JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E06 Review: Super Saiyan Koichi

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 6: Hirose Koichi [Echoes]

Yeah, I completely forgot Hirose Koichi's hair goes straight-up Super Saiyan when he activates his Stand. It's something I genuinely forgot about, even though I've read through the manga.

Anyway, up until we actually fight Red Hot Chili Pepper, we're going to have a bunch of "weird things happen in this town" episodes, which has some of the more memorable and wildly varied stories in JJBA. Without a huge evil organization to beat, or a constant tension of being on the clock to some doomsday, Diamond is Unbreakable has a lot more chances to just take a breather and just muck around with weird characters and weird story concepts.

Episode 6 starts off by introducing the villain of the week, Kobayashi Tamami, a local conman who's a graduate from the same high school Koichi and Josuke go to, and he puts a random cat-in-a-bag in the middle of the road for Koichi to run over, and for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to tick its weekly quota of animal brutality. Except not really, it's a con, and all Koichi ran over is a cat doll and some ketchup. Kobayashi basically tries to extort money from Koichi, getting him to basically pay money for reimbursement for 'hitting and killing my cat', which causes a giant lock to manifest on his chest.

This is Kobayashi's Stand, The Lock, and it's actually a pretty interesting one. The Lock basically works off of guilt, and gets heavier on people's chests until they do something to reimburse said guilt. Koichi gets dragged down by the weight of The Lock, until Josuke and Okuyasu comes and basically acts as a way for Kobayashi to exposit about the powers of his Stand. Okuyasu punches Kobayashi and breaks his teeth (totally "accidentally" and he doesn't roll to hit the pavement) and gets afflicted with The Lock as well... but as soon as Josuke heals the tooth and unveils the toy cat, both Okuyasu and Koichi are freed.

That's just the opening salvo, though, because it isn't just over with this single encounter. Kobayashi goes all the way to Koichi's house and with the aid of an identical wallet and memorizing the contents of the bills in Koichi's wallet, talks up this whole talk to Koichi's mom about how he bumped into Koichi and their wallets got switched, and basically sweet-talks his mom into believing him. And that brief bit of guilt is enough for The Lock to be activated on her. Oh, and Koichi's sister also gets caught with the Lock for spilling tea on Kobayashi's arm, and both of them just get crushed under The Lock as Kobayashi gloats -- he's going to take everything, from the house to the money to Koichi's sister as revenge.

And then mild-mannered Koichi goes all Super Saiyan, and unleashes his Stand after an episode full of just kind of being apologetic and confused, and his little egg stand from the previous episode hatches into Echoes, easily one of my favourite non-humanoid Stands out there. Just what is Echoes, really? It's this helmet-beetle-bug thing with robotic bug eyes, a beak, two baby hands, wheels for lower legs, and a giant Cell-esque tail that whips around like a snake. Oh, and its powers involves sound effects. Easily one of the most creative-looking Stands in JJBA, for sure. I'm pretty sure I came out of reading this arc in the comic and went "man, Crazy Diamond's cool, but could you imagine if our main character has a Stand like this?"

It's also something that works particularly well in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with its penchant in the manga to really have sound effects in katakana show up -- even in the anime! And Echoes takes these sound effects and basically amplifies those sounds to 'hit' Kobayashi with it. Perhaps it visually loses a bit of a punch for a non-Japanese-reading audience,  but I honestly don't mind.

In an interesting bit, The Lock very nearly kills Koichi's family when Kobayashi makes it look like Koichi has stabbed him (by stabbing himself and throwing the knife into Koichi's hands), but Koichi ends up throwing his own voice of "believe in me!" into his mother, and that barrage of "believe in me" in his son's voice manages to break his mom out of guilt. And with this victory, Kobayashi ends up being Koichi's fan-cum-servant of sorts, which is... okay? I've always thought that someone who threatened to extort and kill your family (with rapey vibes too) isn't someone you'll ever want to hang out around with, but Kobayashi's going to continue to be a minor supporting character after this.

It's an episode I enjoyed a lot more than I remembered or thought I would -- Echoes and Lock are both very interesting Stands with very interesting powers, and this really ends up being a pretty interesting fight. A superpower that works off someone's guilt and a superpower that amplifies sound effects? Yeah, JJBA is going to go into a whole other level of bizarreness.

As a side-note, and perhaps a good choice considering it's kind of a stupid thing... Kobayashi remains short throughout the entire episode. In the JJBA manga, enemies that Koichi fights tended to first appear as tall and imposing, and suddenly shrink inexplicably after being beaten. And I do mean shrink -- compare Kobayashi in the manga during the first part of this arc (here) where he's a far bigger adult compared to the short Koichi, to how Kobayashi is at the end of the arc (here) where he's suddenly shrunken into the height of Koichi. The anime just ignores this and has Kobayashi be short throughout the entire episode. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• Koichi's Stand, Echoes, borrows its name from Echoes, which is also a Pink Floyd song like Shine On You Crazy Diamond. 
• The JJBA wiki lists The Lock as being a reference to The Rock, a song by The Who... but I feel like that's a far, far stretch. Since there's no conclusive confirmation from the writer, I'm just going to say that it's just an English word being used. 
• The Hirose household's dog is named Police, named after the band Police, best known perhaps for its single Every Breath You Take, but also Walking On The Moon, Roxanne and Message In A Bottle.

