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Old 10-13-2012, 07:37 PM   #1
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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

I like this series a lot, especially the first three parts. Part II is my most favourite and that'll probably be the second season.

But after sub trouble, I finally got to see the first episode of JJBA: Phantom Blood.

Jonathan Joestar! ;_;

I type this with a clenched fist. You know that's hard! The tears, they form Grand Canyons on my face!
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Old 10-14-2012, 01:08 PM   #2
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Just finished Episode 02. Interesting. I continue to be bummed out by the subpar animation but luckily for JoJo an anime is much more than just its animation. The characters are at least moderately interesting as is the plot. But above all else the pacing is supremely satisfying. Each episode (of two so far ) has been chock-filled with gobs of plot development yet ever without being overwhelming. I only hope that they continue to keep this up for the next ten episodes or so instead of saying "lol okay we're slowing down now " in the next few weeks.

Spoiler: show
The truth behind the mask seemed to be hinted at by the channels of blood which feature so prominently in the ending credits as well as by the tiny little vampire-like fangs on the mouth. And, I have to admit, I may have seen a certain spoiler online which also clued me in some.

(spoiler for something we haven't seen yet ... though it looks like we might be seeing it as soon as next week)
Spoiler: show
Dio Brando apparently becomes a vampire too?

But it was nice for the episode to give us full confirmation this week, showing one guy being turned into a vampire by Dio, then showing us he had superhuman strength and the ability to leech people of their blood to rejuvenate himself, before finally showing us that these vampires are fatally susceptible to sunlight. That last point begs the question of why anyone would ever willingly use the mask to become a vampire. I mean, sure you gain superhuman strength and shit. But none of that matters if in a moment's helplessness you become exposed to a ray of sunlight and crumble away like that! Not worth the trade-off.

The opening scene of the episode this week (the college football scene) was really interesting. It was great to see how strong Jonathan has become but it was also entertaining to see the two, Jonathan and Dio, seemingly getting along so well only for us to find out that Jonathan still didn't trust Dio and that likewise Dio was still plotting to seize possession of the Joestar estate.

I think it's kind of funny (if a bit confusing, honestly ^^; ) how similar Speedwagon looks to Dio. When I saw the sneak peek last week I mistook Mr. Speedwagon for a grown-up Dio Brando. I thought Jonathan's fight with the badguys was simultaneously pretty badass of Jonathan but also just as naive and crazy as Speedwagon and his goons thought of the young man's actions. Even if it is a tad bit "for young audiences", I do like the idea that Jonathan's immaculate honor and character so blinded Speedwagon and the others that Speedwagon was moved to use his authority position in the slums to order the other peasants to not lay a finger on Jonathan.

Certainly the best part of this episode though was the subplot involving Dio trying to off the senior Mr. Joestar with poison and how Jonathan was trying to prove it, find an antidote, and save his father's life. I feel like in just about any other series what would've happened at the stairwell scene was:
  • Jonathan questions Dio
  • Dio warns Jonathan that if he persists in questioning him like this their friendship will be over
  • Jonathan has major doubts but ultimately says "Okaaaaaay" and let's Dio proceed to the bedchamber
  • Mr. Joestar dies. Dio laughs. Dio inherits the estate. Jonathan vows to avenge his father. He knows now to never trust Dio again. But alas, he learned this lesson too late!
But no. Instead of doing that, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure actually impresses me by instead having Jonathan persist in questioning Dio, throwing Dio off the balcony , assigning doctors to Mr. Joestar and telling the house staff to not allow anybody but the doctors to provide medication to Mr. Joestar, and then heading off to London to look for an antidote when it becomes clear that simply quitting taking the poison wasn't good enough. Even better? The show suggests that Dio used this very same tactic to kill his own father! Never saw that coming. Figured the old man died of congestive heart failure (owing to liver failure due to all those years of drinking). Never in a million years suspected Dio poisoned his own father. So the part where Jonathan confronts Dio with Dario's final letter was a neat surprise for this viewer.

