JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E38 Review: End of The World

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 38: It's A Wonderful World

And so we begin the final episode of Stone Ocean covering the results of the cliffhanger. 

It's very convenient that Made in Heaven also makes brand-new clothes for all the people there, huh? Emporio dresses himself after witnessing some guards and prisoners do the same, before peeking into the visitation room. He hears Jolyne and Jotaro's voices... only to see people that are not exactly them. These doppelgangers dress differently and have a lumpy face in the case of Jotaro's. 

Father Pucci then arrives, explaining that they are back in November 30, 2011, which would be the time that the Manhattan Transfer fight happens. Pucci gives Emporio the explanation to what happened with Made in Heaven -- time did not rewind, but accelerated so fast that the universe ended, was reborn, and accelerated again to 2011. All the people from the 'pervious universe' were brought into this new one by Made in Heaven's power... but all the ones that died did not exist. However, Emporio still managed to escape Pucci's effect, and he summons Made in Heaven to attack.

Emporio flees to the ghost room, which he can still access with his Stand, and Emporio notices that some things happened the way they did before, despite this being with doppelgangers. The fake Jotaro and fake Jolyne still escape the room, and Emporio sees two guards tripping as they did before. Pucci gives a speech about how this is fate, this is pre-destination, and that is the destiny of everyone that was 'made in heaven'. I don't think the anime states exactly how it works, but basically Pucci's the only one that can 'alter' destiny thanks to being the owner of Made in Heaven. 

It's a concept that I think the climax of JoJolion honestly does a bit better, but basically fate is 'forcing' certain things to happen in that way. Emporio tries to avoid his destiny of running into the ghost room, but a series of comical incidents that involves a mop, a trip and a stair causes him to fall into the ghost room either. 

Pucci, meanwhile, briefly contemplates sparing Emporio, before deciding to finish him off. We do get a bit of a motive rant here, where Pucci talks about how humanity will now be aware of their future mistakes, and can have 'happiness' knowing that fate is inescapable... or, well, if Pucci can change fate to suit his own whims, anyway. 

Admittedly, if you do sit and break down the themes of this climax, there are some neat callbacks to stuff like how the Joestar family is always destined to fight Dio's evil. How Pucci technically represents the successor of Dio, and Emporio represents the successor of the Joestars, without either of them being blood-related to either party. The fact that this 'inherited will' (to borrow a term from One Piece) is fighting each other to overcome fate itself. 

But it's just that the way it's presented here, with Emporio trying to run away from Pucci while Pucci gives exposition about his grand plan for the world... it's just not the most exciting. Unable to do actions that change the predestined fate, Emporio tricks Pucci into punching him in the face, inserting the Weather Report Stand Disc from several episodes ago into his head. And now, Emporio also exists outside of the 'fate' of the original universe. 

There is a nice bit of talk from Pucci about how Emporio doesn't know how to use Weather Report's Stand, which is not the easiest to use, but then Pucci begins to see that his veins are bulging, while Emporio bleeds through his eyes. Emporio gives a speech about oxygen -- one final JoJo fun fact speech before we close this chapter -- and how oxygen, in its purest form, is toxic to living organisms. At this point, Pucci panics, talking about how in this universe, Made in Heaven is still incomplete since they haven't reached Cape Canaveral, and with his accomplishments reversed, no one will be able to read the future and prepare for it. 

However, Emporio uses Weather Report to bash Pucci's face into the floor in a rather satisfying sequence, and we get a punch barrage... and then Pucci gets killed and everyone is sucked into the singularity again. Emporio talks about how his allies had all used their resolve to lead Emporio into where he is into the new universe, and how justice is fate and all that, telling Pucci that he was the unprepared one after all. 

Unable to complete the loop and go to Cape Canaveral again, Pucci dies screaming while the iconic Jotaro theme plays in the background... 

And Emporio appears in a gas station. It's a bit hard to follow what's going on, and I've only honestly understood this part of the story after seeing someone else explain it to me, but essentially, Pucci's Made in Heaven universe disappears, and Emporio gets returned to an altered version of the original universe. Again, despite what I thought for years, this universe reset isn't the Part VII Steel Ball Run universe... though it's honestly not too hard to guess that considering context clues.

Anyway, Emporio gets to see some familiar-but-altered people, who look similar to Jolyne, Anasui and Ermes. "Irene" and "Anakiss" are driving across the country to ask Irene's father for his blessing in their marriage, and Emporio basically realizes that this is a version of the world where his friends didn't have to suffer through the bloody battles. Emporio, crying, joins into the car and hops in for a ride, somehow reunited with his comrades and friends despite the new universe. As they drive off, they pick a Weather lookalike, and as they drive off silhouettes of the original Stone Ocean characters are shown in the distance. 

And... yeah. Honestly, not the most exciting conclusion to the original continuity of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. I mean, it sure is a weird story, it sure is a weird ending, and... again, it's not that the Part is 'incoherent', like some people complained. The better translations have really gone a long way into me finally understanding Stone Ocean's climax, but as an action manga's conclusion, I do really think that the ending here feels lacking, really. And I really do feel bad -- the anime has done a great job at making me like Part IV and V of JoJo, which I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of, but while I've gained a fair amount of appreciation for Stone Ocean... I still don't think I'm the biggest fan of its ending. Honestly, it's different from the obvious ending of Jolyne fixes everything by punching Pucci really hard. Sure. But I dunno. It sure is a bizarre ending for sure, and honestly there's enough room to even say that Emporio simply stumbled onto a different universe with doppelgangers. I dunno. The idea of a cosmic retcon isn't the most appealing story explanation to me, and the fact that Part VII doesn't elaborate on this and is actually just a straight-up hard reboot kind of makes me feel like this climax is a fair bit... contrived. 

It doesn't help, either, that Stone Ocean's anime adaptation wasn't handled quite as well as the previous two Parts, and especially since Vento Aureo was so well-received all over the world. The staggered Netflix release really did kill all hype for the anime season. Oh well. At least next up we get Steel Ball Run, which is a lot of fun!

Random Notes:

• The episode ends with a version of "Roundabout", the original JoJo ending (which is the tune in those 'To Be Continued' JoJo memes), but with new visuals showing silhouettes of the main casts of of Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable and Vento Aureo, before a shot of the new-universe Stone Ocean characters.
• I guess the idea is to show that in this recreated universe (which is not the Steel Ball Run universe, as Araki stated in interviews) the events of Parts I-V still happened, but Jolyne and her friends are spared from the curse of the Joestar conflict.
• The title of this episode and the arc in the manga it adapts, "What a Wonderful World", takes its name from the Louis Armstrong song of the same name.
  