Daredevil S03E06 Review: Those Rejected By Society

Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 6: The Devil You Know

A relatively epic episode! It's pretty obvious where the story was going, but this middle point of Daredevil's third season is definitely well done. I've not been the most invested in the Karen/Foggy attempts to bring Fisk to justice storyline, but it all comes to a head in a particularly well-done bit where the three friends sort of work together in order to engineer a confession from the dude that shanked Fisk, Jasper Evans.

We get a pretty neat (if short) confession bit between Karen and Foggy before jumping straight into Daredevil recruiting Karen to help expose Evans. Karen initially (and rightfully) refuses to help out Matt, but a brief talk with Foggy -- who proposes that they do it under the condition that Matt Murdock (not Daredevil) turns himself in to the FBI to make life easier for all present if they can exonerate Matt's alleged crimes. We really do work through just how Foggy is always seeing the best in both his friends, Matt and Karen, no matter the amount of self-loathing may come from these two guys. Throw in a particularly fantastic bit with Karen and Sister Maggie, where Maggie confides in Karen about how Matt has some really heavy abandonment issues, and Karen is... I don't want to say "guilt-tripped" to help Matt since she's already leaning towards that, but her desire to help out is justified, I guess?

This episode isn't particularly subtle at comparing Benjamin Poindexter with Matt Murdock's life, and how the two of them could've easily swapped places if events had gone a bit differently. And the parallel isn't just the Daredevil-vs-Daredevil fight at the end either, but it's shown with how their support system happens. Both Dex and Matt are pretty fucked-up people, who tend to push those around them away, but where it's different is how Matt goes back to those same people, and he's got a pretty great support system in place with Karen, Foggy, Sister Maggie and Father Lantom. Yes, Matt may have a lot of abandonment issues and a fucked-up childhood (although Sister Maggie's story about Matt refusing to call for help after one nightmare where she didn't come is a bit too much) but he doesn't refuse help when it's given to him, and his friends, despite whatever they may think about Matt's assholishness for the past five seasons, are still his friends and family, and Matt/Daredevil is very much willing to compromise.

Contrast it to Dex, who, when faced with adversity and thrown under the bus by the FBI, has absolutely no one to turn to. The other FBI people just go "it ain't right" and continue with their day, and even Dex's only friend in the force, Agent Nadeem, can only offer empty promises. There is some great usage of... hallucinations? Flashbacks? Voices in Dex's mind? It's the condemning voices of Julie telling him to go away, and the voices from the psychiatrist to tell him that he needs structure and a moral compass, but ultimately the show makes a great usage of the "deafening silence as voices peter out" filming trick to show off just how utterly alone Dex is as he pushes everyone away.

This, ironically, makes him susceptible to Wilson Fisk's own devilish words. Nevermind the fact that anyone with a clear mind would see that Fisk has arranged for Dex's downfall (he's very obviously the dude that leaked the news of Dex's investigation to the media), but Fisk does manage to 'break'  Dex with nothing but brutal honesty. Fisk doesn't really deny his involvement in bringing Julie into the hotel, and he basically tells Dex that it's to illustrate how the two of them are the same. Fisk brings up how he himself has killed his own father at the age of twelve, and how society will never accept them. Only a select few -- like Fisk's own mother -- will be able to accept those who are... 'broken'. (It's definitely well-paralleled with Sister Maggie's own account of Matt's childhood, where little Matt likewise felt isolated from the world.)

And as Dex's life quite literally falls apart under him as the 'fictions' he built up refuses to really help him, we get a pretty sad moment as surrounded by nothing but voices from the past -- Julie's eerie suicide hotline and Fisk's own observations of how society will reject him -- Dex very nearly takes his own life until a dramatic phone call interrupts him. (Fisk definitely has installed some cameras there, huh?) Fisk basically tells Dex that there's a way out, that Fisk will accept Dex "without any shame". It's pretty intoxicating for Dex to be accepted for all of his warts, and, again, this is different from how the far more supportive Foggy and Karen are, who accept Matt's mission but demands some sort of compromise.

Of course, in the background, Karen and Daredevil manage to hunt down Jasper Evans, whose family is threatened by Fisk. It's equal parts scary and awesome to see Karen threaten Jasper that she's going to publish an article about Jasper talking either way. Really kind of a silly move to not just record his testimony right then and there, but I suppose there are some American-specific guidelines as to what sort of confessions are legal? Karen brings Jasper to the New York Bulletin, while Foggy makes a deal with Nadeem to listen to Jasper's testimony (at which point Nadeem finally realizes he's been duped) but, of course, Dex shows up.

And we get a genuinely awesome scene of Dex dressed up in the awesome-looking red Daredevil costume, which... yeah, I get why they're doing this, again, but the first-season bandana-on-his-head low-budget costume just looks horrifyingly bad next to this, yeah? The fight between Daredevil and Daredevil is definitely well-done, and I really do love just how Bullseye tends to have the advantage whenever the two fights have some sort of distance at each other, throwing objects at superhuman accuracy towards Daredevil, while Daredevil tended to have the advantage when they're up close with each other.