Despite my enthusiastically written thoughts provided above, I should say that I still only feel like this story is in "7/10 - Good" territory and even then only if viewed through the forgiving lens of "Okay, okay, this show is for kids, not adults." I'd like to see the show achieve truly great heights, something I'd think it'd have to do if it really has earned its place in Japanese history as one of the longest-running manga series ever. But so far, while I am enjoying it, it's been the sort of show that I'd table if I didn't have so many more appropriate candidates to drop or table first. ^^;

EDIT: Oh yeah, I completely forgot. Despite the regular in-episode animation being disappointing, the opening, which we just saw for the first time this week, is amazing. It's only too bad the show itself couldn't have been as interestingly animated.
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Old 10-14-2012, 02:05 PM   #3
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I couldn't disagree more with the opening. BBB got my hopes up too, but then I saw a bunch of CGI and got turned off. While JJBA is very musically oriented, I'd very much have liked something like HxH's first opening to really define the series. At least something metal, like from MAXIMUM THE HORMONE!

Animation-wise, it's not that great yeah, but this looks to be the first major work by a small studio (David Production) that only opened its doors in 2007. They managed to preserve all the JJBA style points, and since this is an absolutely huge story, I'm fine with a good style/lesser animation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Despite my enthusiastically written thoughts provided above, I should say that I still only feel like this story is in "7/10 - Good" territory and even then only if viewed through the forgiving lens of "Okay, okay, this show is for kids, not adults." I'd like to see the show achieve truly great heights, something I'd think it'd have to do if it really has earned its place in Japanese history as one of the longest-running manga series ever. But so far, while I am enjoying it, it's been the sort of show that I'd table if I didn't have so many more appropriate candidates to drop or table first. ^^;
Phantom Blood (Part I) is pretty good, but at the rate the episodes are devouring manga chapters (something like 4-5 per episode!) we'll probably finish out all of Part I by season's end, and get started on Battle Tendency this January.

Battle Tendency is excellent, but Stardust Crusaders (Part III) is usually considered to be the best and most iconic.
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Old 10-21-2012, 12:03 AM   #4
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Just saw Episode 03. The ecstasy and the agony ...!

Cons:
The most obvious problem with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's 2012 anime adaptation showed itself for the first time ever in this week's episode and good fucking gracious was it obnoxious! That problem ... was blood and gore censorship. They censored out everything. Sample pictures to prove my point.

Scene 01:
Spoiler: show


In this scene, the chief of police's head is cleaved in two by Dio, the top half of the head then cast onto the floor. While I personally do not like gore, I resent even more the extent to which they censored this scene so badly. It looks terrible! >_<

Scene 02:
Spoiler: show


Notice in the first two pictures how the top of the man's head looks suspiciously, unnaturally dark. The second two pictures show his mangled body being thrown into other police officers which such great force it kills them. The fifth picture shows the officer's dismembered leg hitting Speedwagon in the gut.

Scene 03:
Spoiler: show


The officer who was mangled up in the previous scene comes back as a zombie in this scene. He attacks Speedwagon but JoJo comes to Speedwagon's rescue and decapitated the zombie by swinging a spear with mighty force. The second thru fifth pictures represent the greatest offenders.

Scene 04:
Spoiler: show


When Dio takes JoJo's spear through his hand, obviously they censor this as well. But what surprises me is that they would go to such great lengths to censor what seems to me to be a comparatively innocuous scene. The eighth picture demonstrates how especially ridiculous the censorship is. At first you might be tempted to call that "artistic license with the lighting" but you have to dismiss that theory as quickly as you come up with it because the lighting just flat out doesn't make sense in this picture and looks particularly bad / artificial on the right half of the screen. No, folks: this is lazy "CENSOR EVERYTHING! " censorship, pure and simple.

Scene 05: (not so much "censorship" as "they clearly took advantage of the fire")
Spoiler: show


If the other censorship scenes didn't exist, I'd be willing to chalk this one up to classy artistic license. But given the other scenes, I can't help but feel that this scene too represents gross censorship and that in the original manga Dio's impalement must have been illustrated with much greater clarity.

