JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E35 Review: Fly Me To The Moon

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 35: C-Moon, Part 2

I do really like the reversal here, where in episode 33 and 34, Jolyne and company are the ones freaking out at Pucci and his brand-new Stand. Now we focus on Enrico Pucci as he runs around the visitor center, wondering how Jolyne is able to survive the supposedly fatal blow from C-Moon. Pucci deduces that it's something to do with the Joestar bloodline, and I do like how much Pucci panics here. Again, it really does humanize Pucci a lot by showing him panic when confronted with Jolyne here and Weather a bit earlier. 

Pucci then regains his composure, confident that fate will side with him. He first faces off against Anasui, and... bless Anasui, he's trying his best. He's not my favourite character in Stone Ocean, but he's trying his best to trick his way to taking out Pucci. I really don't think Anasui's moments are anywhere as cool as, say, Kakyoin's moment against Dio or Bucciarati's moment against Diavolo, but it's pretty dang cool. C-Moon destroys what appears to be Anasui, but turns out that it's just a random bystander that Anasui morphed with Diver Down. 

Anasui is about to do a sneak attack with Diver Down, and would deliver a presumably lethal blow... until Pucci uses the affect of C-Moon on his own head. It's... it's hideously grotesque as his head collapses into a gravitational well, and then reverts back out. I'm going to assume Pucci is able to survive this because C-Moon is his Stand. Such a creepy utilization of that Stand!

As Anasui is forced to retreat, we get the pretty creepy scene of Jolyne touching his face. C-Moon USHYAAA's and panic-punches in the general direction, but Jolyne is moving around all creepy and stuff, hiding and moving away, and I think back when I was first reading this I was wondering if Pucci was just being paranoid and imagining Jolyne despite her not being there. 

Pucci ends up trying to track down Jolyne's blood trail, and notes that he needs to get rid of Jolyne before Kujo Jotaro and the other Stand users arrive. We get another very cool application of C-Moon as Pucci walks into a room, and then just casually walks around, causing the center of gravity (or, well, reverse-gravity) to change as he walks around the room. He lets a bottle of alcohol catch fire and explode, while Jolyne uses Stone Free's string to sneak around and creep Pucci out through drains and ventilation shafts. 

Again, my favourite part is just how creative this fight is as Pucci just keeps side-stepping and changing the direction of gravity, making use of falling, burning debris to make them fall towards Jolyne. This is certainly something that works a lot better while animated. 

We also get the revelation how Jolyne survived the strike, and why she's been shown in partial-silhouette all this while. C-Moon strikes Jolyne's body, but her hand morphs into a Mobius strip. We get some explanation about the fact that the Mobius strip is a shape with technically only a single surface, and how Jolyne is abusing this to prevent the gravitational 'inside-out' force from affecting her. 

...now, one could argue that the strings themselves could be turned inside-out, just like how C-Moon caused the strings to break during the whole 'hangman' sequence in the checkpoint. But hey, let Jolyne have her cool moment.  

There is a hilarious moment where Pucci marvels at Jolyne's creativity, comparing her to the humans who first ate mushrooms and found that they had medicinal properties... but then goes around and insults these early humans by noting that they could simply be either too hungry and desperate instead of actually being creative. 

As Pucci and Jolyne have a bit of a stare-off, Pucci continues abusing changing the center of gravity, while trying to get a gun to fall into his hands.... and then Pucci fires! Man, this part really makes great use of physical guns, huh? Anasui attempts to intervene, but is too far... and then we get the absolutely wonderful sound effect of The World being activated. Or rather, Star Platinum: The World. 

Jotaro appears heralded by the ticking clock noises and deflects the bullet's trajectory and save Jolyne from doom... and then we get an ORA! as Pucci gets punched by Star Platinum. There's a glorious harpoon on the wall, and Ermes shows to be responsible for getting Jotaro there. This involves the Speedwagon Foundation shooting a harpoon, which Ermes duplicates with Kiss, and the two of them just ride the harpoon as they combined together. I kinda wish we've seen this, but having Jotaro arrive in a badass way without warning is pretty damn cool. 

And... Pucci is outnumbered, but he begins to rise into the sky, realizing that he doesn't have to wait the full 36 hours and he needs the gravitational force of a new moon... which is a position that's slightly above ground level. Jotaro and Jolyne share a nice tender moment as he praises her, before they all try to attack. Ermes shoots with a gun, and Jotaro uses The World to stop time and chuck the harpoon at Pucci while using the bullet as a distraction. But then Pucci seems to move during the time stop, and Jotaro ends up ironically feeling like Dio during the climax of Part III. Pucci manages to dodge both attacks, lands on the space shuttle nearby, and it begins to rise up as Pucci delivers a dramatic speech... and then he glows with power as his Stand is fully completed. 

And so, we end the C-Moon fight, and... I have to say, compared to what comes next, I do really feel like this is the best in Stone Ocean's fights against Pucci where multiple Stands are involved and fighting at the same time. I do feel like I probably would've liked Jolyne to have a bit more of a presence because she's mostly being creepy and hiding in the shadows while stalking Pucci. Which, admittedly, has a very "Jotaro gains the upper hand against Dio" feel to it from the climax of Part III. But then Jolyne gets blindsided by C-Moon anyway, and while Jotaro's entrance is epic as all hell and I can't say that I wasn't impressed, I... I really did wish that there's something more that Jolyne did here. The Mobius strip trick seems to be the climax of what she does, before Jotaro basically takes over the fight, and I like Jotaro as the next JoJo fan, I really do... but I really did wish that Jolyne had a little bit more to do in her own Part's climax, y'know? Especially considering the twist ending?

Eh. I did really enjoy watching the C-Moon two-parter play out, and I feel like the changing center of gravity is very well-executed in the anime. Very fun sequence overall once you ignore the whole 'is this character under-used or not' arguments. 

Random Notes:

• We haven't gotten a funny JoJo pose in a while, but man, Pucci's posing while on the space shuttle is hilarious.
• While contact with C-Moon's punch is devastating, but he doesn't have much range and durability, which is why Pucci has to walk around the room and weaponize the falling debris to strike Jolyne at long-range. Or he might just be scared. 
  
• Does anyone have very strong Steel Ball Run "Spin" vibes at the sight of Jolyne with the spinning strings in the shape of a Mobius strip?
• It's an easy crowd-pleaser, but damn is the usage of the Stardust Crusaders track as Jotaro arrives a damn great moment.