Of course, Bullseye manages to wound Daredevil and forces him to escape, the FBI show up too late (and blame the massacre on Daredevil), Jasper Evans gets shot in the head... and Dex apparently knows Karen? Huh, that's a bit surprising.

Overall, a predictable but very, very intense episode. There's a lot of well-done moments about parallels between Matt and Dex, and a lot of awesome moments for Karen and Foggy as well. I also do like a couple of the more low-key scenes, like that homage to the first season with Kingpin going through his daily routine and wearing his cuff-links and stuff. The highlight of this episode has to be Dex's story, though, detailing his descent into actual, flat-out villainy. It's definitely a neat moment to end the first half of the season on, and I'm definitely a big fan. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E04-05 Review: Toy Soldiers

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Episodes 4-5: The Nijimura Brothers, Pt. 2-3

So after taking down Okuyasu, the younger Nijimura brother, the second and third parts of the Nijimura Brothers multi-part episode sort of acts as the big finisher for this first part of Diamond is Unbreakable. Sort of like the big event when playing an RPG and the first 'main quest' style quest, I suppose, but by far a huge stretch from actually getting to the 'good parts' of the plot.

We're quickly introduced to the character quirks of Nijimura Keicho, the elder brother, whose little character quirk is that he's super methodical. In JJBA's unique way of explaining, he is "a man who will always listen to the first disc before the second disc", and he is very, very insistent about that.

And as Keicho unleashes his Stand from the darkness, Okuyasu charges in, intent on fixing his mistakes... and gets riddled with small holes all over his face. Keicho scoffs at his utterly incompetent brother dragging him down, and continues to fire with his unseen Stand and creating more tiny holes all over the place, not caring if his little brother gets caught in the crossfire.

Josuke, of course, saves Okuyasu, dragging him out of a hole he makes on the wall with Crazy Diamond (which instantly repairs itself), and after an attempted interrogation session with Okuyasu, who refuses to tell Josuke anything even while wounded... Josuke heals Okuyasu, something that utterly baffles Okuyasu. Especially when he realizes that Josuke basically sacrificed an arm to drag him out. Josuke notes that there's no reason for Okuyasu to die, and I think this is the arc that really hammers in that Josuke isn't a stone-cold killer. Which actually makes Jotaro a lot more psychotic now that you think of it.

And then Okuyasu returns the favour by choke-holding Josuke as he enters the Nijimura house, but that's just to use The Hand to drag Koichi's body (man, poor Koichi's just so broken in these scenes) towards Josuke so he doesn't have to walk into the trap. However, poor, confused Okuyasu then just decides to be neutral after that one favour, not betraying his brother any further.

And then as Josuke heals Koichi, we actually see the true form of Bad Company, Keicho's Stand, which is an adorable swarm of little toy soldier-men! While not all Stands manifest in humanoid ghost-robot forms in Stardust Crusaders, there's a lot more of these deviant-looking Stands in Diamond is Unbreakable, and I've always really liked Bad Company as these mummified army men toys that also comes with a bunch of tanks and Apache helicopters as well.

They just chase down Josuke and Koichi around the house, and it actually took Josuke (and your average viewer) some time to realize that, hey, Koichi can actually see the little toy soldiers and have been reacting to them, and both Josuke and Keicho notes that, huh, Koichi has become a Stand-user. The thing is, Koichi can't really make his Stand properly come out and throwing around terms just makes the poor kid really confused.

All he manages to bring out... is a little white egg that doesn't do anything, and he ends up just sort of being a bit of a liability and a prop in this arc's battles. That's okay, though. Koichi's going to have a lot of chances to shine. It's really interesting, honestly, just how Part 4 really tries to explain the mythology of Stands and its origins and Stand Usage 101 because everyone in Stardust Crusaders is just instantly an expert.

Episode 4 ends with Koichi out of the fight,  and then Josuke sitting calmly in the ground as Bad Company unleashes all its armaments onto Josuke. Meanwhile, Josuke uses Crazy Diamond to repair the missiles fired onto him (and he purposedly took) and have them fly towards Keicho's face and take him out.

Bad Company is kinda unique, but the way Keicho's taken out is sorta just quick, huh? The fifth episode doesn't really have much in lieu of a fight scene, with the actual Nijimura Brothers fight being done in the fourth episode, but there is a fair bit of story being told in this part.

Koichi refuses to let the Bow and Arrow be left behind because it could be used to hurt people, but in the Nijimura's attic, they instead find this grotesque green blob-monster who instantly regrows its arm when Josuke chops it off in reflex. A wounded Keicho shows up and explains that this green creature is their father, and he reveals that he has been shooting people with the bow and arrow in order to look for a specific Stand (really dangerous MO there), one that can actually kill his father, because Keicho just wants to let him die normally.