Unbelievable, isn't it? Ridiculous, I know. It's just insane how bad the censorship is here. Take the censorship of ToLoveRu Darkness ... multiply it by the censorship in BTOOOM! ... take that number to the power of the censorship seen in Maken-Ki! ... and you might, might get a value close to the level of censorship we see here. [/exaggeration] Seriously! This is terrible! I think I may have to drop the show just because of this!

The only other complaint I have with this episode is that I feel like Dio ...

Spoiler: show
... was presented in the previous two episodes as being far too clever a person to do something as stupid as putting the mask on. I realize he felt like he was in between a rock and a hard place thanks to JoJo ... but would he seriously choose to become a vampire, knowing it means insta-death in the sun, just to get out of this sticky situation? I mean, I guess you can say he really didn't have any other choice, but still. C'mon. ^^;


Pros:
But I don't want to drop the series! ^^; Because the series has pretty much done everything else right. It captured the feel of a 19th century Victorian horror story very well with this episode and fused it with 1980s, 1990s shounen manga. Interesting! I really loved the plot within this episode, my complaint about Dio's decision (see above) put aside. Speedwagon was awesome. Lord Joestar was awesome. JoJo was awesome. The climax of the episode (post-rooftop) was great. It was just great all around. The only thing which would have made it better would've been if JJBA's narrator could pull off for this series what Gendou Madao Tachiki Fumihiko did for Kaiji. But even JJBA's narrator ain't too bad. The pacing was great. What we saw at the end of the episode tonight is the sort of thing most animes would present at the end of Episode 13, their finisher for the season. (And that'd make sense, too, had JJBA been handling one chapter per episode instead of five or so! ) All in all, this was the sort of episode that makes you want to keep watching.


Conclusion:
So what do I do? Well, for now I definitely keep watching. But there's no way I'm archiving the TV broadcast for this series. It just isn't worth it. Not with this level of censorship. (Well plaaaaaayed, studio. ¬_¬ Well played.) And I'll just have to hope that by the time we get to the next episode with this degree of violence in it, perhaps Japan will have calmed the fuck down about violence in anime and will quit fucking censoring things this badly. Put the show on cable TV if you have to, guys, but don't censor it like this. This is awful.
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Old 10-21-2012, 03:56 AM   #5
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The censorship was pretty bad. The DVDs are definitely going to be clean.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
The only other complaint I have with this episode is that I feel like Dio ...

Spoiler: show
... was presented in the previous two episodes as being far too clever a person to do something as stupid as putting the mask on. I realize he felt like he was in between a rock and a hard place thanks to JoJo ... but would he seriously choose to become a vampire, knowing it means insta-death in the sun, just to get out of this sticky situation? I mean, I guess you can say he really didn't have any other choice, but still. C'mon. ^^;
Dio's a megalomaniac. You'll find that he'll always pursue power, and that lust (plus his pride) sometimes override his intelligence.
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Old 10-28-2012, 10:55 PM   #6
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Damn I forgot to post here. I watched episode 4 and all that. The show is cool as hell and all, but it's really REALLY shounen. I was sort of hoping it'd be a bit more down to earth with the only real supernatural thing being the mask, but it seems we have to introduce a bunch of superpowers for everyone.

Maybe I just need to get used to it.

Also I might rewatch this when it gets a DVD release. While the censors don't bother me that much, I would still like to see the show unedited.
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Old 10-28-2012, 11:07 PM   #7
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Damn I forgot to post here. I watched episode 4 and all that. The show is cool as hell and all, but it's really REALLY shounen. I was sort of hoping it'd be a bit more down to earth with the only real supernatural thing being the mask, but it seems we have to introduce a bunch of superpowers for everyone.

Maybe I just need to get used to it.

Also I might rewatch this when it gets a DVD release. While the censors don't bother me that much, I would still like to see the show unedited.
Who are you watching with? I've been watching it with Commie (they're actually subbing this one themselves with a hired-on translator and everything!) but they still haven't gotten JoJo Ep004 out yet. I don't mind investigating your guy. Who is it?