• Irene's name is actually a reference to one of Araki's older works, Gorgeous Irene. 
• While global happiness for all of mankind in the acceptance of their fate does sound like something that Enrico Pucci would wish for... this is Dio's original 'heaven plan', and I do wonder just how much of this was within Dio's calculations?
• "You've turned your screams into the trumpets of hell!" has to be one of the most metal bad guy fighting boast I've heard.
• So I assume the random civilians that get killed by Made in Heaven's cosmic effect -- like the guy that gets frozen in the meat locker room, or the lady walking the dog -- also doesn't get carried over? Or is Pucci just referencing the people he killed personally?
• While Irene and Anakiss are named in the manga, the new universe's Ermes never gets named. The anime adaptation finally gives her the name of Eldis.
• The ugly Jotaro we see in the Made in Heaven universe is nicknamed "Qtaro" by fans, apparently, after the fake name Jotaro uses in Stardust Crusaders.
• In the manga's version of the ending, Foo Fighters is absent from the montage of characters, and... she's 100% just wiped out from reality, isn't she? That's very, very depressing. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E37 Review: (Joe) Stars Fall From Heaven

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. 
 

Pucci drove Stone Free's hand to punch through Anasui, and then Pucci does Dio's knife storm attack on Jolyne. It's a neat callback to Dio's insane knife attack, and I absolutely love Ono Daisuke's loud scream of horror, frustration and despair as he realizes that he has to waste some of his time-stop to save Jolyne. 

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! 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E36 Review: Stairway to Heaven

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 36: Stairway to Heaven, Part 1

We are almost done with the final fight in Stone Ocean, and finally we get Stairway to Heaven. I'm really just trying to get this done before the end of the year. The C-Moon fight was exciting, Jotaro arriving is a huge make-fans-happy moment. But Pucci hops on the space shuttle and rises up into the sky. And... I still find his pose while the transformation causes light to shine and break through holes in his body to be rather hilarious! Anasui zips in and tries to attack Pucci with Diver Down, but Pucci's body cracks, and Made in Heaven appears!

...and what a weird-looking Stand Made in Heaven is. I remembered that the fandom used to call it the 'horse dong' Stand, and... well, yeah. If you see the horse legs as the humanoid figure's legs,  the horse head does sprout from Made in Heaven's crotch. Which is... kind of unfortunate! The idea, of course, is that a rider, his chariot and the horse are all fused at the waist. And... I dunno. It's not my favourite Stand design, I must say. 

After the flash from Pucci's true awakening knocks out our heroes, they stand up and find Pucci missing, with C-Moon's effects being gone. Jotaro identifies that they have been transported some 200 meters from their original location (no explanation is actually given for this; even if it's Pucci moving them wouldn't he just kill them while they were unconscious?). Jotaro is still bothered that Pucci can move in stopped time, while Jolyne tells them that she can sense that the priest is nearby. 

And then the weird shit from Made in Heaven's effects start to hit our heroes. And... I guess this is the epitome of how a lot of the fights in Stone Ocean have been gigantic reality-warping effects that strike entire large areas, except in this case Made in Heaven affects the whole universe. Ermes tries to escape the rain and seek shelter inside a nearby building, but suddenly the rain stops almost immediately, while Ermes gets her foot stuck inside the automatic sliding doors, which are ramming open and close too fast for Ermes to react. Poor, poor Ermes then gets a stone bashed on her head for her troubles. Man, Ermes. Gotta feel bad for her. 

We then cut away to see how weird things are happening all over the world. A news report is confused by the changes in schedule with advertisements and programs popping up right after the other. The sun sets too fast. A girl's ice cream melts before her tongue can even touch it. Baseballs accelerate and bash athletes' faces in. A girl wiping mucus from her nose finds the tissue and the snot hardened into a crusty mess. A butcher entering a meat locker gets frozen immediately. A woman and a dog crossing the street get caught up in traffic accidents. 

And I think the audience can figure out what's happening -- time is accelerating, but only for non-living things. Now there's probably the question as to how things like baseballs and automatic doors can have such impressive speeds, but I suppose it's some relativity thing?

Team Jolyne, meanwhile, realizes what's going on. The blood on their skin are dry, and the day gives way to the night. Jotaro finally remembers to look at his watch and sees time moving very quickly. We get a cool interaction as Made in Heaven is able to move within the sped-up time, zipping around like a goddamn lunatic. Jotaro uses Star Platinum to stop time and catch a glimpse of Made in Heaven, figuring out what he's doing. 

...and... I dunno. I've always felt like this fight could've really ended if Pucci acted a bit smarter on specifically this part of the fight. Even giving Pucci the same time that Team Jolyne had to figure out his powers, he really should've been able to take them out in the time that Team Jolyne ran up the building and got to the rooftop, right? If not with punches, then with ranged attacks? It's not like Pucci wasn't unwilling to use guns with both Whitesnake and C-Moon. Eh.

Anasui manages to save Jotaro and pull him to the roof in the nick of time, and... we interrupt this rather tense moment for a bit of levity as Anasui introduces himself to Jotaro and asks for his blessing to take Jolyne's hand in marriage. Jotaro is absoltuely bamboozled by this, but Jotaro just understandably acts like a good dad and grabs Jolyne closer. I'll just cover this here -- in the next episode, Jolyne reciprocates, however, and... for no real reason other than 'they traveled together throughout this journey' Jolyne decides that she'll marry Anasui after this. I know JoJo's never been big on developing romance (outside of JoJolion), but yeah. I really do think that Jolyne returning Anasui's affections really did come absolutely out of nowhere. It exists, we move on. 

Back to the fight, however. Jotaro does some calculations by comparing the amount of time it takes relative to the amount of time it has to be, and calculates that Pucci's moving at the speed of a bullet train. Insanely fast, but still visible to the naked eye. 

...and then we get the hilarious image of Jotaro using Star Platinum to stop time and look for where Pucci is moving... and he and his Stand are using a palm tree to catapult themselves to the roof! That's... okay, I'm not even going to disguise how much I love this sequence. It's such a completely absurd usage of Made in Heaven's powers. I absolutely love this. 

Jotaro unleashes a barrage of punches, but gets slashed in the neck. However, Anasui has used Diver Down to submerge itself into Jotaro's body and take the damage in his place (which is basically what Diver Down's abilities has kind of changed into, narratively, in the back-end of Stone Ocean). Jotaro uses Star Platinum: The World to stop time, and realizes that five seconds isn't enough to move everybody out of harm. He moves closer to unleash an ORA ORA ORA, but misses. 

