Loki S02E03 Review: How Timely

Loki, Season 2, Episode 3: 1893

Again, just like episode 2, I felt like "1893" was a far more impactful episode than the season premiere and its rather bland opening with the giant CGI space loom and the still-underwhelming introduction of kooky side character Ouroboros. "1893" brings us the actual post-credits scene hyping up Victor Timely, the 'origin story' of Kang, as the three different parties -- Loki/Mobius, Ravonna Renslayer, as well as Sylvie -- all want to do take their own spin on Kang. Sylvie is still pissed off about the whole fate thing and wants to just kill off any variant of Kang. Renslayer and the gloriously creepy Miss Minutes want to mentor Victor Timely in some way or other. Meanwhile, Loki and Mobius have the additional information that a Kang is needed to stabilize the mechanisms behind the Time Loom, so they want to rescue Victor Timely. Not to mention the typical "is it ethical to time-travel to the past and kill a super-evil dictator before they can do all of the EVILS" question. 

And the episode itself, despite taking a fair amount of screentime, is... pretty solid. Unlike most of the timelines/locations we've visited in Loki, I do actually feel like we spent a decent amount of screentime in the titular 1893, allowing us to absorb the vibe of the Chicago World Fair, and how Victor Timely is this character that is decades, even centuries ahead of his time with the technology he's showing off in the fair. 

And Victor Timely himself is... at least he feels different? One thing that annoyed me a bit about Jonathan Majors's different Kangs is that "He Who Remains" and "Kang the Exile" both felt like the same character, just with slightly different motivations. And they are both Kang, but I still question if what they did in one episode and one movie respectively really left as much of an impact as ol' Thanos did. It's this unfortunate comparison with the MCU's previous big bad, really. But I do like that Victor Timely is an interestingly weird spin on the character and the actor, even if I do find him and his constant nervous-wreck tendencies to be a bit irritating. I do like that around halfway through the episode, it's clear that Timely has a bit of a mean streak to him with how he betrays Renslayer and leaves her on a boat. There's a fair amount of the ego and his desire of control and independence that'll eventually blossom into blown-out villainy when he does become Kang the Conqueror, which I appreciate. 

The episode does feel like it runs along for a bit too long. As always, Loki, Mobius and Sylvie are very fun to see, and Renslayer's return is pretty all right. I'm not the biggest fan of Miss Minutes, but she did give us a few yandere psychotic sequences in the second half of the episode that I really like. But I do really think that Timely being chased around by the Robber Baron and his goons end up just being padding (and not particularly interesting ones at that) and I really wished that the debt collectors are just written out after Loki magicked them the first time around. 

Sylvie's part of the story is still probably the easiest to understand, though since her goal is just "I need to kill this omniversal lunatic" and the only moral quandry is how Timely hasn't done anything yet isn't the hardest or most oblique thing to 'get'. I do like, again, that Sylvie pops into the episode relatively late, enough for the audience to get that Victor Timely, while not deserving of death at this point in time, isn't entirely harmless. But that's not really what drives the knife home into Sylvie's heart. The episode doesn't explicitly say it outright, but after some arguments with Loki, the argument from Victor Timely that he hasn't done anything, and says some words in the effect about how he's an individual and not 'just a variant' gives Sylvie pause. That's a great moment for both characters involved. 

Ravonna Renslayer, meanwhile... she's working with Miss Minutes (who backstabs her for like 15 minutes but they're back together at the end of the episode) seemingly to create a stable time loop so Victor Timely does become Kang? Or something? It's still not entirely sure what she's doing. She tosses in the TVA handbook (a nice nod to the otherwise bland season premiere) to a young Victor to get him to create basically a small, primitive version of the Time Loom. She and Miss Minutes then go and 'rescue' Victor away from the other parties there, presenting themselves as the only ones that are acting on behalf of Victor Timely's future self. 

Miss Minutes shows that she's more than just a one-note weird creepy character trope and convinces Timely to backstab Renslayer... but then creeps out Timely when she starts talking about how under-appreciated she is as an android, as an A.I.... and then interposes her face on a mannequin and talks about how it would be oh-so-gosh-darn swell for Victor to give Miss Minutes a body of her own. Timely shuts Minutes off in a surprisingly devious manner, and by the end of the episode she and Renslayer seem to shrug it off as 'well, it happened'. 