Apparently Nijimura's father is an abusive little scumbag that beats up his children, and apparently he is also one of the many people with "Stand Potential" that joined Dio during the events of Stardust Crusaders, and was rewarded with a lot of money during that part. Not surprising considering Dio's huge mound of treasure. Apparently Nijimura's father never really got out of Japan, so, um... just what did he do? Apparently Dio implanted a flesh bud in his head, and upon Dio's death in Egypt at the end of Crusaders, the flesh bud goes crazy, and makes Nijimura's father to become mutated into this sorry state that can't die.

Is this the end for all of Dio's minions that didn't get killed by Jotaro and company? How many of them weren't controlled by flesh buds, anyway? Some people like Daniel D'Arby, Boingo, Oingo and Hol Horse are explicitly not killed, so are they flesh monsters now, too?

Whatever the case, though, somehow, despite all the Speedwagon Agents in Egypt and Keicho being a kid, Keicho manages to get the Bow and Arrow after Enya's death. Which is, I think, one of the weirder, bigger plot holes in this backstory. Presumably Keicho only got the Stand after obtaining the bow, so how did he get that? The dude's just a kid back there!

Whatever the case, though, we get distracted from Keicho's story's  plot holes when Keicho starts just kicking his father's face into a pulp, noting just how worthless this barely-sentient creature is, and how he's obsessed with a box in the attic. Josuke realizes what Nijimura's dad is trying to do, though, and uses Crazy Diamond to restore the scraps of paper there, returning it into a photo of the Nijimura brothers as children -- the way that Nijimura's dad's broken brain remembers.

Okuyasu shows up at this point, and he and Josuke asks Keicho why he didn't look instead for a Stand to cure their father. Keicho is all "no, I can't!" because he's killed so many people and doesn't see a way out for redemption, which... which is kind of fair, really. But just as Keicho starts to be brought around to their way of thinking, an electrical outlet starts to sparkle, and this yellow duck-kappa-pterodactyl-robot creature comes out of it and attacks. This is REDDO HOTTOH CHIRI PEPPAH (the way the VA pronounces this is just nothing short of glorious), and he goes straight for the Nijimura brothers.

Keichi pushes Okuyasu away, and gets punched straight through the chest, and I genuinely forgot just how horrifying Keichi's death is. No one present can do anything without getting electrocuted themselves, and Keichi just gets transformed into electricity and slowly sucked into the electrical outlet while his body breaks apart into electrical fizzles, helpless to do anything with Bad Company, all the while he's cursing Okuyasu for being a burden... and then our heroes look out and see Keichi's burnt body left on some power lines. Looks like a new big bad just deposed the old big bad, and that's not counting the huge amount of Stand-users Keichi left all over Morioh with his indiscriminate, desperate bow-and-arrow shooting.

Still, Josuke and Koichi seem to have a new ally in Okuyasu, who notes with melancholy that his brother was twisted enough by his goals and methods that he's going to end up with an ugly fate whatever the case, but Okuyasu also notes that Keichi's last act is an attempt to save him. Not a bad end for at least one of the Nijimura brothers, and one thing that makes Diamond is Unbreakable so much well-written than Stardust Crusaders is comparing how Koichi and Okuyasu "joins the party" compared to how Kakyoin and Polnareff did, where they are just villains-of-the-week that end up being freed of mind control. Okuyasu's the same, but his actual character development and grudging respect for Josuke is definitely shown very well in these two episodes.

The episode also ends in a cliffhanger with Katagiri (a.k.a. Red Hot Chili Pepper guy) calling Jotaro and telling him and his allies to just leave him alone (and he won't bother them), but with the Bow in Katagiri's hands, it's clear that that's not going to happen. Overall, though, the story's definitely got a great focus on the Nijimura brothers, and I'm definitely a big fan of this little mini-arc. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• Nijimura Keicho's stand, Bad Company, is named after the English hard rock supergroup of the same name, and one of the classics of 70's-80's era rock. Among their more prominent songs are Bad Company, Can't Get Enough, and, of course, Feel Like Makin' Love.
• Most Part 4 Stands ended up being changed in English localizations, with Bad Company being changed to "Worse Company"... which is hilariously dumb, because they leave the actual English letters of BADCOMPANY on Keicho's neck collar untouched. 
• REDDO HOTTO CHIRRI PEPPAHH, or, well, Red Hot Chili Pepper is named after the American rock band of the same name, with some of their more notable songs including Otherside, Californication and Dani California

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S03E03 Review: Talk To The Hand

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Diamond is Unbreakable, Episode 3: The Nijimura Brothers, Pt. 1

I tended to group multi-part episodes together, but I'm going to separate episode 3 from its subsequent parts because I'm going to split them up based on the antagonists. This episode has a whole lot for me to unpack as well, with a whole ton of information dump.

The first chunk of the episode is a "once more with clarity" vesrion of Angelo's transformation into a rock human (it's a little funny comparing Angelo to a rock human considering Part VIII), where we get to see the actual interrogation that Jotaro and Josuke has with Angelo as he's still got a human face. Angelo sneers that the two Jojos shouldn't get cocky, because "he'll get you. The man in the school uniform will get you!" which has got to be the most stupid-sounding taunt ever.