As for the DVD thing, Commie already confirmed that their entire staff is pretty much lovin' JoJo immensely and they very much plan to do the DVDs/BDs given the ridiculous censorship in the television broadcast.
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Old 10-28-2012, 11:16 PM   #8
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I've just been watching through Nutbladder. They seem to be the fastest and most consistent group, so I went with them. Other than the bad encoding in episode 1, I haven't really noticed any problems.
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Old 10-28-2012, 11:23 PM   #9
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I've just been watching through Nutbladder. They seem to be the fastest and most consistent group, so I went with them. Other than the bad encoding in episode 1, I haven't really noticed any problems.
Oh wow, I abandoned Nutbladder after they finished Kaiji S2 and announced rather publically that they were retiring from fansubbing which was then followed by them not subbing anything for the few weeks I still checked in after that announcement. They're back subbing things again? Crazy. Not sure I'd take them over Commie ... but then again, Commie's subs haven't been perfect either and this is JoJo's Bizarre Adventure we're talking about: the television broadcast is so bad no one's going to be archiving it anyway.
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Old 10-29-2012, 03:52 PM   #10
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Saw Episode 04. It was much better than I was hoping it would be. Lots of unintentional laughs at how over-the-top shounen it is (you gotta love Speedwagon! ) and lots of intentional smiles and excitement with the new character on Team Joestar and the plot progression.

Spoiler: show
I figured that Jack the Ripper was Dio Brando and that this was alluded to in Episode 02 with the revelation about Dio's alcoholism and how he wore a different costume in London from what he ordinarily wore at home. So I was disappointed when they revealed that Jack the Ripper was actually someone completely different and that he's now Dio's henchman.

Even worse, Jack's ability to produce razorblades from his body was pretty dumb and ranks up there with the retarded superpowers of characters from some of the other shounen "greats" like Naruto or One Piece.

But I really loved the bit with the wine glass, not to mention the ripple training in general. We even got JoJo's teacher's backstory! And he's not a typical teacher either. In that regard, it's ... well, I wanted to say "it's really well done" but I'll refrain from saying that and instead simply say that it's refreshingly different from the usual fare.

I still haven't seen anything which has convinced me that this is one of the greatest manga series of all time, something I'd think it'd have to have been considering its ridiculous print run, but Doppel has told us ad nauseum that things don't get really good until the second or third story arc so I guess it'll be a while before we can see why people love JJBA so, so much. But I am enjoying it. Definitely wouldn't drop it, though the bad animation does disappoint me. It's excellent stylistically (all the manga stuff they do) but it's terribad details-wise (the character animations, the color palettes, etc).
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Old 10-29-2012, 05:54 PM   #11
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The super-powers of the fodder generally do resemble blood in the veins of One Piece (rather dissimilar to Naruto IMV) where they're just random techniques/weapons, but the explanations are a bit better in Part 3.
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Old 11-03-2012, 12:50 PM   #12
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With the maniac pacing of Episode 5, it looks to me like Battle Tendency will start before the season end's mark (Episode 12). I felt this week's episode was a tad rushed, but one might be surprised to learn that it condensed less manga than previous episodes. Prior to this, 3-4 chapters went into an episode. This week's was only two, and we get to see Dio's two strongest minions, although they're not introduced as such right now.
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Old 11-04-2012, 06:07 PM   #13
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Just finishing Episode 05. Seems like the series has taken a small step backwards for me with these two henchmen of Dio's and with all the silly sentai-esque names for the fist attacks JoJo and Zeppeli seem to keep coming up with. But it wasn't a bad episode either. Lots of plot advancement (God bless you, anime with 2+ manga chapters per episode! :'D) and a bit of character development for our three heroes. I also liked the twist at the end with the direction JoJo went.
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Old 11-10-2012, 12:51 PM   #14
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Just watched episode 6. I've finally figured out what annoyed me in this show. The shouting narrating thing everyone does is just really really silly. I've never liked it when shounens have people shout everything the characters do in fights. They should do the shouting narration when Jojo does everyday things.

Blonde guy: "JOJO'S EATING SOUP! HE BETTER WATCH OUT OR ELSE HE'LL SPILL IT!"
Magician guy: "He's using this small metal rod with a small dome at the end of it. With this, he'll surely eat his soup without spilling it!"
Blonde guy: "I WANT SOME SOUP TOO!"
Magician guy: "This is special training. If he can't control the ripples in his stomach, then he won't be able to fight Dio!"