Renslayer herself gets into an argument with Loki, Mobius and Sylvie on different parts of the episode, and she seems to be convinced that she's embodying order. This isn't really the best argument since she's basically doing the orders of a dead future man and hanging out with a creepy peppy sentient clock A.I., and flirting with little ol' Victor Timely. I'm still not entirely convinced about Renslayer as a well-meaning antagonist at this point, though I do like the performance of the actor. She's at least an actual character, unlike General Whatshername that got beaten last episode. I do wonder just how much is 'create a temporal paradox' fits with Renslayer's definition of order. At the end of the episode Sylvie teleports Renslayer to Kang's Citadel at the end of time, where He Who Remains's corpse is still hanging out. 

This brings Loki and Mobius as the last characters for me to talk about, and... I like their dynamic. They clearly are having fun, but they're mostly just reactive to the conflict going on, which is more carried by Timely, Renslayer and Miss Minutes. Loki and Mobius gives a nice alternative for Timely to do, and I guess the little plot wrinkle that they need a living Kang to stop the Time Loom is neat enough... but it does kind of make Sylvie feel like a bit of a dumbass for refusing to listen that they need to keep Victor Timely alive long enough for them to untangle the mess that the TVA has made. 

The show's still a bit messier than I would've liked, and this is honestly where I think a better season premiere would've benefited the show a lot more, but this is a nice watch. 

Random Notes:

• Part of this episode was shown as the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 
• Loki's line, "I've never met this man before in my life", is taken entirely from his line in Thor: Ragnarok when he was denying knowing about Thor to the Grandmaster. 
• Thor and Mobius come across three status of Odin, Thor and Balder. Odin and Thor are obviously major characters in the MCU, but Loki snarks that "no one's ever heard of [Balder]", a gag about how Balder the Brave is adapted out of the MCU despite his major role in both the original Nordic mythology as well as the source comics. 
  
• In the comics, Victor Timely was also a character that made incredible inventions ahead of his time... though his comic-book counterpart was far more successful, being able to found a small town.
• Said town is located in Wisconsin, where his MCU counterpart's laboratory is located in.
• Robber Baron is a minor gang villain that fought against the original (pre-Fantastic-Four) Human Torch. 
• The corpse of He Who Remains still in the chair is a reference to a comic book panel of Kang finding Immortus's corpse in his citadel in Avengers #269.
• Ravonna is the love interest of Kang in the comics, which explains the two's brief moment of flirting.

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. 

Loki S02E02 Review: Happy Meal

Loki, Season 2, Episode 2: Breaking Brad

The opening of this episode was a bit jarring, with our heroes already in motion in 1977, with Loki and Mobius chasing down Hunter X-5, who in turn is supposed to be hunting down Sylvie before going AWOL. It's a bit off coming from last episode's final scene, so much that I thought I'm watching episode 3 instead. It's a small complaint, though, because 'Breaking Brad' is otherwise a far more fun Loki episode than the season premiere. 

Hunter X-5 has returned to 1977 London to 'live his life', which is finally a nice pick-up on one of the huge revelations of the first season's final episodes -- that all the TVA agents are actually plucked from the timeline and had their memories and past lives erased. There's a nice fun moment as X-5, or rather Brad Wolfe, runs around and tries his best to escape Loki and his allies. We get perhaps my favourite sequence in this show so far, as Loki uses his illusion powers to great effect. He generates the illusion of a bunch of over-the-top London goons, appear as multiple versions of himself, and two of his shadows hold Brad Wolfe's shadow in place as the creepy horn helms grow on the shadows. Some really great banter between Loki and Mobius as always. 

And I do really feel that these scenes are the highlight of the episodes. Loki, Mobius and Hunter B-15 try to interrogate Brad Wolfe, but he's just indignant that all the TVA staff are just so happy to accept their false lives... and then calls Loki out for being a villain. There's an amazing moment as Loki is just struck dumb for a moment when Wolfe reminds Loki that, yeah, he's still got the past of a supervillain and a loser one at that -- a nice little nod to the earlier episodes of the first season. So that this episode isn't just a rehash, however, it's Mobius that clearly ends up getting rattled by Brad Wolfe's statement about Mobius having a life somewhere, somewhen. Seeing Brad live it up as the actor that plays 'Zaniac' is probably something that shook Mobius up a little bit, too. 

Loki and Mobius call a time-out, and they bond over key lime cake. Again... all the scenes with Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are the highlights of the episode, and we get a great sequence as Mobius confesses that it's not having a bad life that scares him... but what if it's a good one?

