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Old 01-09-2013, 08:32 AM   #51
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Episode 13 was pretty good and felt like a double feature's worth of content. God bless this series' pacing.

Spoiler: show
Doppel, does sunlight merely return a Pillar Man to stone? Once turned to stone, does he require blood all over again to be freed?
Correct in both cases, although Ripple itself can do more damage than regular sunlight depending on the user's overall power.
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Old 01-13-2013, 01:41 PM   #52
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Episode 3 of JojoYuri is out. These are so god damn amazing.
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Old 01-18-2013, 12:18 PM   #53
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Commie was a week late in getting JJBA Episode 14 out, and I'm so stubborn that I waited patiently for them rather than watching it with another group. Well, they finally got it out, and I'm watching it here on my lunch break. Just hit the halfway point commercial break, so I'll pause to give a few thoughts:

Spoiler: show
Not a fan of Caesar Zeppeli. ^^; I really was excited for him when I saw the second opening credits, but he's nothing at all like I imagined he would be, and not in the good sense either. ^^; Maybe I'll warm up to him later? But if this is the character you were insinuating I would be gay for, Doppel, you're completely mistaken.

I do like how Joseph has met someone who is his superior (or, at absolute worst, equal) in Ripple proficiency, and how the way the author has balanced this is to say, "Caesar has the benefit of proper training, whereas Joseph is simply a natural-born prodigy who never trained a day in his life. Joseph can and will eclipse Caesar some day, but for now, Caesar has the upper hand."

Even though it's gotten a little stale by this point, I'll admit I still smiled a little bit on the inside when Joseph cracked yet another one of his "And next you'll say ...!" predictions. This guy is incredibly sharp. I like that about him. His grandfather was a bit of a kind-hearted meathead. ^^;;

So not only is Santana still alive (as confirmed by Doppel in response to my question last time) but they're insinuating that unless he's kept under constant UV light he'll break out in just one night? Why's that? He didn't break out for hundreds of years in that Mayan temple, so why is he now returned to stone yet predicted to be able to break right back out immediately? That building better hope they never have a power failure ...

EDIT: And just finished it.

Spoiler: show
Wham, Cars, and ACDC?

These new Pillar Men exemplify pretty typical Shounen Jump power creep. UV light doesn't work, they can come back to life just by being in the mere presence of other life forms, and they can even manipulate human bodies in a manner which up until now we've only seen the Ripple being able to do. Yeah, these guys are quite beyond the power level of Dio Brando that we saw in the first story arc.

The moment they made a big deal of this new guy's being engaged to be married next week, you just knew that he was going to die if not this very episode then at least before the end of the story arc. Poor guy, all the same. :\

I don't care for the idea that all three Pillar Men were in one spot. Seems dumb to me if Santana was all by himself in Mexico. Also just was generally unexpected since Stroheim made it sound like the German army had found Pillar Men scattered across Europe. Yet here we have all three at one dig site.

I'm also not a fan of the apparent ranking system with them. We have one dude who is a servant ... to two other dudes? The two other dudes strike me as like a king and the king's brother, basically two men who are roughly on equal level but one is formally the other's superior. It's just a very unsavory power dynamic. Either have them go C < B < A in terms of power or else have them go C ~ B ~ A in terms of power. Don't do C < B ~ A. It's weird.

And given that Wham seems to be the servant (and thus the weakest), it's strange that he was the first to wake up. Shouldn't the most able Pillar Man have been the one to wake up soonest? Isn't it kind of a pathetic role reversal when you have the weakest one being the first to break out of their stone prison?

Not a great episode, but for like the fourteenth week in a row, I cannot complain about pacing. So, so satisfied in that department.

Last edited by Talon87; 01-18-2013 at 12:41 PM.
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Old 01-18-2013, 07:18 PM   #54
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Taaaalon, did you feel nothing toward Wham's voice?

Some stuff -

Spoiler: show
These three Pillar Men are the strongest beings in the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure universe. In all eight parts, no other characters approach their level of power. It isn't even close. To add onto that, Joseph is technically the weakest Jojo in the entire franchise, so the disparity is that much greater.

They fit the backdrop of World War II, the biggest and baddest war of the 20th century. Vietnam, Korea, the Gulf and Iraq Wars came after it, but no war was as huge and sensational during or in retrospect. Similarly, Battle Tendency is the most sensational and outrageous of the JJBA parts.

As for why Santana was by himself, that's explained a bit later, but if I were to give an analogy...Santana was like a random vampire soldier, whereas Cars, ACDC and Wham are historical figures a la Fate/stay night. All of the Pillar Men are originally from Central America, so one should wonder why three of them are in Europe in the first place.

Wham is the best fighter of the three Pillar Men. I'm not sure if Cars/ACDC are formally stronger than he is, but he's the one who can handle himself well in combat.
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Old 01-25-2013, 03:54 PM   #55
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I get the impression that Commie's translator for JJBA either a) has some RL stuff cropping up, which is understandable if regrettable for us fans or else b) has lost interest in JJBA. Not exactly sure which, though it's probably A. In any case, they still haven't gotten Episode 14 out yet, and Episode 15 just aired five hours ago. Last week, they eked Episode 13 out mere moments before Episode 14 aired. So the trend is definitely downward, which isn't good. I'm patient and stubborn (and have way too many animes on my plate anyway), so I've not rushed to watch with Nutbladder, gg, or anybody else yet, but I can say that if this happens again next week, I'll probably abandon Commie's ship for this one. We'll see.
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Old 01-25-2013, 09:10 PM   #56
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Buddy Waters ain't bad. I don't know who I saw last week's episode with, but the group that calls the hamon users "mystics" is to be avoided, even if the rest of the sub was smashing.
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Old 02-04-2013, 01:24 PM   #57
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Episode 17 may have aired three days ago, but Commie just released their long-overdue sub of Episode 15 last night. I got a chance to watch it and ... it was gooooood.

