JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E35 Review: Are You Hanging To The Edge Of Your Seat

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 35: Another One Bites the Dust, Part 1

Yeah, we're going to do this episode-by-episode. There's enough to talk about in the final battle against Kira storyline that I definitely think that we could do an episode-by-episode run. So, like the previous "arc", we start off with a timestamp... and a little scene of Yoshihiro witnessing Reimi telling Koichi and Rohan that she knows who Hayato is.

And then we cut away to the Kawajiri household, where Hayato's clothes are strewn on the corridor outside the bathroom, with an oblivious Shinobu complaining about her son just going his own thing because "his clothes are as if he just exploded out of them." And we get a pretty tense scene of how Shinobu tries to get to the closet and Kira blocks her way... because Hayato's corpse is in the closet.  Definitely a pretty dark scene, and one that makes it really unclear if Kira is just going to flip out and forced to kill Shinobu.

And as Shinobu buggers off and Kira tries to figure out how to deal with Hayato's body, Yoshihiro shows up and tells Kira that Rohan and the others are on to him -- that, in fact, they're planning on coming and talking to the Kawajiri household tomorrow and asking Hayato about what's going on with that video camera. We get a scene of Kira in absolute despair as he chomps down on his nails, and it's a pretty vulnerable position -- I think that's what makes Kira so... relatable? He's a child-murdering psychopath with a fetish for hands, but on the other hand he's the only Big Bad in JoJo to ever really be shown in vulnerable situations instead of being this untouchable big bad that's only going to be beaten at the end.


Of course, Kira Yoshikage is still a Big Bad, and we do get a bit of a convenient power-up as the arrow suddenly pierces Kira's hand in a pretty graphic way, stabbing all the way up his arm and into his neck from Yoshihiro's photograph. A bit of an asspull, perhaps, but then the Arrow's sort of a plot device that's been around throughout the entire Part, and to have it merge (???) with Kira and unlock even more powers within him isn't the worst way to introduce an eleventh-hour superpower -- that is, Killer Queen's "third ability".

We then start off with a timestamp -- July 16th, 7.30 a.m., and we go through this rather extended sequence of a normal morning as Hayato wakes up, in a daze after spending a sleepless night thanks to a nightmare, wondering what he should do now with the evidence in the video cassette. Meanwhile, Kira is just being happy and eating his breakfast, behaving like a dad. Kira's brushing his hair and... and somehow by brushing his hair, he turns that head of black hair into white with black streaks? Only in anime, boys, only in anime.

The morning scene plays out in a somewhat long way -- a missed phone call, Shinobu being angry at Hayato for being in a daze, a broken teacup... and then Kira walks with Hayato together "to school", and Kira name-drops his true identity of Kira Yoshikage, telling Hayato that he is not going to kill him this time around, because he's "matured". Hayato is shaken as to why Kira is so insanely confident,  lacking the subterfuge and cat-and-mouse game that they've had over the past couple of episodes, and especially jarring for the audience because we know exactly what's wrong with Hayato -- he should be dead, and he's lost memory of the encounter in the bathroom.

Hayato ends up encountering Kishibe Rohan, who recognizes Hayato from the photographs, and immediately uses Heaven's Door to open and read Hayato's memories. Interestingly, the way Heaven's Door tended to be countered is usually because whoever Rohan is reading doesn't actually know the information he's looking for (Reimi; Cheap Trick's original user), but this time around, in perhaps the most unsettling way, within the bookified Hayato, Rohan reads a warning: "do not read any further". And then within Hayato's memories are predictions of the future -- when some dude will walk by with his fly down, and the precise time that a lightning bolt will strike. And then Rohan reads the evidence that Hayato knows -- that his dad is Kira.

And then, in a pretty unsettling bit, "Kishibe Rohan was also killed." At this point, a miniature Killer Queen shows up from within the pages, and this is "Bites the Dust", the third bomb from Killer Queen... and it's apparently 'leaped' into the inner part of Rohan's eyeball as it clicks -- and blows up Rohan. Apparently, Kira's planted this third bomb within Hayato, which will jump into whoever Hayato reveals Kira's identity to, and blow whoever the offender is up. And Rohan... Roahn straight-up dies, struggling to reach Jotaro and Koichi, who's half a block away, before blowing up similarly to Kakyoin, desperate to relay a piece of information to his allies.

And then, suddenly... we get the timestamp again, starting off at the morning of July 16th, with Hayato waking up from a nightmare.... except this time around, Hayato remembers the nightmare more clearly. Events happen that seem similar to what he (and the audience) has seen earlier, and it's, of course, a groundhog day loop. This, of course, ends up being the rather complex -- but honestly quite interesting -- final power of Killer Queen. As the final evolution of Killer Queen (and Part IV has been dealing with evolving Stands). The rather complex explanation will be told in the next episode (all we got is confirmation from Kira to Yoshihiro that Bites the Dust has time-rewinding powers), but it's clear that time manipulation is the name of the game... although, interestingly, Kira seems to have no idea of this 'alternate' timeline.

Overall, while the sudden shift of focus from the main cast to Hayato is sdefinitely a bit of a controversial writing chioce for Diamond is Unbreakable's climax -- especially considering a significant portion of the main cast are actually going to sit the climax out -- it's still a neat little storyline and definitely a very, very horrifying POV. Hayato is... he's kind of an irritating character at times, but a child who doesn't know jack all about Stands but is trapped in his horror story where his dad has been replaced by a superpowered serial killer, and he's unwittingly used as a pawn... it's honestly a pretty interesting direction for the narrative to take, and it does make for one of the most tense and engaging climaxes.

The JoJo Playlist:

• "Bites the Dust", like all of Killer Queen's various bombs, is, of course, a reference to another Queen song -- Another One Bites The Dust, one that's perhaps one of the most appropriate songs ever thematically for the upcoming fight. (Also, yes, the title of this review -- and probably the rest of the climax -- are lyrics from that song)