Pucci then finally deigns to interact with the team, announcing that his target is now Anasui. He declares that his power isn't there for fighting, or for gaining strength, but to guide humanity to happiness... hence, Made in Heaven. 

...and, yeah. I'm... I'm going to say it outright, since I got through talking about this episode much faster than I thought I would. There are aspects of the Made in Heaven fight that I liked. The global effects, the aforementioned palm tree sequence, and the anime does a great job showcasing Pucci's fast speed with sound effects. But I've always thought that there were too many things that were distracting about this fight that made it fall short of the other seven Parts' climaxes, which, again, is really unfortunate.  I do appreciate Stone Ocean for what it is, but I've felt like the personal enmity between Jolyne and Pucci have kind of fizzled out. And it's a shame, because after Foo Fighters and Weather Report's respective deaths, as well as Jotaro's Discs being stolen, we really do get a sense of burning hatred boiling within Jolyne. But at this point it's just more of them having to fight and take down a big threat. 

And take into account that so much of this episode is actually told from Jotaro's point of view. And I do like Jotaro! Who doesn't? I love that Star Platinum's evolved abilities are being showed to us again, I love that Star Platinum is being used as the team's big guns to ORA ORA. But as I mentioned in the previous episode... Jolyne really doesn't get a big chance to shine in the climax of her own part. Again, I'm comparing this a bit to the climax of Stardust Crusaders and Vento Aureo, where the secondary characters are handled and juggled a lot better. I don't know. It really isn't the 'worst thing in the world', but I am really not the most impressed by this climax. Fortunately, we only have two more episodes left.

Random Notes:

• I've always thought that the coolest way to end the finale for Stone Ocean, which caps off the original continuity, is to have all the surviving JoJos show up -- there's already a very easy vehicle to get them in! Josuke is already associated with Jotaro and he could've sent a flight to get him in. And we already had the Children of Dio being drawn to Pucci, giving Giorno a reason to arrive. 
  
• Now admittedly this might just mean that from a power-level perspective, Gold Experience Requiem would just solve everything, but still...
• Made in Heaven is based on a Queen song with the same name. 
• Made in Heaven was originally called 'Stairway to Heaven', by Led Zeppelin, in the original release before it was changed to 'Made in Heaven'. Which makes a bit more sense, considering that the Stand literally 'makes' things... but I actually really like the song Stairway to Heaven and feel like it's pretty appropriate for Pucci!
• Honestly, I know they all have chalky-white skin, but I really do wish that there was more continuity between Made in Heaven with its preceding forms. Not just Whitesnake/C-Moon, but also the Green Baby and even the World. 
• The anime understandably cuts out some of the scenes of the random civilians that react to the changes done by Made in Heaven, including the couple that won't stop fucking.
• Man, I really feel bad for Ermes, our little miss 'naniiii?!'. It's not enough that she barely contributes to any of these final fights other than helping to bring Jotaro here with the harpoon, but she really just gets fucked by reality itself, huh?
• It is appropriate that in the final fight in JoJo, one of the casualties is a dog. Or, well, the dog's owner, at least -- we don't see the dog dying, not like all the poor animals from Part I and III, but it's definitely not making its way out of that multi-car pileup. 
• I know Anasui is a bit of a loon, but man, introducing yourself as 'I am a murderer' to your prospective father-in-law is not the best thing to do. 

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. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E34 Review: Dark Side of the Moon

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 34: C-Moon, Part 1

So yeah, last episode honestly was a bit more Pucci-centric and focuses more about Pucci's transformation and his obsession with gravity. We now enter the two-parter with the C-Moon Stand, and we start off with the cliffhanger from the previous episode -- with Jolyne's arm turning inside-out from the power of C-Moon. Very... grotesque stuff, and I am glad that this visceral moment isn't actually censored in the anime. I'm not sure how Jolyne's hand can just recover so quickly afterwards, but this is a Stand fight. It's not just crushing the hands, no. The anatomy becomes inverted and the internal bones and meat within Jolyne's fingers sploosh out and that is a certain type of disgust that I didn't know I had in my life!

We get a fun little one-on-one between Jolyne and C-Moon at this point, since Anasui is stuck on another part of the altered-gravity visitor center. As Jolyne's Stone Free tries to hit C-Moon, the villainous Stand proves to be faster and more nimble, and able to strike certain objects. Jolyne, Anasui and Emporio quickly figure out that the Stand's power is to invert gravity and turn anything it hits inside-out, which is such a visceral imagery. It really is a fair bit nastier than 'anything I punches explodes' or 'I punch really hard' or whatever. They realize that the phenomenon happening in Cape Canaveral is due to C-Moon altering gravity itself around it, causing everything to fall 'sideways'.  

Again, there's a nice little parallel to the first fights against Pucci -- or rather, Whitesnake. Pucci himself hides somewhere nearby, while his Stand do the fighting for him with its insane abilities. And after Jolyne tosses Emporio off for Anasui to hold, we get a one-on-one between Jolyne and C-Moon. And it's pretty interesting fight as Jolyne's biggest character trait -- that she never backs down -- shows up again. She refuses to back down even as C-Moon turns her leg inside-out, but she just abuses C-Moon's power by allowing C-Moon to strike her again, turning the inside-out back to normal. Everything is where they should be. It's some very selective power nonsense that honestly shouldn't have worked that well, but I do find this to be hilarious and honestly pretty par the course for JoJo. The animation's pretty okay for what it is, and I do really enjoy the voice-acting for Jolyne and C-Moon during this brief but tense fight. 

And... well, it's clear that the intention for this confrontation is for our main heroine to fight our main villain 1v1 before we get the rest of the cast -- including some of the missing ones -- back in. But I suppose it is important to cut away a bit now and then to Anasui, who insists that he's here to back up Jolyne, not to babysit Emporio. 

Jolyne continues to dodge and try and keep away from C-Moon's attacks, and there are a lot of very cool utilization of C-Moon's insane powers -- like it inverting the powers of the ticketing booth that proceed to fall sideways. It really shouldn't be all that different from any of the many movies or anime where a cinematic fight happens on a cliff, but it's pretty damn cool! Jolyne also figures out Pucci is nearby due to the precision of C-Moon's attacks.

Anasui tries to get a sneak attack in on C-Moon, and during the ensuing chaos, Jolyne manages to wrap a string around Anasui, but also connects it around C-Moon's neck, throttling C-Moon while using Anasui as the weight to basically do an improvised hangman's noose around C-Moon's neck. That's honestly a pretty cool visual!