Angelo then reveals that the man in the school uniform was the same one who gave him the power of a Stand, and Angelo was not a Stand user from birth -- he was given the power of a Stand in 1998, a month before execution. In the prison, Angelo is visited by some kid in a school uniform with a bow and arrow, who seems to be affiliated with Dio in some capacity. And the name-drop instantly shocks Jotaro.

And as Jotaro is distracted by this and Josuke is combing his hair, Angelo uses his Aqua Necklace stand to attack a random kid...  and in the process, insults Josuke's hair, causing Josuke to unleash Crazy Diamond, break the rock and the human apart, fusing them together into a rock with a very human-like face, which is how Angelo is trapped in.

And then it's time for Jotaro to research, with the members of Speedwagon foundation that worked ten years ago during the time of Stardust Crusaders finding a picture of Enya-baa with the bow and arrow, confirming what Angelo has told him. And considering Stardust Crusaders  has consistently shown that all of the Joestar members -- Jotaro, Joseph, Holly and Josuke -- have developed a Stand at around the same time, activated seemingly by Dio's own activation of a Stand which affected them due to their powerful blood... Jotaro asks himself just how did Dio acquire said Stand in 1987. He (and the audience) simply didn't think to question it, just that Dio-in-Jonathan has just managed to activate it.

It also adds to a nice detail that both Polnareff and Kakyoin have been shown to have the Stand since they were at least children. Polnareff having a Stand as a kid and Jotaro not having one is a plot point during the Set fight, whereas Kakyoin is apparently ostracized for having Hierophant Green as a child (although this detail may or may not have been exclusive to the anime). I'm not quite sure if this lines up with everyone, or if everyone that isn't shot with the bow needs to have their Stands develop since childhood... but it's actually a nice bit of detail that doesn't actually contradict anything from Crusaders.

We also have a bit of Koichi researching Angelo's claim, and since the beginning of the year 1999, around 81 people have disappeared in Morioh, which is a pretty high number.

We also have a little nice fluff scene where Jotaro arrives at the Higashikata household, causing a bit of a misunderstanding when Tomoko walks out and thinks that Jotaro is Joseph returned... which is genuinely hilarious since Joseph and Jotaro doesn't really have that  much of a resemblance, and even then Joseph courted Tomoko when he was already wrinkled and bearded.

And then Josuke and Koichi walk around the neighbourhood, with Koichi finding something interesting about an abandoned building near Josuke's house. He sticks his neck in-between the main gates, which has got to be the most un-safe things you could do to peek around. The seemingly-abandoned building turns out to be not so abandoned, of course, as the same dude from Angelo's flashback makes himself known in the top floor, while his thug-like little brother, dressed with dollar bills and yen bills on his body, kicks the gate to trap Koichi's neck and considering how thick the metal gates are, I'm surprised Koichi's not dead after his larynx was crushed like that.

And then Koichi gets shot in the chest with the bow! Well it's not a good day for Koichi, it seems.

The elder of the Nijimura brothers,  the one inside the mansion, clearly knows who Josuke is, and tells his little brother Nijimura Okuyasu to deal with Josuke with the strength of his powerful Stand. And Okuyasu's Stand is called The Hand, (ZA! HANDO!) which is actually a pretty dang stylish-looking Stand, what with those dollar bill chest-pieces,  spikes on the shoulders and a pretty wacky-looking cylindrical head with a fun expression. Okuyasu himself is also a blast with his hammy, rough voice -- he's voiced by Uchiha Obito's voice actor, if I recall correctly.

And after a couple of brief Stand-to-Stand clashes between The Hand against Crazy Diamond, we get the older Nijimura brother being a huge dick to Okuyasu, telling him that The Hand is an immensely powerful Stand, and Okuyasu's being a hindrance for not utilizing it properly. And that's the whole point of Okuyasu's character -- he's kinda dumb. Not so much that he's a complete moron, but it's pretty hilarious how Okuyasu just flat-out ignores Josuke while he argues with his brother, allowing Josuke to knock him aside to walk up to Koichi.

And then the Stand fight resumes, and Josuke quickly realizes that Okuyasu prioritizes attacking with his right hand. Josuke ends up grappling for The Hand's right hand, and Okuyasu straight-up just goes "Oy! Let go of my right hand, that's how I attack!" The Hand's ability is using the right hand to 'scrape' away anything its right hand slashes through,  completely wiping it out from existence and deleting it to a dimension that "not even [Okuyasu] knows"... and guess what? The older Nijimura isn't wrong. That's a pretty damn powerful Stand power, comparable as a less-versatile version of Vanilla Ice's Stand, and that is easily the second most deadly Stand in Stardust Crusaders. The only real difference in how it works  is that Cream just makes holes in buildings and the like, whereas the Hand wipes out space itself, instantly fusing things like the remnants of the gate together (which made Josuke figure out how it works) or to wipe out the space in-between combatants to allow Okuyasu to essentially drag Josuke in front of him.

Of course, a properly smart combatant would do what Vanilla Ice did, and try to instantly eliminate the enemy. But no, instead of wiping out Josuke, Okuyasu just drags Josuke close to him, and physically punch him in the face.

