JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo S04E14 Review: Turtle Express

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Season 4, Episode 14: Express Train to Florence

This episode's more of a setup episode for the next pair of villains, Prosciutto and Pesci, who's a pretty fun pair of villains and probably the few examples of villains-of-the-week in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure who would display some decent camaraderie with each other. But we'll really talk about that in the next episode. I do remember really liking the train arc of Vento Aureo, though!

We get a brief handwave (hee) that Abbacchio apparently had his hand 'reattached' with no fuss -- which is a huge shame since we could've had some permanent consequence to that fight. The mysterious instructions from the Boss tells Team Bucciarati to take Trish by train after visiting a fountain with a turtle statue, and the mission to protect Trish will end once they reach Venice. And... and we get some fun bits with Fugo and Mista enjoying Trish's ample assets, with Fugo accidentally slamming into Trish's boobs and Mista apologizing in a way that insinuates that Fugo did it on purpose. The scene is actually significantly censored compared to the manga, which showed some nipple.

Of course, apparently the Boss's vague instructions nearly lead to the death of Team Bucciarati yet again, and it's actually pretty bizarre that the boss would give so much resources to them yet at the same time give instructions that require some leaps of logic to really interpret properly. In this case, despite the specified fountain having multiple key holes, none of them fit the actual key left behind in Pompeii, and it's not until the last second that Bucciarati figures out where the key fits in -- a turtle's shell -- and it's just their luck that the turtle's Stand allows the entire team to escape Prosciutto and Pesci as they try to pincer-attack the Bucciarati Team.

Let's talk about Prosciutto and Pesci for a bit. We've seen the nebbish Pesci a bit in the flashback sequence for the execution squad, but we get to see a bit more. Pesci gets admonished by his 'big bro' Prosciutto for saying "I'm going to kill him", noting that for assassins, the phrase does not exist in their world. They can only say "I have killed him" after the job is done.

And I do like how this part of the episode is kind of the reverse of the typical JoJo episode. Instead of our heroes trying to figure out the enemy's Stand, this time it's Prosciutto and Pesci trying to figure out the specifics of the Stand Bucciarati used to seemingly disappear, noting that Bucciarati picked something as he ducked into the train, and probably used whatever that is to escape.

We get to see Pesci's Stand, Beach Boy, which is a Stand that manifests as a weapon -- a fishing rod! And its line can just freely pass through walls and floors, and Pesci can manipulate the hook and basically 'detect' the details of whatever unfortunate human gets hooked by Beach Boy's hook. We get a gruesome bit where Pesci hooks the train driver through the mouth and is utterly confused when he realizes that there's only a single person in the cabin, when Beach Boy detects two living things. While I can understand if Pesci's self-deprecating attitude might cause him to doubt his own senses, it's a bit inexcusable that Prosciutto (who we later learn knows about Sticky Fingers) doesn't start suspecting that the second person is hiding somewhere.

Of course, it's at this point that the audience learns of the turtle (Coco Jumbo!) and his Stand, which is... the ability to shrink them down and hide in the fully-stocked room within the key. We get some talk from Bucciarati's team noting how turtles will always hide in the shade, and Narancia briefly demonstrates how the shrinking ability works.

Pesci very nearly looks under the chair when a misty miasma comes into the cabin, causing Pesci to freak the hell out. This is Prosciutto's Stand, the Grateful Dead, which design-wise is probably one of my favourite villain Stands. Its just half of a person's body, with long gorilla arms, eyes all over the Stand's body, and from the bottom part of the torso a bunch of tendril-entrails just wriggle around. It's ability is apparently to cause everyone to become old... and that includes Team Bucciarati.

It's interesting that this effect is apparently triggered and regulated by body temperature, something that is kind of an old wives' tale, but ends up being bizarrely incorporated into this storyline as a major plot point. And unlike the pretty poor understanding of the antivenom stuff in the Purple Haze storyline, this one at least manages to sort of be more believable as a mechanic, I guess.

And I've seen people pointing out that Grateful Dead is basically sort of a nastier, reverse version of Set from Stardust Crusaders, where it's an age-manipulating Stand whose effect is applied by something you can't see. But in this case, Grateful Dead's miasma turns you old, with a pretty horrifying sequence of Narancia getting old and senile while eating a decomposing banana. Bucciarati quickly figures out that since only half the group is affected (only he, Mista and Trish are spared), they are still safe within the turtle since if they're really found out, the execution squad would've used a more direct approach.

And they sort of realize that this is a way to spare Trish, with Bucciarati noting that apparently Grateful Dead operates under the (incorrect IRL) assumption that women are less susceptible to changes in temperature, and that both Bucciarati and Mista just drank cold water, and this lowered their temperature enough to be spared the effects of Grateful Dead. Plus as a tortoise with immense lifespan, Coco Jumbo is just plain unaffected by the mere addition of a couple of decades, which is genuinely clever. But... but we actually see random women extras in the background aging, so I dunno.

They figure out that they can temporarily reverse the effects of Grateful Dead with ice -- and Pesci is munching on the ice in the restaurant cabin, which is funny. Mista comes out of Coco Jumbo to hunt down the enemy. The thing, though, is that Mista assumes that there's only a single enemy (he's getting used to the villain-of-the-week format, it seems) and when Mista tries to switch on the air conditioning system for the train, apparently Pesci has laid a trap there, and we get to see the hook of Beach Boy zip through Mista's hand and up his arm.

Overall, that's a fun little cliffhanger as the two teams finally engage each other. It's a pretty great introduction for three different Stands, and with both parties trying to figure out the other's Stand is a genuinely pretty fun sequence. In Stardust Crusaders the bad guys know all about the good guys' Stands, and in Diamond is Unbreakable no one ever really has to figure the good guys's Stand out, so this honestly stands out as a pretty interesting twist on the formula.

The JoJo Playlist:

• The turtle is called Coco Jumbo, and its Stand is called Mr. President. This is, of course, a reference to the 90's band Mr. President, and their single Coco Jamboo.
• Beach Boy is a reference to the Beach Boys, a 60's American rock band. Selected discography include Wouldn't It Be Nice, Good Vibrations, God Only Knows and Then I Kissed Her.
• The Grateful Dead
   (Za! Gurettofuuruuu deddohh! I love the hammy pronunciation for this one. It's no Red Hot Chili Pepper, but it's still fun)
   is named after a 60's American rock band, and among their more well-known singles are Ripple, Truckin', Touch of Grey and Scarlet Begonias. 
• The ending song is still Freek'n You, but we get a brand-new animation sequence for it!