We also get a brief shot of the military outside, and... I've always loved this in TV shows and movies where we get to see the military actually trying to do something. Remember in Dragon Ball Z when the Saiyans arrive on Earth and Nappa just casually blew up a bunch of military jets? Or movies like Godzilla or Pacific Rim or Transformers where the titular aliens and monsters blow up tanks and jets? We get a version of this as a bunch of tanks try to get into the area of C-Moon's effects but they get flipped outside down, and some rescue helicopters get spun around and blown up. It's also extra-special for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, I feel, because while there's always been emergency workers and whatnot, and large-scale destruction like plane crashes and towns turning into snails, we've never seen the military do a large-scale operation like this and get absolutely bamboozled by what's going on. 

We get more struggling with C-Moon being throttled, but C-Moon manages to turn the ticket booth it's hung onto upside-down, and then begin to unravel Jolyne's strings. Anasui grabs the string with Diver Down, causing the force of gravity alteration to flow into him. Jolyne moves in for the kill... and then her punch ends up being stopped. 

Pucci arrives behind her, and Pucci talks about how humans need to surpass fate in order to achieve true happiness. At the same time, Jolyne's attempts to attack Pucci is repelled once more because now an invisible force protects Pucci... and it's revealed that C-Moon's true nature isn't just flipping gravity sideways, but rather flipping gravity so that it radiates outwards from its user. So everything is pushed away from Pucci with the force of something falling from a cliff.

And then we get the epic scene where Pucci unleashes C-Moon and punches Jolyne in a fatal area -- right in her heart. We get to see her chest crumple inwards as she tumbles off into the distance, while Anasui and Emporio scream in horror. 

...and then, at this point, Emporio receives a phone text from Kujo Jotaro, who can sense that Jolyne is in danger... but also tells them that Jolyne is alive. Anasui, reinvigorated, decides to charge forwards to kill Pucci, which is the fastest and surest way to kill Jolyne. 

And... yeah. This review is much shorter because the episode's mostly action scenes. I really do enjoy the C-Moon episodes, even if I still think that at the end of the day, Jolyne is a little under-represented in her own part's finale. (And it's not like Ermes, Anasui and Emporio are particularly exciting additions to the fight) Part of it is admittedly due to how the final three episodes play out, and this is, for all intents and purposes, the climactic Jolyne-vs-Pucci fight. I do really like the exploration of C-Moon's ability and the creative ways that it's done, and unlike some of the recent 'twists' on Stands, the revelation of the nature of C-Moon's Stand powers revolving around Pucci's person feels extremely thematic. 

Random Notes:

• I really do like C-Moon's design. The scary grimace on his face, the arrows pointing outwards from him (symbolizing gravity pushing you away, I guess?) and the screechy UHSYAAA it does... I will always prefer Whitesnake, but in the anime it's a bit more clear that C-Moon is Whitesnake with its darker parts replaced by the green armour. 
  
• Running down Whitesnake and C-Moon's bandages are the letters representing the four base amino acids in DNA and RNA -- adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C)... except that instead of an 'A', adenine is represented by the delta sign Δ. 
• While C-Moon doesn't really seem like it has anything to do with Whitesnake power-wise, having an 'aura' of gravity reversal around its user does feel like an evolution of Green Green Grass of Home's 'aura' of shrinking by half. Both Stands prevent anyone from ever truly reaching its user!
• I do really like that little pose with arms trailing behind him that C-Moon does as he's about to fight Jolyne for the first time. 
• Man, when they got C-Moon on that little hangman thing, Jolyne really should've wrapped her string around C-Moon's arms. C-Moon can probably destroy the string around his arm as well, but at least it'd buy them some time. 
• Man, remember that old-school Nokia screen? I think we've gone well into touchscreens by the time real-world 2011 rolls around, though. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E33 Review: In the Beginning, There Was Gravity

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 33: Gravity of the New Moon

With the Weather Report/Heavy Weather segment done, we now reach the final stretch of six episodes. These next couple of bits are going to be devoted to the creation of C-Moon, which I've always felt that, in addition to the brief Weather/Pucci blood-spike brawl, is one of the two highlights of the final stretch of Stone Ocean.

But we do have a bit of a buildup, as our heroes drive to Cape Carneveral. We get what's probably the story's most 'romantic' segment between Jolyne and Anasui's relationship before they are just rather randomly smooshed together at the end of the series. Jolyne sleeps on Anasui in exhaustion, and Anasui goes through a long internal monologue about how he finds Jolyne adorable, and how he went through a lot of trouble to save up money and buy a jeweled ring. Anasui slips the ring into Jolyne's finger. 

Suddenly, they are distracted by Ermes yelling at a bunch of alligators. Remembering their terrible encounters with alligators around the prison, Jolyne and Ermes jeer and boo at the alligators, and Jolyne reflexively threw the ring in her hand, not realizing what it is. It sure whacks an alligator in the head, and Anasui freaks out and slumps into depression. It's a bit of a comedic scene, but... yeah. Anasui's basically just kinda reduced to a bit of a joke as far as his romantic pursuit goes. 

There's also a hilarious bit where Emporio uses his Stand to summon a computer, but Ermes gets absolutely bamboozled when Emporio stuffs an old-school PC onto her lap, separate CPU and all. It's extra-hilarious because this arc is set in 2011! We have laptops by then! Even Ermes is bamboozled. 

We get a bit more focus on Enrico Pucci, who's just trying his best to shamble through the space center. A random friendly bystander that's pretty mouthy says Pucci is with him, but then begins to yammer on and on, asking Pucci religious questions that aren't exactly polite. Pucci, already sweating and out of sorts, tells the guy to piss off. All the while, the speakers give narrations about gravity, and we get a typical JoJo 'did some research on the topic' monologue about how rockets that launch over the equator have an advantage due to a slightly less amount of gravitational pull. There's also some talk about Cape Canaveral being an ideal spot above the sea level. 

And then Pucci's Stand's new powers starts to activate. The soda from a nearby cup spills over 'sideways', splashing onto the guy that's pestering Pucci... and then he suddenly gets pulled sideways and gets impaled to death onto a metal fence as, well, gravity seems to get warped by the effects of Pucci's new Stand. It's an interesting case since we've seen Pucci's presence accelerating time prior to the Children of Dio arc, and now it's gravity... but I guess the Green Baby and anything that has to do with the warping of reality caused by that thing to be kind of unexplained. 

