JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo S04E24-25 Review: Deathrattle Triggered

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Golden Wind, Season 4, Episode 24: Notorious B.I.G.; Episode 25: Spice Girl

We've been a wee bit behind on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure! And to think I was so proud to have caught up to the weekly releases of the episodes. I guess I just will never ever be able to get a proper "review it as it comes out" schedule for anime, huh?

Anyway, I'm combining these two episodes into a single review since they're kind of a two parter as our protagonists ride an airplane to fly to Sardinia. We get a fun bit of our heroes basically ensuring the security of the plane, and apparently Giorno can detect the presence of life energy with Gold Experience now? Did we know that before this episode? We get a bit of a handwave and explanation for things like who's going to drive the ship (autopilot, mostly), how apparently no known Stand can operate to pursue the speed that airplanes travel in, and a brief lampshade to Bucciarati's mysterious zombie leg or whatever.

And then this huge, chunky and honestly slightly malformed dude with a questionable sense of fashion (what is up with those pants?) shows up, not speaking, not doing anything but walking towards them. Mista immediately murders the dude with several well-placed shots to this dude's head, killing him and apparently his bizarre, fleshy Stand as well. Everyone questions why this dude would show up just to get his ass killed, but then decide not to ponder about this particular victory too much and just get the heck out of dodge.

But then we get a nice bit of horror story going on as in the strange, enclosed space of the airplane, Giorno and Mista start to realize that something isn't quite right. Giorno suspects a remote-controlled Stand, and they find some random human finger bones in the freezer, and apparently when no one's looking, it increases in number. Without really caring for what the explanation is, Bucciarati just unzips the goddamn plane and allows the fingers to tumble out. But weird shit keeps happening, like Giorno seeing the random scribblings of some deranged man being written all over the plane's seats and tables, naming "Notorious Big" (it's pronounced "big", not B.I.G. like the actual rapper). We've had JoJo episodes that deals with horrific, unexplained powers straight out of a horror show, with this episode feeling like the first half of the High Priestess fight from Part 3.

And then we get to see Giorno's arm, which is apparently consumed by this growing, disgusting pulsing red tumour, the thing responsible for all the random writing. Giorno's attempt to slice off his own arm causes Gold Experience's arm to be consumed, but Mista just immediately shoots off Giorno's arm to stop the tumour-flesh-blob from spreading any further. They quickly realize that, well, this is most likely the Stand of the dude they killed in the airport, and this huge glob of flesh is just moving, and consuming, and has succeeded in eating four of Mista's six bullet-Stand gremlins in a pretty horrific scene.

I'm not sure how the people in Passione know exactly how Notorious Big works, considering that it apparently acts as a triggered-upon-the-user's-death ability. But that bizarre plot hole is left unanswered as our heroes are far, far more concerned on just how they will survive the assault of the pulsating red flesh.

As Narancia joins the fight with Aerosmith, and Trish gets attacked by this scuttling flesh-arm, our heroes quickly figure out that Notorious BIG is reacting to something, and that something is speed -- Aerosmith's quick movements, as well as Trish's panicked running. Giorno's experience with a muda muda barrage also quickly confirms that Notorious Big is able to match the speed of whatever the fastest thing in the room is, and we get a pretty neat sequence of them trying to get around the fact of having to fight Notorious Big without moving too quickly. Everyone basically wants Giorno out of the conflict because he's the only healer among the group, and apparently Gold Experience can only heal with contact from his fists, and Giorno's already lost an arm. Giorno eventually uses himself as bait, then smashes a window to suck Notorious Big out of the plane... but losing his other arm in the process.

It's a huge blow for the team, with Narancia and Mista being heavily injured by proxy of their Stands, while Giorno has lost both of his arms. The threat seems to have passed, and we focus a bit on Trish, who thinks about how Giorno and company really don't care about their future, but more on right-and-wrong... but then the horror show starts all over again when she realizes that there's a flesh blob rolling around on the plane wing. And, of course, as established before, now that Notorious Big is out of the plane, it's going to target the fastest thing and match its speed... which, of course, is the plane itself.

And as Notorious Big is about to attack, Trish herself realizes that Giorno left behind a brooch that transforms into his hand, realizing that the creepy disembodied hand is the ticket to restoring Giorno, and by proxy, the other injured members of Bucciarati's cell. The small problem? Trish doesn't have any fighting abilities, while a chunk of Big is inside the plane and has manifested into this creepy quasi-fetus-esque blobby form that just scoots about.

And... and that's the final shot of episode 24, and we move into episode 25 with Trish watching as Notorious Big slowly moves towards the convulsing brooch-hand, and the entirety of episode 25 is basically upgrading Trish from what's essentially just a walking plot device into an actual character that can defend herself, and while it is definitely a bit of baby steps going on as far as female empowerment goes, comparing her to previous female characters in JoJo and shonen manga in general, Trish is honestly being pretty damn badass here. Sure, this is practically the only time she's ever going to fight, but it's a pretty badass episode. She goes from trying to use the opportunity to hide before realizing that she's the only person that can rescue her newfound friends, initially distracting Notorious Big by manipulating chair recliners, while also moving veeeeery slowly to avoid BIG from attacking.