Peeve aside, the fight in the episode was pretty good, though episode 6 spoiler
Spoiler: show
Did the magician guy and the huge guy even fight? They were supposed to fight each other while Jojo was taking on Led Zepplin. Yet it seems during the entire fight, they all just stood there.


I was really excited about the first two episodes, but things have kinda been going downhill for me.
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Old 11-12-2012, 04:05 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
Just watched episode 6. I've finally figured out what annoyed me in this show. The shouting narrating thing everyone does is just really really silly. I've never liked it when shounens have people shout everything the characters do in fights. They should do the shouting narration when Jojo does everyday things.

Blonde guy: "JOJO'S EATING SOUP! HE BETTER WATCH OUT OR ELSE HE'LL SPILL IT!"
Magician guy: "He's using this small metal rod with a small dome at the end of it. With this, he'll surely eat his soup without spilling it!"
Blonde guy: "I WANT SOME SOUP TOO!"
Magician guy: "This is special training. If he can't control the ripples in his stomach, then he won't be able to fight Dio!"
For me, this is part of the charm of the series so far: that it is so ridiculously over the top. If they toned it down even a bit, I would probably be super-annoyed by it. But the shounen "narration via characters' dialogue" is so over the top here that it's amusing. (Watch me change my mind in a few weeks. )

lol @ all of the rock names that have turned up thus far. We have ...
  • Speedwagon (REO Speedwagon)
  • Zeppeli (Led Zeppelin)
  • Tarkus (Tarkus)
  • Bruford (Bill Bruford)
  • Tonpeti (Tom Petty)
Tarkus and Bruford I've never heard of before so those I had to look up last week. But the other three I recognized (though I'll admit "Zeppeli" took until last episode to click because they say it so differently and so it just felt like a made-up Italian name to me). But when "Tonpeti" showed up this week, I lol'd. I'm wondering how much longer before David Bowie or Freddie Mercury show up.

This week's episode, Episode 06, was okay but ...

Spoiler: show
Given that Doppel made a big deal out of how the show didn't bother introducing Tarkus and Bruford as Dio's henchmen, I figured they would be around for ages. I kinda wish Doppel'd kept his mouth shut on that one ^^; simply because then I wouldn't have felt lied to by him, as I do now , when Bruford died this very episode. (It's not your fault, Doppel. ) But who knows, maybe Dio will manage to bring Tarkus and Bruford back even once they die (and thus maybe Doppel wasn't misleading us when he insisted on them being perceived as Dio's henchmen rather than Dio's Summons of the Week). I mean, their bodies were dead for like 300 hundred years before the events of our tale, so like, you'd expect them to have decayed severely anyway by the time Dio got his hands on them. Maybe the situation's not much different with the pile of ash Bruford crumbled into. Maybe Dio can find that pile of ash and bring them back. *shrug* But for now, it's looking like Doppel's bit about "They're his henchmen, darn it! Why didn't the 2012 version introduce them as such!?" is seeming rather silly for such short-lived characters. ^^;

Doppel: I'll have you know that they were around for four chapters in the manga!
Talon: That's still only one month's worth of chapters.
^^;
Doppel:

bbb, the highlight "LET'S NARRATE EVERYTHING!" humor moment for me this episode was undoubtedly:
Spoiler: show
at 16m39s when the village kid pissed his pants and narrated it as it happened. "Damn it! Before I know it I've gone and wet my pants!" What was even more ridiculous about this scene was what followed next! After praising JoJo and Zeppeli on their biomagnetic leaf hang glider and asking them if they were agents of God, he's suddenly blaming them for everything terrible that's transpired and says he's through with them. What the hell? And then after he says these words? He fucking stays put and resolves to help JoJo out! WHAT THE HELL!? XD

But yeah: the wetting the pants narration bit gets the gold medal from me this episode. What about you? What was your favorite narration bit this episode?
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Old 11-12-2012, 04:49 PM   #16
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Bruford eventually comes back...sort of.