We also get a very excellent interrogation scene as Loki pretends to lock Mobius out of the interrogation room, and begins to use the TVA material and hams it up to wring Sylvie's location out of Brad Wolfe. Obviously Loki isn't going to turn evil, at least not in this episode, but it's a fun sequence as Loki plays up the whole "fine, then let me be a villain" angle. 

And... I really do find myself not caring all that much about the rest of the plot. There are a bunch more bits and bobs of worldbuilding here and there. Ouroboros is fiddling around the Time-Pad that Brad is holding, the Temporal Loom from the season premiere is still destabilizing, Casey has memorized the TVA handbook and is an Ouroboros fanboy, and Hunter B-15 is still extremely underutilized that I had to double-check that she's even in these scenes. From here, we learn that the missing Ravonna Renslayer is actually working alongside Miss Minutes, and the big door to the big time loom is locked out unless they can get Kang there. We're saving that for the rest of the season, presumably.

...but I really do find it hard to care about this plotline, and I find the sequence of Loki, Mobius and Brad showing up at the McDonalds that Sylvie has sequestered herself in to be far, far more engaging. On paper it really isn't anything much -- Sylvie has decided that she's free from predestination and whatnot, doesn't give a shit about the TVA and just wants to live her life. I'm not sure why this ends up becoming her working for minimal wage in McDonalds, but, well, the scene is well-acted. Loki tries to make an argument that the TVA is important because it's the only line of defense against the Kangs, but everything is interrupted as Brad Wolfe panics and tells them that Dox and her loyalists are planning to prune the branching timelines. 

And... yeah, this is where we tie in to the confusing 'destruction of the universe' plotline that B-15 and the rest of the TVA are trying to stop, and... I really confess that I don't really care? God bless Wunmi Mosaku for that distraught expression, but that's about it, really, for me. It's not like we've seen anything from these other branching timelines within the show, and not showing alternate timelines being destroyed means that it's a bit hard for me to buy into the emotion of "billions are dying!" Dox herself is only introduced for maybe a minute last episode, and is absent from this entire episode until our heroes see her implementing her plan. 

We get the requisite action scene as Loki, Sylvie and Mobius attack Dox and her troops, and we get some fun action scenes... but the bombs went through and pruned a good chunk of the timelines. Sylvie tells Loki off that the TVA is the problem, leaves to her McDonalds timeline, and Loki angsts about how it's so hard to want to stay. And... I'm actually not sure why Loki is staying, other than some vague sense of loyalty to Mobius and maybe it's "the right thing to do". I hope the next couple of episodes explores this a bit more, but not really understanding Loki and Sylvie's proper motivations other than the broad strokes is a bit damaging to the plotting. 

And... yeah. The episode is a bit better than the season premiere, but Loki's second season really does feel a lot messier compared to the first episode. The best parts of this episode really is giving the main characters (Loki, Mobius, Sylvie) and the guest star (Brad) time to shine... but I'll also acknowledge that it really ends up being hard for me to care for all of the more cosmic aspects of the plot, especially since the episode really only pays mostly lip-service to all of this, focusing more on Ouroboros and Casey being oh-so-quirky! Dox is barely a character, the mystery about Ravonna is less interesting than the show thinks it is to be stringing it along, and Hunter B-15 has so little material to work with. It's a bit better, but still rather messy. 

Random Notes:

• In the comics, Brad Wolfe is a character introduced in the 80's Thor comics, and an actor that was famous for the slasher film Zaniac. During the filming of the movie, an accidental explosion caused an extradimensional entity from the Dark Dimension to possess Wolfe, fusing him with the costume of The Zaniac and giving him super strength and the ability to generate energy knives from his hands. Driven mad, Brad Wolfe began to act out the movie's script in real life until he was stopped by Thor.
• The demonic entity called the Zaniac would then hop out of Brad Wolfe's body after his death, killing Jane Foster and causing Thor to seek out the aid of the T.V.A. to save Jane's life. 
• A Kingo movie poster can be seen outside of the theater. 
  
• Loki describes in detail about the events of The Avengers, specifically the moment when his mind-control powers did not work on Tony Stark's chest and he tossed Tony off the side of the building.

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. 

