JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E04-05 Review: Toy Soldiers

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episodes 4-5: The Nijimura Brothers, Pt. 2-3

So after taking down Okuyasu, the younger Nijimura brother, the second and third parts of the Nijimura Brothers multi-part episode sort of acts as the big finisher for this first part of Diamond is Unbreakable. Sort of like the big event when playing an RPG and the first 'main quest' style quest, I suppose, but by far a huge stretch from actually getting to the 'good parts' of the plot.

We're quickly introduced to the character quirks of Nijimura Keicho, the elder brother, whose little character quirk is that he's super methodical. In JJBA's unique way of explaining, he is "a man who will always listen to the first disc before the second disc", and he is very, very insistent about that.

And as Keicho unleashes his Stand from the darkness, Okuyasu charges in, intent on fixing his mistakes... and gets riddled with small holes all over his face. Keicho scoffs at his utterly incompetent brother dragging him down, and continues to fire with his unseen Stand and creating more tiny holes all over the place, not caring if his little brother gets caught in the crossfire.

Josuke, of course, saves Okuyasu, dragging him out of a hole he makes on the wall with Crazy Diamond (which instantly repairs itself), and after an attempted interrogation session with Okuyasu, who refuses to tell Josuke anything even while wounded... Josuke heals Okuyasu, something that utterly baffles Okuyasu. Especially when he realizes that Josuke basically sacrificed an arm to drag him out. Josuke notes that there's no reason for Okuyasu to die, and I think this is the arc that really hammers in that Josuke isn't a stone-cold killer. Which actually makes Jotaro a lot more psychotic now that you think of it.

And then Okuyasu returns the favour by choke-holding Josuke as he enters the Nijimura house, but that's just to use The Hand to drag Koichi's body (man, poor Koichi's just so broken in these scenes) towards Josuke so he doesn't have to walk into the trap. However, poor, confused Okuyasu then just decides to be neutral after that one favour, not betraying his brother any further.

And then as Josuke heals Koichi, we actually see the true form of Bad Company, Keicho's Stand, which is an adorable swarm of little toy soldier-men! While not all Stands manifest in humanoid ghost-robot forms in Stardust Crusaders, there's a lot more of these deviant-looking Stands in Diamond is Unbreakable, and I've always really liked Bad Company as these mummified army men toys that also comes with a bunch of tanks and Apache helicopters as well.

They just chase down Josuke and Koichi around the house, and it actually took Josuke (and your average viewer) some time to realize that, hey, Koichi can actually see the little toy soldiers and have been reacting to them, and both Josuke and Keicho notes that, huh, Koichi has become a Stand-user. The thing is, Koichi can't really make his Stand properly come out and throwing around terms just makes the poor kid really confused.

All he manages to bring out... is a little white egg that doesn't do anything, and he ends up just sort of being a bit of a liability and a prop in this arc's battles. That's okay, though. Koichi's going to have a lot of chances to shine. It's really interesting, honestly, just how Part 4 really tries to explain the mythology of Stands and its origins and Stand Usage 101 because everyone in Stardust Crusaders is just instantly an expert.

Episode 4 ends with Koichi out of the fight,  and then Josuke sitting calmly in the ground as Bad Company unleashes all its armaments onto Josuke. Meanwhile, Josuke uses Crazy Diamond to repair the missiles fired onto him (and he purposedly took) and have them fly towards Keicho's face and take him out.

Bad Company is kinda unique, but the way Keicho's taken out is sorta just quick, huh? The fifth episode doesn't really have much in lieu of a fight scene, with the actual Nijimura Brothers fight being done in the fourth episode, but there is a fair bit of story being told in this part.

Koichi refuses to let the Bow and Arrow be left behind because it could be used to hurt people, but in the Nijimura's attic, they instead find this grotesque green blob-monster who instantly regrows its arm when Josuke chops it off in reflex. A wounded Keicho shows up and explains that this green creature is their father, and he reveals that he has been shooting people with the bow and arrow in order to look for a specific Stand (really dangerous MO there), one that can actually kill his father, because Keicho just wants to let him die normally.