Quote:
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I'm wondering how much longer before David Bowie or Freddie Mercury show up.
In both cases, a long time. Freddie Mercury's reference appears in Jojo Part VI. David Bowie has to wait until Part VII.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
What about you? What was your favorite narration bit this episode?
I liked it when Speedwagon and Zeppeli were freaking out over Poco sneaking into the fortress.

On the subject of the over-the-top narration, it gets even worse in Part II: Battle Tendency, but takes a step back for Part III and forever onwards.
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Old 11-14-2012, 01:16 AM   #17
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In response to Suigin's question:

Episode 6 spoiler
Spoiler: show
I guess Speedwagon's narration is the most ridiculous for me. He states things that are just so damn obvious. "JOJO IS BEING GRABBED BY THE ENEMY!" or "OH MY GOD! THE ENEMY JUST GREW!" Then it's often followed by the magician making a lame explanation for it. "*defines the word drab*" or "Now that the enemy is bigger than Jojo, Jojo is at a disadvantage."


That said, that's partly why I can't stand it. I've always hated it when people stated the obvious to me. I can't help but find it insulting. I know that's not the intention of the narration, but I still can't help but associate it with someone treating you like an idiot.
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Old 11-19-2012, 01:24 PM   #18
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Episode 07:
The anime continues to satisfy with its generous pacing. The animation, particularly in the opening scene (a flashback with Zeppeli and Tonpeti), was really improved over what we've seen previously. Not sure if the studio got a generous cash infusion with which to hire more talent or what but that beginning portion was like watching a completely different studio's work. Things kind of returned to the normal level as we progressed but it was still overall an above average episode for this series when it comes to looks. As for the content, thoughts inside.

Spoiler: show
I wasn't expecting Zeppeli to die quite so quickly. So when that happened I knew we were in for a treat pacing-wise.

JoJo now has his power plus Zeppeli's? Nice. It's the sort of thing which a villain like Dio would abuse -- "Give me your life force so I can keep getting stronger!" -- and we've seen that in his vampirism. But the wonderful thing is, JoJo's no such villain. He won't go around asking people to nobly give up their life energies to him so he can defeat Dio. And so it makes Zeppeli's contribution all the more heroic. And all the more touching for JoJo.

Does Speedwagon inherit Zeppeli's top hat from here on? Or is that just for the remainder of this story arc. Cool either way.

Speaking of Speedwagon, when the camera focused on him so much after Zeppeli got torn in half, I thought the anime was trying to tell me that the young lion in the prophecy is not JoJo but Speedwagon. I figured Zeppeli's death might've awoken his Planeswalker spark, so to speak. He's got the golden mane too. So I was a little disappointed when the prophecy played out in the originally most obvious way by having JoJo be the lion. Would've been nice if Speedwagon had evolved from buttmonkey commentator to a bonafide sidekick who fights alongside JoJo. Oh well.

The part with Dio and the mother was predictable though. The moment he was like "I swear to you that none of us will harm the child," I was like, "Because she's going to, right? " I'm sure you guys all saw this coming as well. We're too experienced to be surprised by such plot twists anymore.

Same thing went for the villager being a zombie after all.

Same thing went for Dire being a human. Though I didn't call that he was a certain ally. I figured he might've been a competitor or something.

Dire Straights. Cute.

WHOA! Creepy dog-sized rat with a human head! Just wtf is Dio doing? O_o
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Old 11-19-2012, 09:12 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Spoiler: show

Does Speedwagon inherit Zeppeli's top hat from here on? Or is that just for the remainder of this story arc. Cool either way.
Spoiler: show
Yes, he keeps it for the remainder of Phantom Blood. It was his small way to honour what Zeppeli did.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Would've been nice if Speedwagon had evolved from buttmonkey commentator to a bonafide sidekick who fights alongside JoJo. Oh well.
I wouldn't call Speedwagon a butt-monkey exactly, since he was more or less an ordinary person (as far as JoJo characters go) spectating all these guys with supernatural powers. When I think of a butt-monkey, I think of a main character who should stand equal to the other mains, but ends up relegated to comic relief, his accomplishments are routinely diminished or he's denied opportunities to be awesome. Speedwagon is more a cheerleader, if anything.