Reviewing Monsters: Persona 5, Part 27

And now we start off the final arc of the original Persona 5, the 'Depths of Mementos'. Not really going to spoil too much about the story here, and it's frankly not my favourite part of the game's storyline? It is kind of obligatory for most J-RPG games to have this epic, world-shattering final boss fight, but I really do think that the game would've worked just as fine with taking down a larger, grander conspiracy than Shido as the final final boss of the fate of a nation. 

But, well, it's not that the story is bad, not at all! I'm enjoying the rather interesting revelations about Mementos and the Velvet Room, and as someone who's only got a passing knowledge of the broader SMT/Persona games and lore, it's pretty neat to see all of this play out. 

Our eyecatcher are the Velvet Room prison twins, Justine and Caroline, who are... a lot less obnoxious than I thought they would be in the beginning scene. Those random bits where you take them around Tokyo at night really do help in making the Twins feel a bit more kooky. I also do like that their Confidant progresses in a 'sidequest' of bringing specific Persona/move combinations, and I actually do wish that some of the other Confidants have something different like them? Would it have been too hard to program? 

Anyway, a big spoilery thing happens with the Twins halfway through the final dungeon! I won't really describe in detail about the huge plot twists and whatnot, but that's why they're the eyecatcher here. 

_____________________________________________

Mercurius

• Arcana: Magician

And one of the reasons I wanted to use Morgana as the eyecatcher is because the cat's Confidant level upgrades based on the main story, which means he reaches Confidant 10 right before this, evolving into Mercurius. Mercurius is an alternate name of Mercury (Hermes in Greek), the Roman god of commerce, speed merchants, messages, eloquence, communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves. Mercury has a lot of domains! While mostly known as a messenger god, it's the 'god of thieves' and 'god of trickery' parts that I assume made it associated with a Phantom Thief. 

Mercury and Hermes are often depicted with wings on their feet to represent their insane speed (as the 'Messenger of the Gods), and Persona 5's design of Mercurius really makes this extremely over-the-top, making the tiny little ankle wings to spread as large as the wings of a bird or an angel. It's a bit harder to see, but Mercurius's visor-like eyes are also turned into wings. In this design, he's holding a giant Caduceus, the staff most associated with Hermes/Mercury and a symbol of a herald, being created of two intertwined snakes with wings on top. 

Making these reviews while talking about JoJo really does make me appreciate what is basically a more modernized 'Stand' design a bit more. It is a bit of a shame that Mercurius does lose Zorro's original silhouette and exaggerated physique, though one could make the argument that it's a representation of Morgana not having to exude a false aura of bravado after his character development and conflict with Ryuji earlier in the story. 

Asura

• Monster Name: N/A
• Arcana: Sun

Perhaps one of the most common deities from East-Asian religions are the Asura, well-remembered for their six arms and three faces. And Persona's Asura, being the ultimate Persona of the Sun Arcana, is basically what you'd expect from an 'Asura'. Not much to say other than the aspects that made the Asura so easily recognizable thanks to their extra appendages. 

It's going to take a long time to really explain everything about the Asura (or Ashura), but in the earliest Asian cultures, the Asura who started off as being gods of moral or social phenomenon; in contrast with the Devas, who were gods of natural phenomenon. In Hinduism, the Asura are fanatical, demon-like entities associated with carnal and materialistic desires, and are far more violent than the devas. 

In Buddhism (where the iconic three-headed iconography came from), the Asura are considered the lowest rank of deities, and are jealous gods that are addicted to various passions and desires. They are noted to be one of the 'four unhappy births', represented a human that is unable to find peace and is always angered with the world. The Asuras are not always evil in Buddhism, being fierce protectors, but are also fierce and quarrelsome. The Asuras formerly lived on the peak of Mount Sumeru with the other gods of the world, but the Deva Sakra evicted them onto the base of the mountain after they got drunk on wine. This led to some conflict between the Asura and the other gods, but eventually Sakra of the Deva fell in love with Suja, daughter of the Asura chief Vemacitrin, and this ended hostilities. In the Buddhist Samsara, the Asura realm is one of the six realms, though the meaning of the realm varies between traditions, with some placing it as a realm of happiness (between the devas and humans), and some placing it as part of the evil paths (alongside the animal, hungry ghost and hell realms).

