JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E11-12 Review: REDDO HOTTO CHILI PEPPAH

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episodes 11-12: Red Hot Chili Pepper

Man, I just love how hammy everyone is when they say "Red Hot Chili Pepper" in katakana. Is it a bit racist? Probably is, but it's definitely pretty dang entertaining. Honestly I kind of want to get  an anime of Part VII just so I can hear everyone call out "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".

Anyway, ever since Keicho Nijimura died, and the Bow and Arrow stolen by one of the Stand users he created, the unseen user of Red Hot Chili Pepper has been the driving main villain of this segment of the Part... although he hasn't really done much beyond reminding us that he exists every now and then. It's at this point when he finally decides to attack Josuke in the middle of playing his old-school Playstation, noting that he's biding time until he gains better control of Red Hot Chili Pepper. Chili Pepper's attempt to taunt Josuke ends up backfiring, though, because one Dorarararara barrage later, and it's sent to a retreat.

Josuke then gathers the other members of Team Morioh -- Okuyasu, Koichi and Josuke -- and we get some nice scenes of Okuyasu being utterly furious at the thought of coming up against the asshole who killed his brother. Jotaro also adds in a bit of a wrinkle -- they're going to bring in a Stand user that can help them detect the location of the Bow and Arrow, and that is the user of Hermit Purple... I'm not sure why Jotaro dragged out the revelation that Hermit Purple's user is actually Joseph Joestar, though. The audience certainly already knows, and it's a bit mean-spirited for him to do it to Josuke.

And then Red Hot Chili Pepper attacks, having hitched a ride on the battery within Okuyasu's motorcycle. And in a genuinely awesome usage of The Hand, Okuyasu just gets rid of the space in front of him to basically pull him forwards -- seems like he can control which way things are pulled towards, huh? The confrontation between Okuyasu and Red Hot Chili Pepper is genuinely pretty fun, once Okuyasu breaks the bike and makes use of his ability to move around at high speeds to get around the fact that he's far slower compared to Red Hot Chili Pepper.


But then, with Okuyasu holding Red Hot Chili Pepper at his mercy (they have to take him alive to interrogate him), it starts taunting Okuyasu and makes him doubt his victory, provoking Okuyasu to attack with The Hand to wipe out half of Red Hot Chili Pepper... but exposes electrical lines underground, which supercharges Red Hot Chili Pepper, who then drags Okuyasu into his doom into the power lines.

RIP Okuyasu, and Koichi is distraught... but Josuke just calmly knocks onto Okuyasu's arm with Crazy Diamond, which restores Okuyasu and 'pulls' him back. Yeah, just like The Hand, apparently Crazy Diamond can control which end the restored object reforms at, huh? Also very lucky that Okuyasu didn't die in the minute that Josuke and Jotaro are standing around and looking cool.

That's a bit unfortunate for poor Okuyasu, honestly, because while he did give a pretty good showing, he didn't quite manage to get his revenge against Chili Pepper.

The second episode deals with the fight on the harbour as Joseph's boat is approaching, and the team is split up -- Jotaro and Okuyasu goes off to the ferry to protect Joseph, while Koichi and Josuke are going to have to watch out for Red Hot Chili Pepper on the harbour -- they've established that Chili Pepper needs electrical appliances to actually move around, which means that he's likely to specifically use a remote-control plane to get to the boat. Not a speedboat, not anything else. Specifically a RC plane. Okay then.

We get brief bits of Josuke being conflicted about how he feels about old Joseph, his biological dad that's been missing all his life, but basically brushes it off as he's going to sort through it later, and he's not going to let an old man die.

And then Red Hot Chili Pepper's user shows up, and I genuinely forgot just how long Red Hot Chili Pepper lasted without showing the face of its user -- and Otoishi Akira is a metal guitarist followed around by his own glorious guitar solo soundtrack as he goes around saying OH YEAH and BABY and things like that because he's a goddamn rockstar, baby. We get a fun bit where he notes how he's going to beat them with only his pinkie finger... and then Josuke just calmly breaks said finger... but he ends up forcing that finger to bend back into shape and play a riff on his guitar which apparently strums out "I'm going to kill your mothers". And that's his entire goal -- just to spread his music and take over the world, somehow. Okay, Otoishi, you're... you're crazy.

The actual battle between Josuke and Otoishi isn't the most exciting, honestly, and feels a bit video game-y as Red Hot Chili Pepper just zips into drainage holes in the stage around Josuke, and just zips in and out and punches Josuke, while Koichi just... stands there and acts as a commentator. Dude, you have Echoes Act II! Do something with it! We get a fun bit as Josuke smashes the ground apart, and then uses Crazy Diamond to restore the concrete into asphalt to trap Chili Pepper as it attempts to come out of the hole... and then Otoishi gets serious and creates a gigantic electrical field and we get some genuinely fun Stand-on-Stand battles as Crazy Diamond and Red Hot Chili Pepper just zips around and punches each other with that electrical-distorted zmpppttttttt sound effect used for The World and The Hand.

Josuke ultimately traps Red Hot Chili Pepper inside a tire that he repairs, and when Chili Pepper punches out, the resulting outrush of air shoots Chili Pepper into the ocean, and it melts and breaks apart, leaving Otoishi seemingly catatonic.

Apparently Josuke and Koichi are utterly bad at making sure Otoishi's actually knocked out, though, because he isn't, and just disappears offscreen when Josuke and Koichi have their backs turned, and somehow gets abroad the Speedwagon ship? Eh. We get to see Joseph and he's kind of a shell of his former, boisterous self, being a quiet, borderline-senile old man who has a fun little conversation with Okuyasu. This ends up with Okuyasu having to choose between which of the two Speedwagon minions is the enemy when a half-broken Red Hot Chili Pepper shows up to kill Joseph... and just punches Otoishi in the face because, hey, when in doubt, punch both options! That's funny.

Also funny is Joseph mishearing Red Hot Chili Pepper as "Toppo Poppo Hato Poppoh?"

The meeting between Joseph and Josuke is pretty heartwarming as Josuke lends a hand to grab Joseph as he trips, and instead of repairing the walking stick, ends up allowing Joseph to hold his hand. Josuke might not quite like the situation that Joseph left his mother in, but he's not so much of an asshole to not give Joseph a chance. It's also nice to know that the next episode would actually have a bit more to develop these two's relationship.

And with Otoishi finally taken out, Jotaro notes that the next step is to find the Bow and hope no one else shows up to give them problem... and, of course, we cut away to the mysterious man holding a decapitated woman's hand. Yep, not ominous at all!

Overall, I kind of think that the back end of the Red Hot Chili Pepper fight ended up dragging on too long without too much of a variation on how Crazy Diamond beats things, but it's still a fun little two-parter that's honestly pretty dang kind to give Okuyasu a fair amount of screentime, even if not all of it is flattering. Otoishi himself is kind of a generic villain, but at least he's insanely hammy and pretty fun of a villain even if he doesn't really quite have much of a proper personality.