He never stops being cool, but he's never a fighter.

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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Dire Straights. Cute.
Wait until you get to Battle Tendency.

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Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Just wtf is Dio doing? O_o
Bizarre stuff. Like his name implies, Dio has a god-complex and isn't against doing what gods do - make weird stuff.
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Old 11-25-2012, 08:10 PM   #20
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Episode 08 was the first thing I watched upon returning to the apartment. It was good. Not great but good. Seems to be the case with so much these days.

Spoiler: show
So, did this episode wrap up Part 1 or will that be next week's episode? Also, "The Last Ripple"? Hrm. Wouldn't that suggest the possibility of Tonpeti, Straights, and Jonathan Joestar all dying next week? ^^; That sure would suck. Not to mention seems unlikely to happen. I'm thinking instead that while the Ripple is cool and all, it clearly isn't optimal for vampire hunting and so Story Arc 2 will see JoJo trying to find some new, better way to fight vampires.
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Old 11-25-2012, 08:40 PM   #21
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Quite the contrary, the ripple is the most effective anti-vampire weapon outside of the sun itself. The big benefit is, like Hokuto Shinken, if a hamon user gets a clear shot of the vampire and can project ripple energy into their body, it's invariably fatal.

Spoiler: show
In one of the later story arcs, the cast encounters a vampire, but while that group is extremely powerful, they find their abilities to be ineffective against the vampire and no one present is capable of using ripple.


When I first read Phantom Blood, I thought Dio's freezing was more like display of how powerful he was, rather than a viable (and critical) anti-ripple technique. After all, he hadn't encountered the ripple before that and so wouldn't have specifically developed a technique to counter it.

There's some curious foreshadowing in this episode, but none of you would be able to notice without the benefit of hindsight. It's impossible to know otherwise, but I invite speculation.

Spoiler: show



As for what's to come, there's a small mini-arc left to wrap up the Phantom Blood events. It's mostly epilogue, part prologue to Battle Tendency. I have no idea how Studio David is going to pace these episodes, because they could conceivably wrap everything up next week if they wanted to. But we're still a ways from January, when Battle Tendency was supposed to start.
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Old 11-25-2012, 08:57 PM   #22
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I think your picture, intended as a harmless breadcrumb of a clue, gave away far too much, Doppel. If I may:

Spoiler: show

This is what Dio looks like in most of the artwork I'd ever seen him in prior to watching JJBA for myself. It's also what he looks like in the Nintendo DS game Jump Super Stars and its sequel Jump Ultimate Stars. Well, duh, your screenshot is of JoJo (given the position of the character -- to the right, which is where JoJo was most of the episode since we were watching him and Dio from JoJo's left -- and also given the clothing is clearly his and not Dio's). And yet he has Dio's later color palette. Iiiiiiiiiinteresting ...

So what would this suggest? Well, ordinarily it wouldn't suggest much of anything to me at all. I would've figured that Jonathan Joestar's color palette just so happened to be an inverted or semi-inverted version of Dio Brando's later color palette. I would've figured, "This is what Jonathan looks like when there's orange-yellow firelight shining on him." But since you've drawn special attention to it and specifically called it "foreshadowing" ...

... I'm going to hazard the insane guess that JoJo "becomes" Dio Brando somehow, like perhaps Dio's spirit takes up residence inside Jonathan's body and takes over it or something. After all, if Dio Brando is scary now, a Dio Brando with the powers of Jonathan Joestar and Will A. Zeppeli would be even more terrifying for our heroes. But like, this is lunacy considering Speedwagon is still around in later story arcs (I think?) and it'd be nuts for JoJo to perish yet not Speedwagon. Also, JoJo needs to create an heir before he can die. 'Cause like ...

Spoiler: show
I know just from reading the basic series summary at the top of Wikipedia's article for the franchise that JJBA is essentially "the story of Jonathan Joestar and his descendants taking on Dio Brando, a vampire who crosses paths with their family generation after generation." So like, yeah. If JoJo is to fall, he can't fall until he's at least impregnated his childhood sweetheart and created JoJo Jr.