Hope Diamond

• Monster Name: Death

Another dungeon, another Treasure Demon. The Hope Diamond spawns from a diamond, which is the form these Treasure Demons take in the overworld. The Hope Diamond (or the 'French Blue') is extracted from the Kollur Mine in India during the 17th-century, being blue due to some boron contents. Its exceptional size allowed scientists to discover new information about the formation of diamonds. As with the other Treasure Demons, the Hope Diamond was stolen at one point, during the French Revolution, where a group of thieves broke into the Royal Storehouse and stole most of the crown jewels.

As noted in the description, it was thought to being bad luck instead of hope, purportedly causing the deaths of several of its previous owners, with a long article and a list of its bearers that met an unfortunate end in the Hope Diamond's article on Wikipedia. It's mostly exaggerated and overblown, obviously, but it's these sensationalism that makes these jewels a bit more mystifying. Currently, the Hope Diamond is in display in the Smithsonian Museum in America. 

Dominion

• Monster Name: Merciless Inquisitor
• Arcana: Justice

Going up the rank of the ladder of 'Justice' to go through the angels, we rise up the middle ranks, skipping over 'Virtue' (who appeared in Persona 3 and Persona 4, but not this one) to the sixth of the hierarchy of angels, the Dominion. The Dominions are noted to watch over nations and regulate the duties of lesser angels, and are also known as 'Lordships'. Not really much is written about them beyond that. 

The design is also pretty simple, especially in this part of the game that has a lot of angels showing up as both enemies and being available to fuse. The silhouette given by the coiling scarf is neat, and I do like the scales he's holding, but I find him a bit more boring compared to the designs of Power, the previous non-named angel we last saw. 

Abaddon

• Monster Name: Abyssal King of Avarice
• Arcana: Judgement

Oh, this one is cool! Looking like a giant, slime-flesh-monster version of Slimer from Ghostbusters, I really love just how chunky this guy's mouth and teeth are. It's just a big giant glob monster that looks gross and warty, but Abaddon's design here is certainly memorable if nothing else! A pretty fun design, and one that I really do like due to how different it strays from a more conventional one-to-one interpretation of certain myths. I am kind of disappointed that Abaddon isn't a giant locust or a swarm of locusts, but I do really like how goofy and yet still monstrous this giant maw is. 

Abaddon is a term that means 'destruction' or 'doom', and is often contrasted with the Greek term Apollyon. It appears in the Christian Bible as a term referring to a bottomless pit of destruction, often said in the same lines with Sheol (death). In the Book of Revelation, an angel that rose from the bottomless pit is named as 'Abaddon', one of the few named angels in the Bible. Abaddon leads a plague of locusts that are described as horses with human faces, lion's teeth, wings, iron breast-blates and a tail with a scorpion's stinger. Abaddon leads his army of monster locusts out to torment those who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Due to the ambiguity of the passage, some people have interpreted Abaddon as being a fallen angel, or a minion of Satan, although some maintain that Abaddon is an angel that unleashes destruction at God's bidding. Some non-Biblical text conflates Abaddon's locust plague in Revelations with the locust plague called upon by Moses in Egypt. 

Beelzebub

• Monster Name: Fly of the Dead
• Arcana: Devil

The ultimate arcana of the Devil Persona is Beelzebub, the prince of hell that normally represents the sin of gluttony. In this game, the 'devil name' of the gluttony-representing Kaneshiro is 'Bael', sometimes considered an alternate name for Beelzebub. Beelzebub is taken from the Judeo-Christian term 'Ba'al Zebub', meaning a 'Lord of the Flies' which was a way to insult the demonized Baal as ruling over nothing but flies. The phrase was used multiple times in the Bible (most famously when the Pharisees accused Jesus of using Beelzebub's powers to heal people), but, as is common with so many other terms used to refer to concepts, the term Beelzebub (alternatively Beelzebul) would later be considered as a demon. 

As a demon, Beelzebub is sometimes described as one of the first angels to fall from heaven, and is often associated with the sin of gluttony, although sometimes Beelzebub is just regarded as another name for Satan. Thanks to his name literally being 'Lord of the Flies', Beelzebub is often associated with flies. 

Obviously, the fly theme is where they lean onto here. That's why his design in Persona 5 is literally a giant, somewhat humanoid-looking fly demon. His insectoid legs are engorged and large so that Beelzebub can stand on two of his legs, albeit in a hunchbacked position, but I really do like just how nasty that bug-face looks. The eyes look more like pulsating tumours than an insect's compound eyes, and while he does have insectoid mandibles, there's a tentacle-like tongue just hanging down. Nasty! They do capture a lot of what makes a fly look so discomforting. The design allowing Beelzebub to hold a scepter and having a necklace of skulls does a great job at communicating that this is a fly-person, not a fly-monster-beast. Not the most creative of bug monsters if we're being honest, but a pretty cool-looking one nonetheless. 

Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Teal Mask, Part 8: Cryptid Hunting

Anyway, this is the last side-quest for the Kitakami region, or the Teal Mask, and... I must say it's actually a decently-sized DLC! I think the exploration of the area is pretty neat. I'm not sure if it's a smaller location than the Crown Tundra? It feels like there's more than the Isle of Armour, though I think I've gone on record on saying that Isle of Armour really always felt like a prototype on what a DLC could be in these games. A lot of the focus is given to the main storyline of Ogerpon, Carmine and Kieran, and... it really did stumble a fair bit near the end, I'm going to be honest, but it's at least something. There's a fair bit of buildup for the second part of the story and the DLC pack, and while, again, it's not the best, I do appreciate what we get. 

And it does seem from the dialogue that ol' Perrin here is also going to show up in the Indigo Disk! Again, to recap briefly, she's a photographer, and descendant of Adaman from Pokemon Legends Arceus, and she's in a slump and wants to capture the photograph of the cryptic, mysterious Bloodmoon Beast... which is a mutant Ursaluna. Which are supposed to be extinct, or at least extremely endangered. Perrin shows off a picture of the Bloodmoon Beast shadowed in the mist, and good fucking job on whoever did this. It's basically the same Ursaluna model that we later see in-game, but the framing and the shadows, as well as the glowing blood-moon forehead and the little beady left eye, really does a great job at making Ursaluna look like a monstrous creature. 

Anyway, after finishing a whole lot of random sidequests as well as helping the people of Kitakami solve their whole Ogre problem, we run and meet Perrin being super-excited about a Poliwhirl in the Timeless Forest. And... the game just gives us an option to call out to her and to... observe... her. Just... really... getting... uncomfortably excited... about the Poliwhirl. She gets way too excited about the 'cutie pie' that is 'lovely' and 'adorable' that she can 'eat up', and it's an 'extra serving of cuteness' with 'more extra storage' and she needs a 'napkin'.

You know, this would be a bit more disturbing if you're perving on a Machamp or a Gurrdurr or something, but that poor, poor Poliwhirl! You have some real strange tastes, Perrin!

Perrin's Growlithe borks really loudly which interrupts Perrin and she tries to play off her strange swirly-frog fetish. You know what, Perrin? I don't even want to know. 

Anyway, Perrin shows off the aforementioned creepy picture, and tells us that Bloodmoon Ursaluna only ever shows up in nights with heavy fog. As Perrin demonstrates, however, some Pokemon are really violent and territorial, as an Ariados leaps up and literally causes Perrin to fall on her ass. I... there's an easy joke to make here and I'm not going to make it. I squish the Ariados, and Perrin says that this is proof that we need to set up camp, so as to make the local Pokemon get acclimatized to us. 

Her tent is cute, and has Shaymin pictures. And then Perrin gives us some ground rules about photography. She has a unique device called a 'Pokemon Searcher' which she totally got for legit and she didn't get scammed by someone who gave her some spare-parts item that has the same jingle as her plate dryer. I don't know if this is an item from Pokemon Snap or anything, or really how much of this is actually a tie-in to Snap and how much of it is just my assumption. But the Searcher will be able to take readings of Pokemon we photographed and eliminate those readings and give us movement of Pokemon we didn't photograph. 

That sounds very Star Trek-y, but okay, sure, fine, whatever!

Perrin also tells me that I'm not allowed to ride on big, noisy Pokemon, so no Miraidon for me. And I think we are placed in an instanced version of the Timeless Woods with fixed Pokemon that I need to take photographs of. And it's fun! Some of them are pretty obviously just waltzing around, though I do need to sneak up to them to take photographs of them. There's a Sudowoodo trying to be a tree, a Litwick just hanging around all creepy and shit... Geodude just still not looking like part of the background despite how much the game wants to pretend that Geodude camouflages well, Duskull phasing in and out of existence, Hoothoot flying from tree to tree...

And there are a couple that are a bit harder to spot. Spinaraks on tree trunks, Seedot sitting on tree branches, Lotad in the lake, and teeny-tiny Tynamo in the lake. 