Back to our heroes, we get the revelation that at some point between the Underworld arc and this episode, they've sent Jotaro's memory Disc back to the Speedwagon Foundation, but our heroes decide that they can't afford to wait for Jotaro to come in time... particularly since Pucci is still recovering from the battle against Weather. 

And I really do like this bit as our heroes get trapped in the 3-kilometer radius of C-Moon's power, with Emporio and other drivers being unable to move forwards... as gravity itself is changed, and everyone 'falls down' sideways. It's something that really does make great use of the visual medium, and I do feel like the anime did a respectable job animating the weirdness of this. We get to see cars, people and even other parts of the terrain falling 'sideways' and it looks far, far more apocalyptic than many of the other large-range Stands we've seen before. There's a frantic urgency that makes this feel so much scarier than the uncanny weirdness of Bohemian Rhapsody or the visceral creepiness of Heavy Weather. 

 

During the sequence, Anasui's Diver Down plunges and fuses its hand into the pavement, but Ermes gets hit by a piece of debris and sent tumbling away, taking her out of the fight. Poor, poor Ermes. There's some talk about how they need to beat Enrico Pucci here and now, and Jolyne realizes that this is the power of 'heaven' that Jotaro sealed away in Egypt. Except this is just the beginning, since the 'new moon' will still come soon. They manage to slowly move through the altered gravity, climbing up the guard rails that are still stuck. We get Anasui having some monologue about how he needs to protect Jolyne since he's the only ally left. 

Pucci also has some monologue about gravity and its relation to creation and time, and... yeah. Each 'part' of JoJo will eventually focus on a certain kind of abstract concept, and gravity, fate, time and creation all meld together into the harmony of Pucci's mad designs. I'm a bit too tired to type out every single part of Pucci's dialogue, but it's neat!

As our heroes climb inch by bloody inch towards the visitor center, Emporio finds out that gravity is still fucked up and his phone isn't functioning. And as Jolyne tries to use her Joestar mark to figure out where Pucci is... Pucci's new Stand, the (at this point still-unnamed) C-Moon looms behind her, unaffected by gravity. C-Moon is insanely creepy, and honestly I feel like it's a far cooler traditional 'last boss' for the Part. The way he just moves around the altered gravity with its creepy-ass face, its USHYAAAAAA and being unbothered by the unnatural occurrences is pretty nasty. 

And as Jolyne's arm gets mangled when Pucci hits Stone Free's arm, we are treated to the grotesque sequence of Jolyne's fingers turning inside out. A nice, small little hint to the true nature of C-Moon before we get to see his fight in the next couple of episodes!

Random Notes:

• C-Moon is based on the song C-Moon by Paul McCartney. 
  
• There is an adorable additional bit of detail showing that Emporio strapped a brick onto his feet so that he can reach the car pedals. Now there's really still no explanation why none of the three adults are driving, and they let little Emporio drive. 
• Ermes really does spend every other line yelling NANIII, doesn't she? And then she gets taken out of the earlier part of the C-Moon fight. It's honestly kind of sad, considering she's supposed to be the 'JoBro' of this part.
• We get some scenes of Pucci's skin rippling as he kills that one annoying visitor, but I don't really think Pucci's physical appearance changes, just his Stand. 
• It really is kind of interesting. Does Dio (and by extension, Jotaro) know what the Green Baby will do? That it'll create a Stand that's going to cause gravitational, and eventually temporal, anomalies? Is C-Moon a unique thing created by the fusion of Whitesnake specifically, or if it was some other kind of Stand that fused with the Green Baby, will the resulting C-Moon still be the same? 
• And honestly, this falls into one of the more harder-to-swallow parts of Stone Ocean for me. I actually have no problem that Part-III era Dio has two facets of him, and that he's been doing this Heaven plan off-screen before he fights the Crusaders. But the plan he leaves Pucci seems to be so specific that it's bizarre that he doesn't at least try to enact part of his plan during Part III, beyond vaguely entrusting Pucci with it and keeping him halfway across the world. 
• Yeah, those two random ladies that our heroes don't have time to save are completely dead, aren't they? 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E32 Review: The Wind Has Stopped

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 32: Heavy Weather, Part 3

And now we get the conclusion of the Pucci brothers' deathmatch, and... I do like the fight between Weather and Pucci, featuring Anasui. I really do! It's just that... considering that this is basically the last time that they fight each other, it did end in a disappointingly not-too-satisfying conclusion between the grudge match after the previous episode had been rather great at showcasing the hatred between the two biological brothers... and the explanation about the Heavy Weather Stand, I think, still rubs me the wrong way.

We check in a bit with Jolyne's group, where they use Joylne's Joestar-mark-radar ability to try and figure out where Weather Report is... before cutting back to Weather and Anasui, who are the primary protagonists of this fight. Honestly, I really did wonder how this scene would've played out like if it was Weather and Jolyne instead of Anasui? Because I don't hate Anasui like a lot of the fandom seems to be, but I do find that his larger role in some of the episodes ended up... not really mattering. Eh. 

Weather gives an abridged version of last episode's events to Anasui, before theorizing that touching the snails causes the metamorphosis into a snail. They begin to walk around to look for Pucci, who Weather can sense is nearby, but both of their efforts yield nothing but snails. Suddenly, Weather's leg is amputated by an attack, and Pucci rises -- almost comically, IMO -- from a pile of snails. Pucci yells about how he's overcame the power of Heavy Weather, and he can't turn into a snail. 

Pucci gives a huge rant about how Weather's uncontrollable Heavy Weather will help Pucci get to heaven, by wiping out all of the good guys in the town. However, turns out that Anasui has submerged Diver Down into Weather Report's body, giving him a Diver Down leg so he can jump around. This is illustrated very well with the visual image of Weather Report's blood dropping on Pucci's face. 

...and I guess this really completes Diver Down's weird handling in Stone Ocean. From this point onwards Diver Down is really just used to 'dive' into objects and sometimes taking the damage in lieu of another character. Really, Diver Down 'storing damage' or 'modifying others' kinda disappears after he kills Guccio, lobotomizes Yo-Yo-Ma and mangles Kenzou. A small detail, but I would still like to point this out. 

We get a rather cool fight between Pucci and Weather, with their Stands clashing and Weather's Stand transforming his cloud-arm into a giant blade. However, as Weather seems to have the upper hand, Pucci flashes a rainbow light to Anasui, turning him into a partial-snail and causing Diver Down to slough off. 