This ends up with Josuke maneuvering himself to stand in front of a couple of plant pots,  and when The Hand drags him back in front of Okuyasu, Josuke ducks and this powerful Stand and its user... gets knocked out by a bunch of potted plants to the face, which are sent flying his way due to the Hand. Yep!

It's overall actually a pretty fun variation of a power we've seen before, with a different way of utilizing it compared to Vanilla Ice. We also get a not-insignificant amount of world-building and foreshadowing. Overall, not a bad episode at all.

The JoJo Playlist:

• I wouldn't have been able to guess it, but The Hand is apparently stated by the author to be a reference to Canadian rock band called The Band. They're known for songs like The Weight, The Shape I'm In and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. I genuinely thought The Hand was just an English word used for a Stand. 

Titans S01E05 Review: Robins Are Awesome

Titans, Season 1, Episode 5: Together

A surprisingly more... light episode! That's not a bad thing, though, considering how intensely dense the previous couple of episodes of Titans has been. I am kind of curious if the pacing for these earlier episodes wouldn't have worked better if some of the Nuclear Family or Starfire investigation stuff had been transposed into this episode instead of making the third episode so cluttered.

And this episode feels very light. Sure, we deal with recurring antagonists, the Nuclear Family, with finality, but the bulk of the episode is just basically an extended "buddy-buddy" montage. And it's one that the show definitely needs. After spending most of the previous couple of episodes being on the run, with the only real thing connecting them together is the Titans' individual friendships with Rachel, it's definitely important to slow down and let these four characters get to know each other. The montage and the constant affirmations that Beast Boy still needs to shed his clothes any time he transforms into that tiger is fun, which goes straight into black comedy as we basically learn to not prod the demon-possessed girl. Yeah, the episode is slow thanks to these "main characters learn to bond as a team" episodes being sort of a mandatory evil, but it's definitely well-done for what it's worth.

Dick gets kind of the focus of the episode, sort of, as Starfire eggs him on to 'open up', but it's not a particularly well-developed theme. They also have sex, and... yeah, it definitely feels utterly sudden. I do like that Anna Diop is finally allowed to act in something beyond 'confused angry amnesiac', which is definitely not entertaining to watch. This is the first time in the entire season where Starfire feels more like Starfire, albeit a more mature, less naive version of her.

After the audience gets to see Dr. Adamson making a new "Dad" out of some random bloke, as well as a disgustingly nausea-inducing bit where Adamson whisks a chicken fetus (what was that about?) the newly-rebuilt Nuclear Family goes off and attacks the Titans at the motel. And, of course, we get a pretty damn awesome fight scene as Robin finally enters the scene and shows what he can do. One of the main themes in most Teen Titans adaptations is that Robin/Nightwing, despite being a non-superpowered superhero, unequivocably leads this group of superheroes. And while this episode does jump through some hoops to show how Starfire can't use her powers at night and that both Raven and Beast Boy's powers are not really under full control, it's far more believable than some of the obvious creator's pet moments the various Robins have had in the comics.

Besides, it's just badass, you know? Say what you want about the tone and direction of Titans, but they do pretty neat-looking action scenes.

The final act of the episode is a wee bit more haphazard. The Nuclear Family are tied-up and Robin quickly realizes that they're brainwashed, so he goes off on a one-man detective crusade (although he says goodbye to Rachel this time around, at least) to hunt down dr. Adamson. The problem is that Adamson is part of a bigger organization (of course), and that means that assassins are there to murder him for breaking his cover. Oh, and the Nuclear Family's head got blown up -- leading to an insanely hilarious and absolutely perfect delivery of a deadpan, tired "aw, shit" from Starfire.

The episode ends with a different Robin showing up and being awesome, rescuing Dick (and Adamson?), and this dude announces himself as the New Robin. Which means we're going back to another guest-star-heavy episode next week! Ultimately, not the best episode out there,  but a much-needed breathing space to allow the characters and cast to organically grow.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the comics, the second Robin, Jason Todd, did actually debut into super-heroing at around the same time that Dick Grayson was leading the Teen Titans as Robin. 

Supergirl S04E05 Review: Parasite Redux

Supergirl, Season 4, Episode 5: Parasite Lost

A bit of a slightly confused episode, but one that somehow works relatively well. First up, I have to applaud the show for sneaking in "Agent Jensen" under my nose for nearly a month without me realizing who this was going to lead to. CW has mostly abandoned most foreshadowing to prominent characters and are content on doing their own spin with them, but it's neat.

The biggest problem that this episode has, I think, is having too many major storylines and not enough space to explore them. It's a problem that Supergirl has been having increasingly over the past couple of episodes, although considering how inane and bland some of the weaker third season episodes are, maybe they're compensating?

