JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S04E01 Review: Ciao Italia!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo, Episode 1: Gold Experience

Welcome to my coverage of Vento Aureo, the fifth Part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure! This is another part where the artstyle has gotten a noticeable makeover. There is significant artstyle shifts from Part 2 to 3, and a more significant one halfway through Part 4 (or straight up at the beginning of Part 4, for anime viewers), but Part 5 is one where you really notice the difference in art style, and how the entire cast has changed from being manly men made up of 95% muscle by body mass, has turned into a bunch of gloriously-dressed, lightly-built handsome men. This change in artstyle honestly fits the theme of Vento Aureo with its focus on villainous capers and the general style of 2001-era Italy, and I'd argue that the artstyle ends up fitting the story as much as Jonathan Joestar's muscled form fits the hammy tone of Phantom Blood.

Anyway, it's 2001 in-universe, and we are quickly introduced to the city of Naples. A beautiful, picturesque city that's also plagued with pickpockets and corrupt policemen -- one of which is some dude with a shovel that beats up other scammers for not paying protection money.  We follow around this blonde boy dressed in a purple suit, with some... exotic fashion choices like the male version of Power Girl's boob-window, and three... donuts or something in his hair? It's also a bit more apparent that this kid does resemble old villain Dio Brando -- a fact that is certainly emphasized more by the anime's colours. It's something that genuinely took my by surprise in the manga.

This boy is Giorno Giovanna (pronounced Joruno Jobana in katakana, hence the "JoJo"), who seemingly is a gentleman that helps a bunch of tourists from a thief... but also ends up using his Stand ability to pickpocket from the same tourists he helped... but turning the bills into butterflies. I do love the little slow burn as to just what Giorno's Stand ability is, unlike Crazy Diamond, whose abilities is kind of spelled out for the audience in the very first episode.

None of these setup scenes exist in the manga, by the way, but they do wonders for setting up the scene of 2001-era Italy in the JoJo-verse.

And then, interestingly enough, just like how Parts 3 and 4 start off, we follow one of our protagonists and main characters from the previous part as he encounters Giorno... but it's not Josuke, but rather... Koichi! Who's sent to Italy to investigate a person called  "Haruno Shiobana" at the directions of Jotaro. In exchange for Jotaro paying for all of Koichi's expenses.

I could go on and debate the ethics of sending Koichi to do his investigation work, but still, Koichi is at least a Stand user. Koichi, of course, by sheer coincidence, meets Giorno, and despite his suspicion, ends up riding Giorno's fake-taxi. Of course, Giorno's running a scam and drives off with Koichi's luggage, causing Koichi to summon Echoes to stop the car... but Giorno has somehow disappeared with Koichi's luggage, leaving behind nothing but a small frog inside the car that hops away.

Giorno has made his escape from Koichi, but is confronted by the shovel-wielding "Leaky-Eyed" Luca, the local gangster, who is pissed that Giorno has been operating scams without paying his tithe. Luca and Giorno have a bit of an argument, which leads to Luca striking the frog with his shovel... causing the wound to be transferred onto the back of Luca's own head, killing him. This scene also tells us that Giorno has some connection to Dio, he has the Joestar birthmark on his neck... and the frog transforms into Koichi's luggage, which, again, hints more at the true nature of Giorno's ability.

We follow a panicked Koichi -- because losing his passport in a foreign country is certainly a bit of a horror show. We also get the pretty smart handwave of Koichi being able to converse fluently with these Italian characters because Rohan used Heaven's Door to write in "can speak Italian" into Koichi. That's clever.

Koichi then, of course, meets Giorno again, and uses Echoes to pull Giorno's hand down onto the table. Giorno realizes that Koichi has "abilities" and his car's malfunction wasn't a fluke, causing Giorno to...summon a goddamn tree to help him escape. Koichi attacks the tree, only to have the attack reflected back onto him just like Luca. Thankfully Koichi wasn't trying to kill Giorno, something that Giorno remarks and commends... but he certainly has no intention of returning any of the stolen money to Koichi.

We really have a stark contrast between Giorno and Josuke from the get-go, huh? Both are still technically protagonists, but where Josuke is the gentlest person around and a mischievous devil-may-care schoolboy whose only kill is a rat and a ghost-photograph (Enigma and Angelo are technically not killed), whereas Giorno has no qualms about killing. He's also, y'know, a straight-up criminal, and the illegitimate son of Dio-while-combined-with-Jonathan's-body, as Koichi finds out. Koichi notes, though, that Giorno doesn't "feel" like that evil of a person despite being Dio's son. And that's going to be an interesting angle to take -- just how much of the Dio and Joestar blood will show up in Giorno?

(Also, don't think too much as to how Dio manages to pass down his genes when he presumably reproduces with Jonathan's naughty parts. Between being a vampire and a Stand user, you can handwave anything)

The final scene follows Giorno as he enters a tram, and encounters a mysterious bob-haired man in a white suit, who initially acts friendly... before going on a rant about how he can lick someone's sweat to find out if someone is lying. This man quickly introduces himself as a member of Luca's gang, and wants to ask Giorno about his death, considering Giorno was the last person to see him. Giorno lies, of course, but then suddenly discovers an eyeball in his fist, and then Luca's chopped-off fingers spills out of his mouth, in a pretty damn creepy sequence. A horse's head's got nothing on this! A zipper also opens up on Giorno's cheek... and the white-shirted man introduces himself as Bruno Bucciarati as he licks Giorno's cheek, and this leads into a Stand fight almost immediately.

So this is kind of the setup for Vento Aureo. It's definitely a slower opening, and Giorno himself is pretty much a mystery... it's a nice touch to have Koichi show up and kind of be our little audience surrogate as we try to uncover just how evil (or how good) Giorno really is, while Giorno himself finds himself embroiled in the intricacies of the mafias and gangsters of Italy.

I'm really excited about this! The production quality for Vento Aureo really have been ramped up a bit, and the stark colours used is a great contrast to the more pastel-y Diamond is Unbreakable. Part 5 has been one of the most controversial parts among the JoJo fans (partly because no good scans of Part 5 is available for a good long while) but it's another one that I genuinely really liked -- one that mixes Part 3's brutality and high-toned action and Part 4's respect for secondary characters. We'll see if, through reviewing the anime, my opinions will change!

The JoJo Playlist:

• Gold Experience is named after the Prince album, The Gold Experience. Some of the most famous songs from that album include Gold, I Hate U and The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.
• Giorno Giovanna apparently borrows his name from the Italian musician, Giovanni Giorgio Moroder.
• Luca is either a reference to Suzanne Vega's song Luka, or a reference to Luca Brasi, a character in famous Italian gangster novel/movie The Godfather -- the movie has been referenced a couple of times in Stardust Crusaders as well. 
• The fifth part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is technically "Ogon no Kaze", which is translated into either "Golden Wind" or "Vento Aureo" depending on which language you like more. I've been referring to it as Vento Aureo for years, so that's what we're sticking with.