And... this is the weird bit that I do still think is the weirdest and most shoehorned 'JoJo exaggerates some real-world facts' things ever. I love the idea of subliminal messaging being used into a power. Hell, I don't even think subliminal messages causing you to think you are a snail -- and that because of Stand powers, it actually physically turns out into a snail -- to be all that weird compared to some of the Stand powers we've seen in Part V and VI. The concept itself isn't that terrible... but forcing it as the 'ah-ha, this is the explanation' for how Heavy Weather works, especially since previous episodes have shown characters like Jolyne or Ermes starting to turn to snails explicitly by touching the rainbows or snails instead of looking at the rainbows... it really does feel shoehorned in, and the anime (which tends to fix this confusion.

It just feels like Araki is trying too hard to do the 'each Stand only has one power', but with Echoes already being shown to have Acts, and a lot of other main-character Stands having additional abilities, I really can't see why it couldn't have just been an 'act 2' of the Weather Report Stand, and that rainbows that transform people into snails is just part of the ability without the bizarre subliminal messages 'twist'. It's like the Yo-Yo Ma "it's not the mosquitoes, it's invisible acid saliva" twist, honestly.

We also have the handwave that, oh, Anasui has already been influenced so knowing that it's subliminal won't work on him. And that Whitesnake can remove Pucci's sight with discs, turning him blind and allowing him to avoid the vision. This also demonstrates an ability of Whitesnake to remove senses, when previously it's only been shown to only remove memories and Stands, which... yeah, it feels like another new situational ability being "revealed" just for the sake of this subliminal messaging twist. 

I dunno. It just really didn't work for me, is all, and while I've mellowed out on some of the weaker parts of Stone Ocean (Yo-Yo Ma, Dragon's Dream, the final episodes), this one really still rankles me a bit. 

Ahem. Anyway, Pucci beats up Anasui a bit, then with a fun line of "you shall be crucified", is about to murder Weather Report. But then suddenly Pucci gets impaled by blood-spikes, because Weather is using his weather manipulating abilities of using cold winds to manipulate them, preventing Pucci from using his Daredevil-tier blind-senses to sense where they come from. Pucci then uses Whitesnake to control Anasui and hijack his sights, which... okay, I feel like this can be handwaved as an extension of Whitesnake being able to reduce memories to discs?

Without describing every single move that happens here, there's a cool bit where Weather keeps creating blood spikes, while Pucci tries to force Weather to move and give away his position in the fog. There's a cool bit where Weather refuses to dodge, lets himself be impaled in the blood-spike, and force the frozen blood to connect himself and Pucci... and then he begins to beat the shit out of Pucci. 

And then, rather randomly, the car that Team Jolyne is driving crashes onto the location, sending snails and fog flying around. Jolyne sees Pucci seeming to stand in the dust cloud, and we get a very cool scene where Jolyne uses Stone Free's strings to rev up the wheel of the car to launch her like a catapult... only to be too late, because Pucci punches through Weather's chest and kills him. 

Jolyne freaks out, but then Anasui stabs "Pucci" in the head, revealing him to be Donatello, who had a Disc shoved into his head that forces him to 'dig up' the memory of Pucci killing Weather. There was an interesting bit where it seems like Jolyne is going to suffer with the guilt of crashing her car and interrupting the fight, inadvertently causing Weather's death... but it is kind of sad for poor Weather to just kind of... die like that, y'know? Especially since he seemed to be winning. Considering how interesting the backstory was, it really did always feel like while the confrontation with the blood spikes were pretty interesting, I've always felt like Weather was killed off for shock value. 

Oh, and Donatello Versus also gets killed. It's always, again, bugged me that Whitesnake is able to 'force' Donatello to bring out that Underworld memory of Pucci killing Weather. It's not like Whitesnake has Heaven's Door abilities randomly, right? But I think I'm kinda burned out after talking about the power inconsistencies in this leg of the story. It's also kind of a shame what happened to Versus. His death really is done without any fanfare, and all the talk about him being a rogue element that is evil but opposes Pucci ends up really going nowhere, huh?

Anyway, yeah. A bit of a shame. People complained about Dragon's Dream and Yo-Yo Ma as the weaker parts of Stone Ocean, but after watching this episode, I do think that I'm a bit more disappointed with the Heavy Weather arc specifically because it actually has some great highs. The snail transformation is some really great body horror, the Pucci/Weather flashback was amazing, and if you ignore some previously-unseen applications of the powers (which are either asspulls or creativity depending on how mean I'm feeling the day) even the brotherly fight is great. But... yeah. Just not a huge fan of the ending and how abrupt it all is. 

Random Notes:

• During Pucci's explanation about subliminal messages, the description about the campaign poster with 'sex' and the movie with popcorn/cola frames snuck into several frames are cut... but the images from the manga are still shown on-screen. 
• Also, it's not super-notable, but a lot of the snail transformation for our heroes are undone a bit earlier, or they simply never get that disfigured. Part of it is probably to not distract the audience from the gravitas of Weather's death, but maybe they just didn't want to make that many new character models. 
• I do like that the anime changed Pucci's final farewell and his killing of Weather to have happened during the chaos of the fog and Jolyne's car crash, making it a bit more believable that none of the Stand-users present are able to chase and track him down right then and there. 
• I did really like Anasui's eulogy, talking about how he wouldn't give his life for his parents, but Weather has been a true friend and he would do so for him. 
• Emporio is almost entirely unconscious in the manga version of them finding Weather's body, but we actually get to see him picking up Weather's Stand disc here, which gets to be important later on. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E31 Review: Enrico Pucci - the Origin

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 31: Heavy Weather, Part 2

And as expected, the backstory for Pucci and Weather is given to us in a massive whole-episode flashback. We cut back to forty years ago, 1970's, where we get Pucci's narration on events that happened. A young woman's child died in her arms, and the desperate, depressed woman ends up swapping her deceased son with another child -- a child from a set of twins... the Puccis. 

The Pucci family buried what they thought was their baby, Domenic, and years passed. Enrico Pucci, the surviving twin, studied religion. It didn't hurt that Pucci's family was wealthy and came from a prestigious family in Italy. As we see from Pucci's monologues, we get to hear him question God why he was the one that survived and not his twin. This led to him having many questions about morality, about good and bad, about destiny, and about so many things that would eventually drive him as a man.

A young Pucci then encounters Dio scuttling around like a cockroach during the 80's, the events of Stardust Crusaders. Dio and Pucci have a conversation, with Dio being surprised that Pucci didn't call the other priests or guards on him, and being interested that Pucci was reading a book about a priest who abandoned his vows to become an artist. Dio claims to be "allergic to sunlight", and Pucci accepts this explanation without question, something that Dio is amused by. His interest piqued, Dio heals Pucci's congenital-defect ankle, gives him a Stand arrow, and disappears into the shadows. 

