JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E06 Review: The First ORA ORA ORA ORA

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 6: Tomorrow's Courage

[revised 10/2018]

We wrap up the Tarkus/Bruford storyline, and it's... it's sort of all over the place. The Bruford stuff at the beginning of the episode feels more of an epilogue to previous episode's fight, and probably would've flowed a lot better as part of episode five. 

It's a pretty epic scene, mind you -- Jonathan finally finishes the full line of the pre-asskicking one-liner that he has, ending with SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE (or sanraitoooo ierooooh oba-doraibuuuuu!) and a glorious fist barrage (with a couple of unenthusiastic ora's -- it's not until Part 3 that we get a proper ORAORAORA) that will become synonymous with JoJo as a series. I'm not sure whether Fist of the North Star or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure did it first, but the sight of a muscular hero unleashing a flurry of punches is a trope that I am so, so glad exists. 

Again, how badass would this have been if it had been the scene that ended the previous episode? Cut away some of the extraneous Poco scenes or random zombies, and have it end with this the Bruford fight actually ends on a high note. 

The best part of this beatdown has to be Bruford and Jonathan having this one last eye-to-eye look of manly respect, and the gifting of the Pluck sword (which never comes up anywhere) and then we get a random cut to Speedwagon going "you're a mess, Bruford!" Got to love that Speedwagon. 

Not quite a high note is Jonathan going on a bit of a sappy speech after his glorious beatdown, talking on and on about how Hamon has purified Bruford's evil soul and restored his humanity in the last moments that he's alive. Jonathan's sappiness is part of his charm, but this is a scene that I felt was a bit unnecessary. There's also a Zeppeli flashback thrown into this scene about the fact that there is a prophecy that he's supposed to die in battle... which I felt is easily one of the most out-of-nowhere and cliched bit of Phantom Blood that just straight-up didn't work. 

Tarkus is the next enemy,  and he engages our heroes through this bizarre little room that he calls the Chain Death-Match, which... okay, I'll buy that they have this elaborate game-of-death torture chamber just conveniently nearby. And the concept of a chain that ties both combatants together all Saw-like is wacky enough that I don't mind it. What I do mind is the way that Zeppeli is pretty much helpless through the fight. After spending the short time that we knew him being a pretty damn badass with that wine glass and everything, he ends up being pretty damn helpless. "Bricks I can handle, but not this door!" My ass, Baron Zeppeli, everything around that door is made up of bricks!

At least Zeppeli gets to use hamon to turn a bunch of leaves into hang-gliders. That was fun. 

Tarkus's voice actor tries his best to make Tarkus sound hammy, which I applaud him for (voicing some of the onomatopeias do help a bit) but the character himself is just pretty uninteresting, just a big angry thug that's strong and grr grr so evil. Throw in that extended scene where Poco dicks around and gets a long, long flashback for no reason just to motivate him to move? Again, the episode sort of just ends in a pretty weird tone, and I'm genuinely confused why they didn't have all the Bruford stuff on one episode, and all the Tarkus stuff on another. It's genuinely a weird point to cut off on. Overall, while the fight itself might not be that bad, the pacing of this episode definitely is odd

The JoJo Playlist:

• Obviously, Zeppeli's teacher Tonpetty isn't an actual Indian Sage name, but it is a corruption of the American singer-songwriter Tom Petty. I'm not super acquainted with Tom Petty, but some of his hit songs include Learnin' to Fly and Free Fallin'.