I love that if I take a photograph of Perrin's Growlithe, she compliments it... before saying that her Growlithe isn't part of what she's looking for. 

Perrin gives a unique commentary for all of them, and I think that many of the other wild Pokemon in the Timeless Woods would also be available. My last Pokemon that I photographed was Illumise, and you can't have Illumise show up at a location without Volbeat! I'm going to assume that Pokemon like Phantump and Impidimp that show up in the regular Timeless Woods would also show up here. 

Perrin tells me that she took photographs of 'the rest', but we all know she's just standing around hunting down that Poliwhirl, the sicko. 

We have a brief conversation, and... it's a bit of a relatable one? Perrin is in a slump, nothing seems to go right for her. She's a young photography prodigy, but she's been in so many competitions and got so many awards that she's now lost her spark and her new work lack any kind of heart. I... I really actually do feel for this character!

And then we get the arrival of the Bloodmoon Beast, and... it's cool! The sprite, when static, is kinda goofy, but the way the game introduces us to the Bloodmoon Beast in the darkened, foggy jungle is pretty damn badass as this big bear-monster just lumbers out and growls at us with its glowing red moon forehead. the most terrifying thing about Bloodmoon Ursaluna here is that the peat has grown and encrusted half of his face like he's cosplaying Hollow Ichigo from Bleach or something, and the eye underneath that peat-mask is glowing creepily at night. Pretty creepy!

...and because Perrin is supposed to be a photography prodigy, she takes a photograph of this big, wild beast... and forgot to turn off her auto-flash. How the fuck are you photographing Pokemon in a foggy night and you forgot to turn off flash? Fucking liar, I know you were taking photographs of that Poliwhirl.

Anyway, Ursaluna fights me and Perrin does some funky poses to take photographs of the Ursaluna, which again is treated as a titan battle. Or I guess an alpha battle, since the soundtrack is a remix of Legends Arceus's soundtrack. It's pretty cool, and the Blood Moon signature move literally has Ursaluna summon the image of a glowing blood moon in front of its head and launch a beam straight out of Naruto or something at me. 

I capture the Ursaluna, and that's a pretty fun and honestly pretty unexpected addition! Honestly, while I did grouse a bit about how uncreative Dipplin is, I do appreciate that Dipplin, Sinistcha, Polchageist and Bloodmoon Ursaluna are all updates to Generation VIII Pokemon. So many times we get these updates and they're only given to Pokemon from Generation I and II, and it's nice to see even newer Pokemon get something new. 

There's a cute comedy sequence as Perrin's Growlithe plays dead (I think it's just his fainting animation) when Perrin complains that the Growlithe did nothing to help. The next day, Perrin reveals that... for all that work, the photographs turned out terribly, and are so bad that she will never show them to me. But her slump is gone thanks to all the excitement. I mean, I could show off the Bloodmoon Ursaluna in my box, but I guess she wants to capture the photographs in a pure, unadulterated natural form. Perrin's been too caught up in worrying what kind of a photo she should take, what judges would say, that she forgot the joy of photography. 

I dunno, I think you were preeeeeetty joy-of-photography when you were taking photos of that Poliwhirl, is what I'm saying. 

And at this point, Perrin finally asks my name since she's been calling me 'partner' all this time. She gives me a Choice Scarf, the twin of her Hisuian Growlithe, and then runs off, which kind of hints that she'll come back in the second part of the DLC.

Random Notes:

• Oh, another random item I got are the jinbei that Kieran and Carmine wear, which their grandparents give me. They found an extra set that are exactly my size and they very suspiciously insist that these are definitely not hand-me-downs. Sure, grandma. 
  
• Anyway, brb, getting New Pokemon Snap. I'm probably not going to do a playthrough here, but I honestly am so charmed by this sequence that this unintentionally made me go and really want to play some Pokemon Snap. 
• If I had some sense of actually looking through my Pokeballs, I would realize that the Moon Ball is the perfect ball for the 100% capture rate for the Bloodmoon Ursaluna. Instead, mine resides in a Luxury Ball. Eh.
• I have captured most of the Kitakami DLC, I'm only missing a couple of Pokemon that are exclusive to Scarlet, which are the Gligar line and Cramorant for some reason. I don't really feel like spending a total of $60 just for a complete DLC Pokedex, so unless the Indigo Disk is really super-duper-special-awesome, I'll be happy with a complete regular Paldean Pokedex. 

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.