Flash-forward into some time later, and Pucci is in a confessional booth. By fate or chance, it's the woman that stole his twin brother. She's terminal and dying of illness, and is burdened with guilt because of she stole someone else's son. She raised the boy, Wes Bluemarine (the future Weather Report) well, but she still harbours guilt. Through some word choices, Pucci manages to figure out that this woman stole his biological twin brother, secretly alive. 

Again, a good chunk of what happens here seems to because of hideous, twisted coincidence... or perhaps fate/destiny. And it does really help to see just why Pucci was so obsessed with fate as an adult. Wes Bluemarine is working in a part-time job delivering food, and she rescued Pucci's younger sister Perla from a robber, with rather impressive skill of throwing canned food through a window. Wes and Perla struck up a relationship thanks to this encounter. 

When Pucci finds out about this, he has just made a commitment to himself that he needs to keep up the duties of a priest, and keep everything in that confessional sacred and secret... but then he is conflicted, for he realizes that his biological siblings are in a relationship without them realizing it. Obviously he has to break up the incestuous relationship, but he can't break his vows of secrecy. 

And Pucci turned into a private detective to break Wes and Perla up. Which... is an absolutely stupid thing to do, and even if the private eye wasn't a jackass he probably would've threatened Wes or something. But Pucci's clearly not thinking straight at this point. 

The private detective turns out to be a member of the KKK (something that was very explicit in the manga, but the anime removed the hoods) and made investigations on Wes's family. As Pucci's narration talks about the horribleness of these kinds of people, we get the evil detective capturing Wes and Perla and mocking Wes for being the son of a black man. In this case, referring to Wes's adoptive father. There is the oddity that they didn't have the same problem with Perla Pucci, but I guess since she looks white, they didn't care? Anyway, racists are horrible and consistency isn't something I really expect from them.

They burned Wes's mother's house with her in it, and ended up hanging Wes from a tree. When Perla wakes up the next day, in her grief, she threw herself off the cliff and into a lake, killing herself. Unbeknownst to her, Wes is still alive. 

We get the rather amazingly-acted scene of Pucci, in his grief, running into the lake and yelling at the rescue workers for making the sign of the cross as they dredge Perla's corpse out of the lake. He's wracked with grief, cursing himself, cursing fate, and... then he remembers Dio. The Stand arrow pierces Pucci, giving him the power of Whitesnake which allowed him to preserve Perla's memories as a disc. However, the Stand also grants Wes the Stand powers of Weather Report through their shared bloodline, allowing him to survive and break free from the hanging. 

And we get a rather satisfying sequence of Weather Report just waltzing into the KKK's base, and using the powers of Heavy Weather to turn the detective and his cronies into snails. Very cool scene, and it really shows just how... how angry at the world Weather Report is. Weather tries to end his life after that, using a gun and throwing himself off a cliff... but his Stand automatically protects him, in a scene that I felt was a callback to when Jotaro first thought Star Platinum was a ghost.

Furious at the entire world for fucking up his life, and that he's lost the two people important to him -- his mother and Perla -- Weather Report unleashes his Stand on the town, using Heavy Weather to turn everyone into snails. Enrico Pucci walks through the town, determined to deal with Weather on his own. They fight, and the clash was pretty swift and quick though we do get to see the two Stands do a bit of an ora-ora fight. Weather finds about their relationship, but then Pucci manages to seal off Weather's memories, and with it, part of his Stand's power. Pucci then sends Weather into Green Dolphin Street Prison, before he wanders the world to seek out Dio.

We cut to the present day, where Weather reaffirms his desire to kill Pucci... but then asks Anasui to kill him afterwards.  

And... yeah. I've always felt like this flashback, as fucked up as the coincidences and surprise incest are, is pretty great! Pucci's backstory and how his family was damned and fucked up by fate and by coincidences really would make him get obsessed with how 'gravity brings together' and mankind avoiding undesirable paths of their destiny. Great backstory, and honestly, I really do feel that in addition to him being obsessed with Dio's own Heaven plan, really does help to make Pucci probably one of the more interesting villains JoJo has ever done. 

Again, it really is kind of unfortunate that such an intricate backstory ends up being tied to Weather instead of Jolyne. Considering what happens to Weather in a couple more episodes, they really did write him out a bit too quickly in my opinion, and that Pucci's delicious backstory death grudge with Weather ends up not really being as satisfying as it could be... but that's a discussion for the next episode.

Random Notes:

• In addition to the KKK being de-censored, Pucci's ancestor is changed from specifically being a pope to being a famous clergyman. They also drew Pucci/Weather's father with explicitly dark skin, and cut out the line of Perla's friends saying Weather has a tan. 
• Wes Bluemarine and his birth name, Domenic Pucci, are taken from Blumarin and Domenico Dolce, founder of Dolce & Gabbana. 
• The flashback takes place in 1972 and both Pucci and Weather are still teenagers then. While 1972 to 2011 certainly isn't a far gap, I've always thought that Pucci and Weather were much younger than that... but considering how good Jotaro looks for a forty year old man, it might really just be the artstyle as opposed to some sort of 'Stand slows down your aging' thing. 
• Actually, how did Dio heal Pucci's foot? Vampiric powers? Or is The World just simply capable of doing whatever the fuck it needs for the plot to continue, like engraving a set of evolution instructions onto a bone or whatever?
• People keep questioning why the KKK detective didn't mind talking to Pucci and taking money from him if he's so racist, but I don't think that's necessary a 'plot hole', and more like he still puts up the facade of being a legitimate businessman... and why not take money from Pucci that's voluntarily given?
• "Wes" and "Weather" sound much more similar in Japanese. 
• It really is sometimes hard to match up the more eloquent and manipulative Dio we see in Stone Ocean with the feral WRYYYYY-lunatic we see in Part I and III, but on the other hand, even in Part III we do get to see Dio being charismatic and introspective when he's alone with his minions. His introspectiveness when around Pucci could really be chalked up to him only showing his vulnerabilities around Pucci, or that he's saying what is the easiest to manipulate Pucci in that moment. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean S05E30 Review: Uzumaki

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean [Season 6], Episode 30: Heavy Weather, Part 1

So this episode begins the 'Heavy Weather' arc, which is... a bit of a trippy one. There are a bunch of rather interesting things about this whole arc -- Weather Report's original identity (and the eventual flashback), the Heavy Weather ability, and everyone trying to survive the snailpocalypse. Again, as I mentioned in my review for the previous episode, a lot of the later hostile Stands in later-part Stone Ocean does end up feeling less like battles and more insane situations that our heroes have to survive in. And coming after Bohemian Rhapsody and preceding C-Moon, Heavy Weather is a pretty devastating Stand. 