I could be way off base but if I'm not then you said too much even with one picture and should be ashamed of yourself.
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Old 11-25-2012, 09:08 PM   #23
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Dio isn't actually the franchise villain, although he's easily the most iconic and resilient of the lot. Granted, what you read on Wikipedia is a pretty big spoiler - I didn't want to bring up that future parts involve Jojo descendants. For you know, Jonathan Joestar could be the main character of all seven parts, instead of just two.

As for the spoiler, I was just pointing out the colour job, since yellow/green is definitely what most people associate with Dio. Take that as you will, since Araki likes little references here and there. I might have mentioned earlier than Brueford reappears in the series, but that isn't strictly true. It's more of a reference to what happened before, but nothing outright clear, but it makes sense given the connections.


Since the "cats out of the bag", sort of , I'll go out and say that Battle Tendency is really similar to Indiana Jones.
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Old 11-25-2012, 09:21 PM   #24
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In response to Doppel's spoilerific torrent of info.

Spoiler: show
Soooo ... I can take it from your latest reply that the series' main villain is going to be Corrupted Jonathan Joestar? (DO NOT CONFIRM THIS WHETHER FALSE OR TRUE! -_-; ) 'Cause I would think Dio would be the overarching villain and that the Joestar family were kind of like the Belmont family (Castlevania), passing the torch along from one Joestar to the next to ensure that Planet Earth stays out of Dracula's Dio Brando's clutches, knowing that they can defeat him for a time but none of them has yet been able to figure out a way, if such a way even exists, of eradicating him from this world permanently. That was what I figured, reading Wikipedia's opening summary. Jonathan successfully defeats Dio (which we just saw in Episode 08 and I would've assumed could've been the end of his ride had it not been for the sneak peek for Episode 09), and then Dio doesn't come back all the while Jonathan grows up and has children of his own. Then Dio returns, fights Old Man JoJo, possibly defeats him (ŕ la George Joestar's death), and this spurs JoJo's son, JoJo Jr., on to defeat Dio. Fast forward to the third story arc and it's JoJo's grandson, JoJo Jr.'s son. And so on and so forth. That was what I had assumed. But noooooooooooooow ...

Now, you're indicating to me that Dio Brando isn't the series' main villain. So if that's the case, and if Wikipedia insists that JJBA is all about the Joestar family trying to deal with Dio Brando's mess, then I can only assume that:
  1. Dio corrupts Jonathan Joestar
  2. Corrupted Jonathan Joestar becomes the series' primary villain
  3. The reason the Joestar clan takes it upon themselves to vampire hunt ... is because their own patriarch, Jonathan Joestar, is the very vampire they're trying to eradicate

All of this stated, if I am wrong, then you should probably just keep quiet rather than correcting me and further digging your grave. And if I am right? You should still keep quiet because you just keep letting more and more cats out of the bag and it's all your fault! "Oh this won't spoil Talon ... " *spoils me* "Oh, whoops. Sorry. Well since you're already spoiled there, I may as well tell you ..." *further spoils me* "Whoops, sorry. @_@ But now that you're THAT spoiled, I may as well-" NO! No more spoilers! Me responding to the crap you're spoiling me with is NOT an invitation to keep dumping spoilers on me! ^^; I wrote what I said in the first place trying to indicate that you might have said too much! NOT to indicate that you should keep saying much! hahahahahahahahaha
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Old 11-25-2012, 09:58 PM   #25
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I think I've done a pretty good job at fueling your imagination, without dropping anything too major.

For a shounen manga, there's far less to speculate on in JJBA rather than, say, Hunter x Hunter since most of the story is presented before the viewer's eyes. However, Araki (true to the title) is prone to take his story in otherwise un-predictable directions, so it's good to expect the un-expected.

For example,

Spoiler: show
Would you have thought Zeppeli and Dire would have died so easily? In most anime/manga involving abilities like ripple, we'd expect some sort of increased durability. But no, those two died about as easily as a normal person would have, since they didn't have any special abilities beyond what we saw. No "plot hax" as it were.


Granted, Araki does create speculation fuel at the end of Part VI. But, we're a few years away from those stories, at best.
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