JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E21 Review: Lisa Lisa's Gambit

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 21: A Hundred versus Two

I've always had a bit of a problem with how the earlier parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure treated women, especially Lisa Lisa, with lines such as "I won't see you as a woman, but as a fighter!" or "you're not just any woman, you can actually fight." but it's a product of the time that this particular part of JJBA is written, so I won't fault it too much for that. It is annoying, though, that after all the talk that Lisa Lisa is a master Hamon user, and far stronger than Joseph or Caesar, that the most she amounts to is hide the Super Aja and kill the random spiky vampire Wired Beck.

I did love the brief mourning period that Joseph and Lisa Lisa had, though, with Lisa Lisa's veneer of calmness slowly breaking down in that scene. We also have the plot point of Joseph not taking the antidote until he has beaten Wamuu in a fight, as a sign of respect to Caesar's sacrifice. The titular "100 vs 2" isn't actually terribly exciting, other than the revelation that, hey, Kars has a lot of minions. There's a bit of a bluff play deal going on, which isn't super-exciting, but we do get the setup for the upcoming battle. There is no real reason for Kars not to just murder Lisa Lisa with his army of vampires the moment he ascertains that they brought the stone, but it did allow us to get the upcoming fights, so there's that.

We also get the revelation that Lisa Lisa is apparently the baby girl that Jonathan Joestar and Erina saved at the end of Part 1 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which honestly was a genuine plot twist at that time. The fact that she's related to Joseph, even tangentially as is revealed in this episode, puts a lot of the perverted shit Joseph says about her into new perspective, yeah?

In any case, though, this episode is a bit of a lull, more of an acknowledgement of the sacrifice Caesar made, with the final shot being Joseph putting on Caesar's bandana, as well as the setup that the battle between Joseph and Kars will take place on a coliseum-style chariot battle. It's all well and good, though it does make this episode a slight bore to watch.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Wired Beck is named after guitarist Jeff Beck and his album, Wired.