JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 37: Stairway to Heaven, Part 2
This is technically the final part of the 'Made in Heaven' fight, since the next episode isn't so much a fight as just the conclusion of everything. Pucci declares his intention to murder all of our heroes there, but then they begin escaping by abusing Ermes' Kiss and Emporio's ghost gun, duplicating a bullet and then using that bullet to drag the whole group along. It's... it's a miracle no one's arms got wrenched out of their socket, since they're literally outrunning Pucci, who's stated to be as fast as a bullet train.
Anasui tells Emporio to aim at the ocean, and... I'm not sure how a bullet can reach all the way into the middle of the ocean as they did, but okay, sure. The good guys figure out that Made in Heaven still can only attack them one at a time, and has regular strength at best. Anasui formulates a plan -- since he's the one Pucci is stated to be gunning for, Anasui will use himself as bait, allowing Jotaro to attack Pucci in that split second. Anasui also submerged Diver Down to his four allies, intending to take the hit for anyone who Pucci decides to attack in his stead... meaning that whoever Pucci hits, Anasui will take the damage.
Also, it's at around this point, in the long conversation they manage to have while they zip through the sky, that Jolyne decides that, yes, as a gesture of hope instead of despair, she'll agree with marrying Anasui after this is all over.
And then our heroes realize that time is accelerating even faster, because it's already the day. There are some calculations that our heroes do, and they realize definitively that living creatures are unaffected by the passage of this time. We do cut away to a TV news reporter with scientists and whatnot, where a reporter shows that a cup he's holding isn't affected by the acceleration, but if he lets go, it'll drop to the ground faster than the eye can see. We cut to a manga artist whose ink dries from the pen before they can put it to the paper, and only Kishibe Rohan, off-screen, is able to deal with this accelerated time.
I do like the imagery that the waves are moving so quickly that Pucci's high-speed movement ends up being hard to tell. And after a tense sequence, Pucci punches through Anasui's chest, allowing Jotaro to use Star Platinum: The World to stop time. However, Pucci does several things that causes Jotaro to flinch and lose a second or two.
And it's a great moment. It really is something that's pretty basic, the hero choosing to save his loved one from a mortal blow instead of delivering the finishing strike. I do like this moment a lot! Jotaro pushes Jolyne out of the way, and unleashes an ORA ORA ORA ORA barrage at Pucci... two seconds too late.
And in the split second as Star Platinum: The World stops its effect, Pucci attacks with Made in Heaven. Ermes tries to attack but gets murdered almost before she realized, and then Jotaro gets cut with a gash right down his face. We get one last moment between Jolyne and Jotaro. Jolyne confesses that she stole that car because she knew her dad would come and save her... and after a weak cry to his daughter (a great anime addition) Kujo Jotaro, the Stardust Crusader, falls down to the ground dead.
And yeah. Anasui, Ermes and Jotaro are all dead, leaving Jolyne and Emporio as the only ones standing. Jolyne manages to distract Pucci with a knife thrown into his eye and the two of them dive into the ocean. We get the rather fun, almost Superman-esque shot of Pucci also diving into the water at high speeds. It's revealed that Jolyne has used Stone Free to grab hold of a dolphin, making use of a dolphin's tendency to bring humans to shore to hitch a free ride.
I'm not sure if the logic holds up, but while Pucci moves within his own different perception of time, he's also limited by things like his own stamina and his lung capacity, meaning that Jolyne can equalize the speed while they're underwater.
However, as they move closer to the store, Jolyne realizes that she's weakening, and she remembers the sacrifices of her comrades... and lets Emporio go with the dolphin. Jolyne says that as a Joestar, Pucci will always be there to track him down. And there's that same mentality that Jotaro had, where a Joestar will always try to save their allies as the main priority. And there's that sentiment!
And so Jolyne Kujoh, the protagonist of Stone Ocean, stays behind to fight Pucci and Made in Heaven... cuts her string and faces off against Enrico Pucci... and dies.
We don't get to see her die, just butterflies flying through the sky.