Weather Report's original 'Heavy Weather' personality has been returned, and we see some immediate psychopathy from him. He ends up knocking over a random crippled patient in a hospital, and when a doctor tries to confront him, Weather shoves his Stand down his throat to overload him with water. Anasui, the actual convicted murderer among the cast, is genuinely surprised at this and tries to figure what's going on. 

Jolyne, Ermes, Pucci and Versus are still looking at the rainbows of Heavy Weather that manifested, and the two villains -- who know what's about to go down -- actually do freak out at this, which I do think foreshadows a bit at just how much Weather's existence and power freaks Pucci out so much. 

Kiss's fist passes through one of the Heavy Weather rainbows, which causes her arm to swell up and explode into snail eggs and adult snails. As Jolyne and Ermes freak out, Pucci just... disappears into the shadows, giving an ominous line about how humanity itself will perish if Weather isn't killed. Versus also tries to make his escape, with our heroes in hot pursuit... and they get stopped by a bunch of policemen... who get affected by the rainbow and very gruesomely turn into giant snail-men that explode into even more snails. Snails everywhere! I actually think they amped up the body horror of the snailification of the cops, and it truly does look pretty fucked up. 

Jolyne and Ermes kind of have to deal with the gigantic masses of snails (which understandably are rendered with CGI in many shots) and how so many people get transformed into snails. There's an interesting property that Stand users have a higher resistance to the snailification, which is why the important named characters manage to still run around for a fair bit. Jolyne and Ermes realize that even touching the snails also transfer the snailification, and there's a rather clever usage of Kiss to duplicate a door and use it as a giant skateboard to tear through the sea of snails. 

We do get a fair bit of fun dialogue as Ermes gives some random fun facts about snails and their reproductive abilities, and Jolyne is momentarily distracted by how 'jealous' she is that the snails can fuck whoever they want. 

And then we get probably the most Versus scenes after his original Under World fight. And... it's interesting, and I wonder if Araki had originally planned to do a bit more with Donatello Versus? He runs around, trying to figure out who Jolyne was trying to contact with her phone. And Under World is used in a much smaller scale this time around, just trying to excavate specific memories to look for information. Versus tries to hunt down 'Emporio', knowing that there's an ally unknown to Pucci and himself...

And there's a great scene where Emporio and Versus actually pass each other without realizing they just passed the enemy. Versus manages to trick Emporio into picking up the phone, and knocks the little boy out. However, due to Emporio's Stand powers, it took a fair bit of time for him to find Jotaro's Disc. Jolyne and Ermes catch up, but a car crash knocks our heroines into some snails, starting the snailification process on the two of them.

There is a rather ridiculous (in all the best ways) sequence as Versus uses Under World to summon a football player that just charges and runs, dragging Stone Free's string and preventing Jolyne from rescuing Emporio. But Jolyne, realizing that her body is starting to turn into a snail, makes use of her brand-new snail form to, uh, squeeze inside a pipe. Versus summons the 'memory of salt water', and it dehydrates poor Jolyne. However, Jolyne has manages to touch Emporio, which in turn touches Versus, and everyone turns into a snail. 

Special reference goes to Versus's transformation, where he looks particularly grotesque with his feet sprouting giant snail heads and looking more like goops compared to Jolyne and Ermes, who just have their limbs turn into goop. Oh, yeah, and Jolyne's breasts turn into snail shells. I thought that I should mention that. It, uh, sure is a look.  

With Versus basically disabled, our partially-snail heroes enter the car to try and hunt down Pucci or Weather... only to get assaulted by a horde of snail-eating beetles that have been drawn to the massive amounts of snails. 

The episode ends with Weather realizing that Pucci is nearby, and declares that killing the priest is his sole purpose in life. 

So... yeah. I think it might simply be that we're seeing all the characters reacting to the effects of Heavy Weather (whereas Bohemian Rhapsody is really only seen from Anasui and Weather's perspectives), or maybe because the body horror for the snail is much creepier than most of the stuff we saw in the arc previously. But I do like the little bit of information warfare as the various characters try to figure out and obtain plot devices that'll benefit them. Weather's new psychotic personality is also done relatively well, particularly in the anime which streamlines his violence a fair bit to make it fit with his 'vengeance is my sole purpose' mentality later on. 

Random Notes:

• Heavy Weather is based on a studio album created by the real-world band Weather Report.
• As I mentioned in the title of this review... very heavy Uzumaki vibes, yeah? I know that snails are just a small part of Uzumaki, a cosmic horror manga about spirals by Junji Ito, but it's easily one of the most disturbing and grossest part of that manga. Stone Ocean would be serialized well after the end of Uzumaki, and I wonder if the snail body horror in that manga might've inspired Araki. 
  
• So yeah, they didn't change any of the actual major events, but a lot of the Heavy Weather arc has actually been retooled beyond just the rearranging of scenes or merging together exposition scenes. I didn't want to really go into detail too much in the body of the review, but basically the specifics of when certain characters become snails and their behaviour as snails got cut out and changed. 
• Probably some of the bigger changes is to allow Ermes a couple more moments of competence with Kiss instead of just turning into a snail and growing eyestalks immediately.
• Also, instead of them stealing a car, a random car crash knocks Jolyne and Ermes into a pile of snails, which was the catalyst for their change. 
• Weather Report also kills two random ladies in his 'Heavy Weather' guise, but this was removed because ultimately we're supposed to root for 'Heavy Weather', and him killing the doctor could be chalked up to him just being dizzy after receiving his memories back. 
• It really is kinda sad that the manga basically drops Anasui's psychopathic tendencies basically after the Dragon's Dream arc. I guess his near-death experience with F.F. had changed his morality a fair bit, but I would really like to see the increasing degrees of socio/psychopathy from Anasui to Weather to Pucci.
• I know these situations are super freaky, but man, Ermes does get reduced to yelling NANIIIII a lot, doesn't she?
• Does anyone get a bit disturbed by Versus basically trying to strip the unconscious Emporio's clothes and groping around the poor little boy? I know he's just trying to look for where Emporio stores his items with his Stand, but man, that's some unintentionally disturbing imagery. 
• The snail-eating beetles are a real thing! My fellow Pokemon fans will know this as the inspiration behind the Generation V Pokemon Karrablast!