JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo S04E23 Review: Alternate Win Condition

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Golden Wind, Season 4, Episode 23: Clash and Talking Head

Yeah, I caught up with JoJo, and sort of... failed to keep up with the anime for a month or so. Mea culpa, things have been pretty hectic in real life. I'll try to keep this review relatively short.

This is basically the ending of the Squalo/Tiziano two-parter, and, honestly... the powers of Clash and Talking Head are interesting, with Clash in particular seeming particularly imaginative with how its a robot shark that can just zip around and teleport from liquid to liquid while carrying its prey. But it apparently can't just... kill Giorno the moment it gets away from Narancia? For being supposedly super-elite mafia assassins, Squalo and Tiziano take their sweet, sweet time doing anything, and this odd pacing honestly feels pretty off compared to how well-paced and tense all other Vento Aureo fights have been.

Honestly, if not for the fact that Squalo and Tiziano are openly gay for each other (which the anime definitely makes a lot more obvious compared to the manga, where you're not sure if it's just the art style or if they are intentionally gay), I'm pretty sure that this storyline would've been pretty much been easily forgotten. Instead of using the robot shark to rend and main Giorno, we spend a good chunk of the episode with Clash trying to "dispose" of Giorno's body in the sewers, allowing Narancia's Aerosmith to track them, and it's supposedly Narancia's solo fight against these two mafioso who's taken away his credibility and separated him from the rest of his party.

Which, by the way, is a writing choice that has the side-effect of making Bruno and the others look utterly buffoonish just to facilitate this bit. The entire group is just standing around Abbacchio's Moody Blues as it just gets stuck like a torn tape in the cup, because it apparently can't duplicate Clash's teleportation ability.

It's still some good show for Narancia, though, with him quickly figuring out what's going on, getting some good hits on Clash that injures Squalo via the if-Stand-gets-injured rule, and even slices up Clash with propellers. Tiziano lets Narancia think that he can speak the truth for a while, causing him to give the wrong warning to the rest of the group and causing Mista to fire into an exploding gas tank.

And with the rest of the group dispatched, Narancia walks into the crowd to hunt down Tiziano and Squalo. And Narancia keeps talking about how "I found you!" while Tiziano and Squalo insist that Narancia can't possibly find them and it's all mind-games, apparently Narancia cut off his own tongue with a knife, dislodging Talking Head (somehow without Tiziano realizing), and used a new tongue that Giorno created from a ladybug to replace his severed tongue... and it's this display of brutality that will cause the two mafia hitmen to get a sudden breathing change since they'll be actively looking out for Narancia.

Tiziano jumps in the way and takes the initial shot, allowing Squalo to use the liquid from his blood to summon Clash... but Narancia just continues to fire and VORA-VORA-VORA-VORA's Squalo to death. Volare via indeed. I do like how the anime has Narancia's volare via be a more subdued, quiet declaration, as opposed to the loud yell from the games.

And... and it's still a badass moment, but honestly, so much of this fight's conclusion hinges of what is probably supposed to be interpreted as mindgames, but just felt like a drawn-out conclusion and a repeat of the whole Little Feet fight on whether Narancia's radar can track a missing enemy... except Clash and Talking Head are both executed less well than Little Feet. I dunno. For someone who's supposed to be the super-elite bodyguards of The Boss, and supposedly being a head up compared to the execution squad, the way that Squalo and Tiziano dick around with their Stands really make them feel a whole lot less impressive than Little Feet or White Album. Considering the other members of the Elite Guard is going to involve what's essentially a suicide bomber and a pair of sadistic nutjobs, that really doesn't put the Elite Guard in much of a positive light as combatants.

And as a whole, the Squalo/Tiziano fight is probably the least interesting JoJo has been for me in a while. Part V as a whole tended to really avoid the "oh, it's another Stand battle" that plagued Part III and made the pacing feel so sluggish. It doesn't help that Talking Head in particular is kind of an underwhelming Stand, but there's just so much missed opportunity, y'know? The Bucciarati squad end up looking like fools more than usual in this one, Squalo and Tiziano really don't have much going on beyond "they're lovers", Clash is taking forever to kill Giorno... and most importantly, despite this supposedly being the big Narancia moment... while he certainly does have a badass fight at the end, I really sort of wished the arc would explore a bit more of Narancia's resolve particularly after his indecisiveness when deciding to follow Bucciarati or something. I dunno.