I dunno. Again, I guess the idea here is that 'passing the torch to the future' is the big theme, and protecting the little civilians is there too, but I've always felt like while Jolyne's death isn't a bad one -- bravely staying behind to face uncertain odds of a god-like opponent and charging in with your fist aimed at his face is a ballsy way to go -- but I really did feel like we probably could've done with a couple more scenes of Jolyne focus in these last couple of episodes. I guess it's partially the result of the story perhaps focusing a bit too much on what C-Moon and Made in Heaven can do that things kind of... suffered a bit in how Jolyne is handled?
Anyway, Made in Heaven's time acceleration moves so fast that the sun begins to stretch in the sky. Day and night blur together into things that no one can really see. The corpses of Jotaro and the others rot, which is another kick to the balls. Emporio even sees that his clothes begins to disintegrate... and then time itself gets warped into a massive singularity with humans and animals and plants floating in the trippy void of space.
Emporio screams... and he wakes up in Green Dolphin Prison, naked, and utterly confused at what's happening.
...yeah, our finale will be Emporio Alnino fighting against Enrico Pucci, and... again, I don't hate Emporio. I just really don't care for him at all, and seeing that he's going to be the character we focus on for the end of Stone Ocean -- and for the end of the original continuity of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure... just isn't the most exciting thing when I first read Stone Ocean and it's not really the most exciting thing right now.
Again, from an action perspective, I do think that the fight here is a bit more brutal and quick, which is something I expected from a 'final boss' Stand. When we first witnessed them wreak havoc in their respective final battles, Stands like The World, Bites the Dust and King Crimson all exuded this aura of utter dominance, and especially when they started killing people. And I do think the rapid-fire deaths of Anasui, Ermes and Jotaro are a great way to highlight the sheer speed and power of this Stand. It's just that... well, it really does feel kind of hollow since most of what our heroes are reacting are to the events. Pucci barely talks, so while we do get a fair bit of a motive rant in the past couple of episodes, I really did feel like it would be a bit more interesting and engaging if we get to see him have some verbal sparring with Jolyne and Jotaro. And... yeah. There are some great ideas here in the themes that's going on, like Anasui's talk about luck, and the two Joestars' clear preference to play the hero and basically bite the bullet for their allies. But the way this climax is executed is... it certainly bizarre!
Random Notes:
- Kishibe Rohan mention! Love that Rohan is able to finish his manuscripts even in accelerated time, although to be fair to the other mangaka, Rohan does possess Heaven's Door.
- It is worth mentioning that Jotaro's death has him have the same wounds that Thoth, the future-telling comic book, predicted all the way back in Stardust Crusaders. It's interesting for a series where the author is notorious for forgetting details that Araki remembers that little detail, and that Thoth's prediction did come true... several decades later.
- You know, I get that Diver Down can 'break down and reform' anything, which explains how he's able to do some kind of Crazy Diamond tier nonsense in his previous fights. I also get the whole 'diving into walls' thing, and even 'diving into Weather and giving him a foot'. But would submerging himself into someone else's body instead cause both of them to take the same damage? Eh.
- I know that Jotaro does a whole monologue within a second, but at least it's monologue, not spoken dialogue. You take almost the whole five seconds to say "damn, a second has passed!"\
- Seriously, though, where did Pucci get those knives? In Stardust Crusaders, Dio actually drops into a home appliance store during his scuffle with Jotaro, which was where he (not shown on-panel) got the knives from.
- And so ends the story of Ermes. Man, poor lady really has got it rough, huh? She gets sidelined for most of the C-Moon and Heavy Weather fights, she barely summons Kiss in this, doesn't get a big speech like Anasui's 'fate' and 'sacrifice' stuff, and she doesn't even get too much focus in her own death scene, since the audience (and Jolyne herself!) will be paying more attention to Jotaro.
- Speaking of Anasui's speech, I do deride the marriage proposal thing, but I do appreciate that this ties in nicely with Anasui's own eulogy after Weather's death about he won't sacrifice himself for just anyone, but for people who he really cares for.
- The next episode will give us a brief explanation about the 'new universe' created by Made in Heaven, but there is really no practical way to adapt the gigantic two-page spread with exposition about time acceleration, the cycle of the Big Bang and the birth of the universe that exists in the manga version. So yeah, while reading through the huge chunk of text that explains the creation of a universe is a bit confusing to the readers, we're just left with trippy visuals now. Okay!
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