Apparently Nijimura's father is an abusive little scumbag that beats up his children, and apparently he is also one of the many people with "Stand Potential" that joined Dio during the events of Stardust Crusaders, and was rewarded with a lot of money during that part. Not surprising considering Dio's huge mound of treasure. Apparently Nijimura's father never really got out of Japan, so, um... just what did he do? Apparently Dio implanted a flesh bud in his head, and upon Dio's death in Egypt at the end of Crusaders, the flesh bud goes crazy, and makes Nijimura's father to become mutated into this sorry state that can't die.

Is this the end for all of Dio's minions that didn't get killed by Jotaro and company? How many of them weren't controlled by flesh buds, anyway? Some people like Daniel D'Arby, Boingo, Oingo and Hol Horse are explicitly not killed, so are they flesh monsters now, too?

Whatever the case, though, somehow, despite all the Speedwagon Agents in Egypt and Keicho being a kid, Keicho manages to get the Bow and Arrow after Enya's death. Which is, I think, one of the weirder, bigger plot holes in this backstory. Presumably Keicho only got the Stand after obtaining the bow, so how did he get that? The dude's just a kid back there!

Whatever the case, though, we get distracted from Keicho's story's  plot holes when Keicho starts just kicking his father's face into a pulp, noting just how worthless this barely-sentient creature is, and how he's obsessed with a box in the attic. Josuke realizes what Nijimura's dad is trying to do, though, and uses Crazy Diamond to restore the scraps of paper there, returning it into a photo of the Nijimura brothers as children -- the way that Nijimura's dad's broken brain remembers.

Okuyasu shows up at this point, and he and Josuke asks Keicho why he didn't look instead for a Stand to cure their father. Keicho is all "no, I can't!" because he's killed so many people and doesn't see a way out for redemption, which... which is kind of fair, really. But just as Keicho starts to be brought around to their way of thinking, an electrical outlet starts to sparkle, and this yellow duck-kappa-pterodactyl-robot creature comes out of it and attacks. This is REDDO HOTTOH CHIRI PEPPAH (the way the VA pronounces this is just nothing short of glorious), and he goes straight for the Nijimura brothers.

Keichi pushes Okuyasu away, and gets punched straight through the chest, and I genuinely forgot just how horrifying Keichi's death is. No one present can do anything without getting electrocuted themselves, and Keichi just gets transformed into electricity and slowly sucked into the electrical outlet while his body breaks apart into electrical fizzles, helpless to do anything with Bad Company, all the while he's cursing Okuyasu for being a burden... and then our heroes look out and see Keichi's burnt body left on some power lines. Looks like a new big bad just deposed the old big bad, and that's not counting the huge amount of Stand-users Keichi left all over Morioh with his indiscriminate, desperate bow-and-arrow shooting.

Still, Josuke and Koichi seem to have a new ally in Okuyasu, who notes with melancholy that his brother was twisted enough by his goals and methods that he's going to end up with an ugly fate whatever the case, but Okuyasu also notes that Keichi's last act is an attempt to save him. Not a bad end for at least one of the Nijimura brothers, and one thing that makes Diamond is Unbreakable so much well-written than Stardust Crusaders is comparing how Koichi and Okuyasu "joins the party" compared to how Kakyoin and Polnareff did, where they are just villains-of-the-week that end up being freed of mind control. Okuyasu's the same, but his actual character development and grudging respect for Josuke is definitely shown very well in these two episodes.

The episode also ends in a cliffhanger with Katagiri (a.k.a. Red Hot Chili Pepper guy) calling Jotaro and telling him and his allies to just leave him alone (and he won't bother them), but with the Bow in Katagiri's hands, it's clear that that's not going to happen. Overall, though, the story's definitely got a great focus on the Nijimura brothers, and I'm definitely a big fan of this little mini-arc. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• Nijimura Keicho's stand, Bad Company, is named after the English hard rock supergroup of the same name, and one of the classics of 70's-80's era rock. Among their more prominent songs are Bad Company, Can't Get Enough, and, of course, Feel Like Makin' Love.
• Most Part 4 Stands ended up being changed in English localizations, with Bad Company being changed to "Worse Company"... which is hilariously dumb, because they leave the actual English letters of BADCOMPANY on Keicho's neck collar untouched. 
• REDDO HOTTO CHIRRI PEPPAHH, or, well, Red Hot Chili Pepper is named after the American rock band of the same name, with some of their more notable songs including Otherside, Californication and Dani California