JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 5: The Knights of Darkness
[revised 10/2018]
Episode five continues with more of JoJo and company fighting a bunch of Dio's evil minions, and honestly -- while Jack the Ripper was short and I appreciate the ridiculousness in that scene, I've never been fond of the Tarkus-and-Bruford scenes. Yes, I get that we kind of have to have a bunch of fights before we reach the final boss that is Dio, but I always felt like the fight against Tarkus and Bruford to be pretty bland and boring.
Throw in the introduction of tagalong kid Poco (whose ridiculous "chipper child-appeal character" antics were actually toned down -- and he's still annoying) and the episode really kind of felt like it dragged. At least last episode it was exposition, which was somewhat justifiable. We get a brief bit of Dio showing up and menacing our heroes (with a glorious WRYYYY and kinjaku kinjaku thrown in) and showing off his own new powers -- freezing things, which nullifies Hamon. The fight between Dio and the combined efforts of Jonathan and Zeppeli is neat, as short as it was (and we got Zeppeli going "Hey baby!" which is pretty glorious), Dio just kind of runs around, sics a bunch of zombies on the JoJo group. And then he summons Tarkus and Bruford, and books it out of there.
Meanwhile, Speedwagon heals Baron Zeppeli's frozen arm with the power of BODY HEAT that is apparently comparable to a heat seal. Got to love that Speedwagon.
Tarkus and Bruford... sort of just kind of pop out of nowhere. I'll praise some of JoJo's more ridiculous out-of-nowhere characters in the future like the Pillar Men from Part 2 or Mikitaka from Part 4, but these two just genuinely feel out of place. We get this long backstory about how they served in the civil war of England between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I, which just feels genuinely redundant. Their designs are also very conventional generic barbarian warriors.
And then Dio leaves, letting these two pretty bland brutes fight for him. Bruford fights Jonathan, and we do get the brief bit of "oh, that's weird" bit of Bruford apparently fighting Jonathan by wielding his sword with his hair. Which... what? And also, how is that more effective than wielding a sword with your hand? Using said hair to drain Jonathan's blood is a bit more vampire-themed, though, and I approve of that. Ultimately, though, Bruford is just a generic version of a villain who has a shred of honour, basically a discount version of future characters like Wamuu that we'll meet sometime down the line.
Again, I am being a bit too harsh on this fight, because it's still like the fifth episode of the series, but it's not an invalid criticism that Phantom Blood really moves slowly through not much innovation or story. Jonathan beats Bruford in this segment by figuring out that there are bubbles trapped under the water (because "it's a mining town" somehow) and uses those bubbles to unleash the Turquoise Blue Overdrive and take down Bruford.
Best line from Speedwagon? His very specific line of "That sword makes Jonathan's 195-cm-tall-body look tiny!" Yes, Speedwagon. You have to specify Jonathan's height. Speedwagon's commentary is easily the best part of this honestly pretty mundane action scene, and doesn't really do much to give us a whole ton of excitement. Again, it's not exactly bad, but it does kind of feel like we're not going anywhere all that much, character-wise or action-wise. At least during the huge glut of villains-of-the-week in subsequent Parts, the villain fights themselves are unique and interesting. But eh, the series is still young at this point. Hard to be so harsh about it.
Episode five continues with more of JoJo and company fighting a bunch of Dio's evil minions, and honestly -- while Jack the Ripper was short and I appreciate the ridiculousness in that scene, I've never been fond of the Tarkus-and-Bruford scenes. Yes, I get that we kind of have to have a bunch of fights before we reach the final boss that is Dio, but I always felt like the fight against Tarkus and Bruford to be pretty bland and boring.
Throw in the introduction of tagalong kid Poco (whose ridiculous "chipper child-appeal character" antics were actually toned down -- and he's still annoying) and the episode really kind of felt like it dragged. At least last episode it was exposition, which was somewhat justifiable. We get a brief bit of Dio showing up and menacing our heroes (with a glorious WRYYYY and kinjaku kinjaku thrown in) and showing off his own new powers -- freezing things, which nullifies Hamon. The fight between Dio and the combined efforts of Jonathan and Zeppeli is neat, as short as it was (and we got Zeppeli going "Hey baby!" which is pretty glorious), Dio just kind of runs around, sics a bunch of zombies on the JoJo group. And then he summons Tarkus and Bruford, and books it out of there.
Meanwhile, Speedwagon heals Baron Zeppeli's frozen arm with the power of BODY HEAT that is apparently comparable to a heat seal. Got to love that Speedwagon.
Tarkus and Bruford... sort of just kind of pop out of nowhere. I'll praise some of JoJo's more ridiculous out-of-nowhere characters in the future like the Pillar Men from Part 2 or Mikitaka from Part 4, but these two just genuinely feel out of place. We get this long backstory about how they served in the civil war of England between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I, which just feels genuinely redundant. Their designs are also very conventional generic barbarian warriors.
And then Dio leaves, letting these two pretty bland brutes fight for him. Bruford fights Jonathan, and we do get the brief bit of "oh, that's weird" bit of Bruford apparently fighting Jonathan by wielding his sword with his hair. Which... what? And also, how is that more effective than wielding a sword with your hand? Using said hair to drain Jonathan's blood is a bit more vampire-themed, though, and I approve of that. Ultimately, though, Bruford is just a generic version of a villain who has a shred of honour, basically a discount version of future characters like Wamuu that we'll meet sometime down the line.Again, I am being a bit too harsh on this fight, because it's still like the fifth episode of the series, but it's not an invalid criticism that Phantom Blood really moves slowly through not much innovation or story. Jonathan beats Bruford in this segment by figuring out that there are bubbles trapped under the water (because "it's a mining town" somehow) and uses those bubbles to unleash the Turquoise Blue Overdrive and take down Bruford.
Best line from Speedwagon? His very specific line of "That sword makes Jonathan's 195-cm-tall-body look tiny!" Yes, Speedwagon. You have to specify Jonathan's height. Speedwagon's commentary is easily the best part of this honestly pretty mundane action scene, and doesn't really do much to give us a whole ton of excitement. Again, it's not exactly bad, but it does kind of feel like we're not going anywhere all that much, character-wise or action-wise. At least during the huge glut of villains-of-the-week in subsequent Parts, the villain fights themselves are unique and interesting. But eh, the series is still young at this point. Hard to be so harsh about it.
The JoJo Playlist:
- Tarkus is a 1971 album as well as a song made by the Rock band ELP (Emerson, Lake & Palmer). It's a 20-minute suite comprised of seven tracks, actually a pretty calming piece.
- Bruford is a reference to Bill Bruford, one of the five founding members of the British rock band Yes -- who are the original performers of the ending sequence for this season! Bill Bruford would also be a member of the King Crimson band, another band that would become a pretty significant part of JJBA.
- Poco borrows his name from the 60's country rock band Poco, with some of their more memorable songs being Heart of the Night, Magnolia and Here We Go Again.
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