Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan OVA E01: Manners Maketh Man

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, Episode 1: Millionaire Village

So yeah, a while back, they did a couple of OVA's for the spinoff for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, "Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan", starring Rohan from Part 4. As a supplementary spin-off from Part IV, these OVA's were originally included as bonus material for the Part 4 Blu-Rays or something, and I've not gotten the chance to watch them until relatively recently. While I am preparing myself for the Stone Ocean anime's second and third batches, I thought I'll watch these OVA's.

The Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan stories have all been pretty interesting. Other than Rohan's own Heaven's Door, no traditional Stand battles appear, but... it really does fit into the strangeness of the JoJo world. Part 1 and 2 crafted a bizarre world even before the introduction of Stands, and even in Part 4, we do get creepy things that are technically not Stands like the ghosts, Mikitaka, or the ghost alley.

The stories -- and these OVA's -- get new framing animation of Rohan telling this to Okuyasu, Koichi and a non-speaking Jotaro, providing a bit more of a tie-in to Diamond is Unbreakable beyond Rohan's presence. We start off the 'Millionaire Village' with Rohan talking to his editor Izumi, who is... a bit over-enthusiastic about talking about how Rohan should use a mountain villa as a reference for his next manga. Rohan goes through a glorious oi oi oi oi oi oi oi rant, and Izumi ends up letting Rohan know that there are a lot of successful young men who went up to the village, bought a house there and became super-successful. There are some fun jokes about how Rohan questions Izumi if she's going to buy the villa as reference, or if it's Shueisha making the purchase. 

Seriously, though, I don't think Shueisha will randomly drop, like, a couple million yen just to buy mountain villas as an artistic 'research'. 

Did feel like the exposition about the mountain villa is a bit too long and takes up a bit too much time for what's essentially just Rohan and Izumi talking to each other, but this isn't a typical JoJo action-packed episode. Rohan and Izumi hike to the outskirts of the village and rescue a little baby bird, and Izumi emphasizes on Rohan the sheer attention on decorum that the villagers have. A strange, black-eyed servant called Ikkyu greets them, and leads them into a waiting room. 

Rohan and Izumi are served tea, quickly realizing that this is a hidden test to see whether they can comply with manners. As soon as Izumi grabs the teacup, however, Ikkyu opens the door to inform them that Izumi had made three offenses. They sat on the wrong-facing chairs, they stepped on the tatami borders, and Izumi hooks her finger into the teacup. It's an exaggeration of the politeness demanded by certain people, except, of course, the price to pay is much deadlier than just snotty rich people scoffing at you. 

Izumi begs for a second chance and Ikkyu walks out... and the anime does a pretty great job at drawing the shadowy menacing aura around Ikkyu and the aura, as Rohan realizes that something's not quite right. The baby bird in his pocket explodes into a geyser of blood and bugs, while Izumi is called and found out that her mother and fiancee died in a car crash. Hysterical, Ikkyu walks in to reveal that his masters had agreed for a second chance. 

Rohan gets angry and uses Heaven's Door, reading about what Ikkyu's true nature is. The 'gods of the mountain' are the ones responsible here, and we get a pretty creepy showcase of the trees being distorted to ghoulish, angry faces. Ikkyu continues to emphasize that manners are absolute, and talks about how the gods of the mountain give and take as they will. Izumi begins to have a heart attack in response to Rohan's breach of etiquette (turning someone into a book is rude!) but Rohan demands a second chance. 

Ikkyu gives Rohan an ear of corn, but then shows that he's able to get past the 'traps' of chopsticks, forks and knives because the way to eat a corn is with both hands. Ikkyu doesn't realize that he's been affected by Heaven's Door, and ends up breaking etiquette by stepping on the tatami lines. Thus, Rohan ends up getting the bird and Izumi's family back (the latter is established in the epilogue). Ikkyu is angry, but as Rohan reminds him, the rules of manners are absolute, and walks out of the mountain victorious. 

And, again, the story itself doesn't really 'build up' into the story of Diamond is Unbreakable, and is just something fun for Rohan Kishibe to do. It feels like a standalone episode in a series of standalone 'a Stand user is walking around exploring stuff' thing. It's very... well, creepy horror aside, it's a relatively faithful, well-voiced and well-animated from the source material. Individual chapters of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan are extremely self-contained anyway, so it is kind of an ideal thing to adapt out of order, or to adapt the 'series' incompletely. Pretty fun, pretty creepy... and sure, it doesn't add much to the Part 4 story as a whole (unlike something like Purple Haze Feedback or Crazy Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak) but it's neat to just have a light-hearted, standalone story, y'know? 

Random Notes:

• The official numbering follows the chapter of the one-shot series this is based on, which is 'Episode 5', but we'll do it per release schedule for simplicity's sake. There is also a live-action TV Drama, which I'll probably review when I'm done with the Stone Ocean anime. 
• I do wonder if the random pre-drawing exercise is something that Araki also does? 
• Akira (Red Hot Chili Peppers) shows up in the background of the present-day scenes. 
• The names might sound pretty normal, but as with any JoJo material, there's some reference! Izumi Kyoka is named after a Japanese writer. 
• Wait, how does the Isetan on the mountain villa village really work?