it was coming, while I knew this isn't actually how Jotaro dies, the whole sequence actually ends up feeling so, so well done. 

Which leads to Jolyne's moment of heroic resolution. While the entire prison is out looking for her, she ends up walking back in with a badass pose, and surrendering -- she left Jotaro's comatose body up for the Speedwagon foundation, and that's going to serve as the 'timer' to give the part some tension. Jolyne realizes that the whole thing was done by Whitesnake's mysterious user to steal Jotaro's allmighty Star Platinum, and that she needs to remain in the prison in order to hunt down and beat the shit out of her father's "killer". She strikes up a formal alliance to Emporio, the mysterious 'ghost boy', who lost his mother to Whitesnake as well. 

Meanwhile, we get a very cool moment where the two villains meet each other. Whitesnake has succeeded in stealing Star Platinum from Jotaro, but then the overjoyed Johngalli A just gets executed in cold blood with his own gun by Whitesnake. Pretty cool setup for our main villain! Or, well, his Stand, in any case! 

Random Notes:

• 
  One of the theories I've seen is that Jotaro's actually on the autism spectrum in some way or form, considering how difficult it is to show how much he cares for people and how focused he is in his work. Admittedly Stand-user-hunting is something that's clearly going to drain a lot of your energy, but Jotaro's consistently found himself pretty hard to bond with people, and the people that he does hang out with tended to make the effort to be on his good side... something that's not going to ever happen with a teenaged daughter.  
• The whole 'the entire thing is a way to lure Jotaro into a trap' is a nice way to use a previous protagonist's reality-warping powers, to bring him back into the story, while also taking him out in a believable manner since the Part has to be about Jolyne.
• Also very convenient that this whole sequence tells us why Jolyne ends up remaining in the prison for pretty much almost the entirety of the Part -- there's a narrative reason to it, and why a Stand user like her doesn't just escape. 
• These episodes imply very heavily that Jotaro's going around hunting Stand users and former Dio minions. We kind of see this in Part IV and V (via Koichi in the latter), but god damn, I kinda do want to see those filler stories of Jotaro going around the world hunting and beating down random Stand users. 
• It is admittedly a bit of an utter convenience that the illusion-dream version of Manhattan Transfer is actually accurate to how it behaves in real life. I guess Whitesnake can only 'download' how a Stand actually works as it does in real life?
• I gloss over it in my review, but the Speedwagon Foundation shows up in the form of an escape submarine! I appreciate this cameo so much. 
• Okay, Jolyne spinning Johngalli around like a top is hilarious as shit and you can't convince me otherwise. 
• Emporio, of course, is named after the fashion brand Emporio Armani; while Whitesnake is named after a British band, with its lead singer previously associated with Deep Purple.