And very well damn near gets killed for it, because Notorious Big ends up attacking Trish's leg in response to some water droplets dripping from her leg thanks to a random shattered bottle from the earlier fight. Fortunately, her boot apparently slides off easily. I do like how Trish is still flip-flopping on whether she must be heroic or if it's a dumb idea to try and do something reckless.

And then a Stand with markings similar to King Crimson manifests, and this is Trish's Stand -- Spice Girl -- who is probably unique among most Stands in that she acts as a bit of a tutorial for Trish. The only time we've seen a Stand demand orders before is with the final Echoes form, and it's definitely... interesting? Spice Girls tells Trish that she's been around since she's small, that hesitation causes weakness, and as Trish goes to get the hand-brooch, Spice Girl ends up showing off her ability -- to harden or soften materials, and in this case, Spice Girl makes one of the plane seats so soft that Trish can pass through it like water, while it hardens to block and whack Notorious BIG back.

It's a bit of a very convenient coincidence that Trish's Stand is exactly the weakness of Notorious BIG, because Spice Girl doesn't change the velocity of any of the objects -- rather, it makes them soft and stationary, causing the things it manipulates to be invisible to Notorious BIG. Not sure of the logic behind the weird "making things softer is making them harder than diamond" line, though.

We get a bit of a sequence as Trish panics and dives into a random closet, against Spice Girl's advice of going straight for Bucciarati, but after a close shave of BIG grabbing onto Trish's top, Trish and Spice Girl manages to soften a clock to get BIG to attack the second hand of the clock but being unable to destroy it due to how soft it is, while Spice Girl uses a pole to very slowly inch into the enemy Stand and seemingly destroy it. It's... it's a bit of a shame that Trish doesn't really have a whole ton of agency in controlling how the fight goes, and is just giving orders to Spice Girl, but... eh.

And as the battle seems to be over and done with, turns out that a shard of Notorious BIG has expanded into a gigantic tumour blob, which has eaten into the engine section during the scuffle between Trish and BIG earlier. Bucciarati tells Trish to come towards him very slowly...

But then Trish gets super-determined, we get one of those palette-swaps that JoJo hasn't been using a whole lot in recent seasons, and Trish declares that BIG is going to come for her whether she runs quickly or slowly, before unleashing her Stand powers with a huge war cry of "WANNABEEEEE". It's corny as shit, but I love it. Essentially, as the plane's doomed to crash and plummet into the ocean, Trish turns the cockpit segment into a huge parachute, which would descend at a much slower rate. There's a brief bit with them dealing with the last little blob from the very, very notoriously persistent Stand, with Trish slicing off Bucciarati's hand to get rid of it, and revealing that she's got Giorno's hand safe and sound during the commotion. At least we did get this sequence of events, with Trish no longer just panicking while her Stand deals with everything, but goes through this last sequence of running, parachute-making, arm-saving and arm-slicing all on her own. That mollifies some of my complaints about the writing behind her.

It's an interesting way to deal with an ever-expanding Stand that potentially has no way to defeat, and I've seen a lot of fans note that Notorious BIG is probably one of the strongest non-final-villain Stands in the entire series. It's dropped into the ocean and apparently ends up becoming a gigantic kraken-style beast that just sort of terrorizes that part of the sea, forced to "track the crashing waves of the ocean forever" as this weird Bermuda Triangle esque "do not sail here" hazard?

After a neat little JoJo pose, we cut away to King Crimson, the Boss, who's still shrouded and we still haven't seen his face. King Crimson rants about his motives as he tries to figure out what's going on, especially since he can feel Trish's Stand awakening. He panics over the idea of Abbacchio and Moody Blues returning to a certain spot in a certain picture that Trish has access to in Sardinia, and decides to go to that place himself. There's a weird bit with a maid that's about to clean the room, but that sort of goes nowhere as King Crimson just disappears.

Overall, a pretty badass two-parter for Trish, and Notorious BIG has always been one of the more bizarre yet awesome Stands out there. Admittedly there were some moments where my suspension of disbelief is a bit shattered, like how slow BIG was moving during some of the times that Trish was running, and the sheer ridiculousness of just how much of a deus ex machina Giorno's ladybug brooches are. And... and it's sort of kind of a shame, too, because even though this two-parter really sets up Trish and the sentient Spice Girl as being a new core member of the cast... this is really the only fight Trish finds herself in. Overall, though, that's more the fault of the Part as a whole and not these two episodes. A lot of people don't really like the Notorious BIG fight all that much, but I kinda do.

The JoJo Playlist: 

• Notorious Big is based on the American rapper of the same name, and a particularly relevant album that he does to his Stand counterpart is Life After Death. Various other Notorious B.I.G. songs include Juicy, Big Poppa, Hypnotize and Suicidal Thoughts. 
• Notorious BIG's user is given as "Carne" in guidebooks and whatnot, which means flesh or meat in Italian. 
• Spice Girl is named after the English five-woman pop girl group Spice Girls, consisting of Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie Chrisholm, and are known as one of the (if not the) best-selling girl groups of all time. Trish's war cry, "Wannabe", is based on one of the Spice Girls' best-selling solos, Wannabe.