The main DEO storyline is obviously Supergirl hunting down the alien-killing Jensen-Parasite, and Supergirl herself ends up being a liability. It's a pretty standard storyline, intertwined with the General Haley one (which we'll talk later) and intersecting with the Amadei Derros one (also later), and eventually leads to our action scene. Jensen ended up being talked down from blowing up all the humans in the dome, although I really wished we had actually learned a bit more about Jensen as a person. Actor Anthony Konechny is pretty great in this episode when he's given the spotlight, but considering how much the climax of the episode hinges on Alex appealing to their old friendship and whatnot it fell kind of flat when Jensen was kind of a non-entity or a plot device.

The General Haley story is definitely very interesting. Alex (and the audience) goes in expecting her to be a hard-case like General Sam Lane or the many other obstructive military-men in the superhero genre, but turns out that Haley is nice to Alex, praising her reforms to the DEO, and her concerns about not sending Supergirl into the field against a power-draining opponent is extremely valid. Likewise, even when Alex inevitably breaks orders at the climax of the episode in order to have Supergirl evacuate civilians and to talk down Parasite, disobeying Haley's order to sacrifice a block  instead of allowing Parasite to rampage, Haley actually ends up commending Alex for her efforts.

Of course, the boot has to drop somewhere, and Haley ends up revealing that despite being a pretty competent and reasonable general, she's inevitably going to face some huge troubles against Alex when she reveals herself to be definitely extremely bigoted towards J'onn J'onzz, referring to him as a traitor scum. I mean, J'onn did sort of commit identity theft, and I really, really hope that Supergirl doesn't turn Haley into a one-dimensional "evil racist antagonist, rar" and actually have her be somewhat of a more complex person.

Meanwhile, Kara and J'onn end up meeting up with the alien healer called Amadei Derros... and it's honestly kind of a bland storyline. It's supposed to parallel how Alex views General Haley, except on the other way around -- Kara realizes that the seemingly saintly Amadei might not be squeaky-clean, being a deadbeat father and whatnot, but turns out that, hey, Amadei's all right after all. The storyline really doesn't work because Amadei spends nearly the entire episode unconscious, so the whole "is he a good guy or a bad guy" question isn't as complex as the General Haley one. Ultimately, the addition of an illegitimate child, a life-giving amulet (that can somehow stop the Parasite in an inelegant plot-smooshing bit) and an angry Child of Liberty wife ends up just feeling too much for such an under-developed sub-plot.

There's also a sub-plot about how mass media is going to influence the world, with Kara writing an article about aliens. It's... it's neat, I guess. I confess I don't particularly care about any of the CatCo stuff, though. Far more interesting is J'onn ending up with a fedora and going off to help solve crimes for aliens who don't feel safe going to the police. I love that!

The Lena/James stuff is... it's a bit more interesting, and I do like the fact that they immediately recognizes their previous encounters with Ben Lockwood, and when they do show up at a meeting of influential people, their dawning realization about how so many members there are actually starting to lean more towards Lockwood's hateful ideals is definitely well-delivered. Lockwood gets a pretty well-written debate with James about press and whatnot, and manages to rile the crowd to support James going off to become Guardian, a 'hero of mankind', which is... it's pretty well done, actually. It's not perfect, but I do like the idea of a supervillain using his civilian identity to politically assassinate the heroes and spread nice-sounding hate. Is it a bit too political? I don't particularly know, I'm not an American nor do I particularly care about current politics. I do know that I do like where they're taking James Olsen here, and it's definitely the most interesting the character's ever been in this show.

Overall, it's... it's kind of a confused episode that probably could've worked better with one of its subplots removed and the others expanded upon. Not a spectacular one, but not a bad one for sure!

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• I genuinely am surprised I didn't catch it earlier this season! Agent Jensen becomes the second Parasite. In the original comics, Raymond Maxwell Jensen was instead the first Parasite, introduced during the Golden Age before Crisis on Infinite Earths as a janitor who stumbled across space biohazard stored in storage containers, transforming him into an energy-absorbing creature. 
• Parasite obtaining shape-shifting powers was actually one of the powers that the Rudy Jones version (basically the most popular version of the Parasite, even though he's essentially the same as Raymond Jensen) of the Parasite had for a moment, using said shape-shifting powers to pose as Lois Lane after discovering Superman's real identity.
• In his original inception and before he basically became synonymous with the Justice League team, the Martian Manhunter does spend his time disguised as a fedora-wearing detective called John Jones. 

Daredevil S03E05 Review: Kid Sociopath

Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 5: The Perfect Game

Well, this is a... very interesting episode. It's an episode that mostly just builds up Bullseye in a huge,  long and extended black-and-white flashback sequence which... is interesting bit. It's supposed to represent Wilson Fisk's visualization of the events as he listens to some conveniently comprehensive therapy tapes, but I'm not sure if it needed to be in black-and-white for so long. I'm not sure what it really adds into the episode other than being kinda artsy. Mind you, I don't mind it all that much.

The episode opens with Wilson Fisk and Donovan discussing about how, well, the fact that there isn't any dead body in the taxi crash means that Matt Murdock is basically alive, since "a man capable of that would survive". Kingpin's all but saying that he figured out that Matt Murdock is one and the same with Daredevil, and ends up making use of his deal with Agent Nadeem to basically destroy Matt Murdock's life, sending Nadeem on a chase to hunt down Murdock, who Fisk paints as a dirty lawyer who had worked for him. It's an interesting storyline that I'll talk about after discussing the Bullseye stuff. It is interesting just how much Fisk is keeping up with the FBI and Nadeem basically poking the bear and withholding help and that Fisk will get everything offered "within time".

And as Fisk sends Nadeem off to destroy Murdock (who isn't actually in this episode a whole ton), Donovan shows up with a whole ton of resources he dug up on Benjamin Poindexter, and, well, we enter a whole-episode flashback mode. Without giving any commentary on the obviously-not-real-life-accurate psychological diagnoses, it does paint Dex's lack of empathy pretty well. He's an utter sociopath, and only really understands things as to how it relates to him -- even a coach that has been nothing but supportive to him ends up earning Kid Dex's ire when he wants to give another kid a chance in a baseball game. This leads to Dex (complete with Bullseye Easter Egg cap) to throw a baseball that straight-up kills the coach.

Dex is a selfish, jackass prick even as a kid, but it's hard, again, to really blame the kid. A combination of a child-like desire to 'see his parents again' (they're dead) and, as his psychiatrist notes, a lack of any sort of positive parental guidance, ends up sort of warping the poor kid's mentality. Dr. Mercer is a very, very parental figure, not judging Dex and trying to teach empathy to him... and we flash-forward a couple of years until Dex is a bit older and Dr. Mercer is ready to retire.

But Dex confesses on how utterly broken he is. All his life he's been doing nothing but pretend to be normal, and the idea of not having someone to 'right' him back to normalcy ends up scaring Dex so much. "Don't leave!" He yells and cries, and confesses that he wants to kill Dr. Mercer to "punish" her for leaving him, and it's a genuinely unsettling moment as Dex's combination of emotional grief and lack of emotion ends up being portrayed amazingly well. "I want to kill you for dying", Dex says, although he doesn't actually manage to go through with killing Dr. Mercer. Mercer leaves the collection of tapes to Dex, and we get to see him work at a suicide prevention hotline and keep a rigid, structured life to basically distract him from any of his impulses. We get to see a bit of that rigid life as the cold opening of this episode, too.

It's a pretty chilling bit, though, because even as he's working at a suicide prevention hotline, Dex ends up being a bit too honest and eggs one of the dudes to "try and deal with" the problem that causes him to want to kill himself in the first place. We also learn that this is where the stalking of Julie began.

We cut back to Fisk and Donovan, and Fisk tells Donovan that this Dex fellow is... very interesting, because Fisk plans to give the city a new villain to distract the public, and as a 'fall guy', Poindexter will do. It's a neat brand of villainy that Vincent D'Onofrio manages to perform seemingly effortlessly, combining genuine respect and passion with the desire to manipulate everything for his own ends. Of course every conspiracy that Karen thinks is real is indeed part of Fisk's plans, which is definitely far more preferable than to have Fisk grasping at straws just to free Vanessa.

Fisk manages to 'get' Julie to show up at the same hotel bar that Dex is assigned at, and it's interesting that it's all Fisk seems to do -- he trusts Dex to ruin everything with his lack of social skills, and ruin the meeting it did. Dex ends up revealing a bit too much that he knows waaaaay more about Julie than acquaintances that bump into each other after a couple of years are supposed to, and it's horrifying and sad at the same time to see poor Dex grasp at straws to keep Julie on the same table with him while revealing more and more just how deep he's stalked her. Whatever the case about real-life psychological analyses, it's still a pretty damn harsh event on poor Dex, and I'm curious just how this will affect his relationship with Fisk and eventually his transformation into Bullseye.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast basically gets tied together with Nadeem's investigation of Matt Murdock the dirty lawyer, and... and I really want to say that I think that Nadeem's an interesting character and an alternate point of view, but so far he just seems to be as antagonistic as the plot needs, and kind of bland. He breaks into Matt's apartment (Matt has escaped, of course), and ends up investigating both Foggy and Karen, bringing up how Murdock and Nelson had unknowingly worked for Fisk that one time in season one, a detail that I actually genuinely forgot. Also, interestingly and something that I remember far more vividly, was the fact that Karen killed James Wesley, the disappearance of whom the FBI is also investigating. Karen deflects with her own investigation about how Fisk has brought the hotel he's kept in, but Nadeem did notice things that's not quite right about Karen.

And it brings a lot of interesting angles about Karen. How much about Felix Manning's condemnations of Karen is true? He claims to know everything about Karen's life, about how "drug addicts destroy families", and that there's that... whole mystery past with her brother. There's the fact that Karen actually did kill Wesley, out of self-defense, but she did cover it up.. and it's definitely a huge,  huge move for the show to bring it up now.

And the conversation between Karen and Foggy, with them bonding over shit-talking Matt and Nadeem, and Karen eventually telling Foggy that he "always believed the best for people", and finally spilling out the fact that he killed Wesley... it's going to lead to a similarly potentially-destructive segment similar to how Dex has dealt with Julie.

It's a different episode, and it might be a bit self-indulgent with the flashback sequence, but I for one love it -- another very solid episode of Daredevil.