Spoiler: show
Though I do think it's a bit retarded that Joseph is to be so much of a prodigy that he will master the Ripple enough in just one month's time to be able to defeat both Wham and AC/DC. At least make it a year or two. Don't just make it thirty days.

That aside, it was a solid episode.

The all-star voice acting cast continues to impress. I couldn't place Wham, so I had to look at his name when the ending credits rolled, ... and was surprised to see that he's voiced by none other than Ohtsuka Akio, a.k.a. Rider from Fate/Zero. It's definitely not the same voice he used there (which he recycled for Uvogin in Hunter x Hunter and thus led me to believe that it might've just been his one true voice). Instead it sounds like a lot like his Fate/Zero co-star's Nakata Jouji's voice. Fujiwara Keiji (ACDC's voice) I likewise wasn't able to place correctly. Knowing now that it's him, yeah, I can hear the Leorio creeping in there; but before looking it up, I felt like the guy bore some striking similarities to Tachiki Fumihiko (EVA's Gendou, Kaiji's narrator). As for Inoue Kazuhiko (Cars), didn't have a prayer. Didn't recognize him at all.

The action was good. I liked seeing JoJo sort of be a genuine newb with the crackers yet at the same time sort of be underestimated by all the parties present. I liked how, for the first time ever, somebody outpredicted JoJo when it came to the "And now you're going to say ..." schtick, although Wham didn't use those exact words the way that JoJo does. (I'm referring to the bit where Wham called JoJo's plan to use dynamite to blow them both up or to put on the emergency brake to send them both flying.) The fights were visually spectacular (more on that later) and fun to watch.

Also good was the plot pacing. The episode solidly delivered a proper episode's worth of meaty content. I would've hated to have had this episode's content split over the course of, say, two to three episodes. So thank God we're watching with a studio who is kind to us as far as pacing goes, even if it does consequently mean that we are just tearing through the manga at breakneck speed.

Another thing which really stood out this week this episode for me was the animation. It was really, really top-level stuff. As far as technical expertise goes, it wasn't the greatest in the industry, not by a longshot, but it was some of the best we've seen out of these Studio David / David Productions / whatever people. Reminded me of the flashback of Will A. Zeppeli's that was likewise really, really sharply and lovingly animated. But not only was this some of the prettiest animation from a technical perspective that we've seen out of this studio: it was A-level art as far as aesthetics are concerned. I wouldn't want all of my shows to be a trippy color smorgasbord the way that JJBA is, but they really worked well with this episode, 10x better than normal, and the studio did an amazing job with the coloration. Not to mention other aesthetic considerations like zoom, angle, and body posture/contortion. A lot of really great stuff aesthetically. It was like watching a living Mayan painting or something, which is exactly what they surely must be going for, so A+ "fucking accomplished " to these guys.

So there you have it. One episode down, two more to go before I'm caught up with you and bbb, Doppel. But it looks like Commie still hasn't even gotten their translation for 16 in yet, much less 17, so it's probably going to be at least a week, possibly longer, before I'm caught up. We'll just have to wait and see.
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Old 02-04-2013, 05:23 PM   #58
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The Pillar Men become fun guys because of Joseph. I imagine in ancient times they were all probably somber sticks in the mud, but Joseph's really good at winding them up.
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Old 02-15-2013, 11:49 AM   #59
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Commie fiiiiiiiiinally released their subs for Episodes 16 (THREE WEEKS LATE!) and 17 (TWO WEEKS LATE!) yesterday. The episodes were enjoyable and were also in-universe big deals, but the ridiculously long wait produced unreasonably built-up expectations for them that simply were not met. They say they've almost got 18 done, and 19 airs only just today, meaning they're more or less caught up if they can get 18 out today and 19 out by Monday.

Episode 16:
Spoiler: show
This episode introduces Lisa Lisa and the majority of JoJo's thirty days of training on her island. The main focus in this episode is on the very first challenge, which requires JoJo to ascend from a pit some 20 to 30 meters deep by climbing a central column covered in slippery oil using just his hands. No man-made tools like rope hewn from clothing. And no taking advantage of cracks in the stone either. The end result of this harsh training is better breathing control and better ability to focus the Ripple through his fingertips.

I thought the episode was okay, but one thing I never, ever like about stories like this one is how the hero manages to accomplish a lifetime's worth of training in a ridiculously short amount of time. (In JoJo's case, one month.) It's like, if the lessons could be learned that quickly, then they would be taught that way to everyone; and if not, if the only reason you managed is because you're super special, oh gag me! It's just so silly that I can never take it seriously.

Episode 17:
Spoiler: show
I didn't really like how 16 just skipped over the rest of JoJo's training in like one minute, but if they did that because the rest of his training is unimpressive and/or inconsequential in the long run, then I appreciate their editorial decision. Still: before we know it, we're already at JoJo's graduation ceremony -- his final test. Can he defeat Master Loggins in a one-on-one fight? If so, he passes. If not, only death awaits him. (Or maybe they'd just kick him off the island. ) JoJo arrives to take his test ... and there is ACDC, with his foot through Loggins' chest.

I thought the confrontation with ACDC was ... interesting at times. One memorable moment is of course the scene where ACDC bursts into tears and starts crying over his lost arm like a little child would over a destroyed toy. Another memorable scene is the ending cliffhanger, which I'll get to in a second. But as for ACDC's tentacular blood vessels or JoJo's fiery thread of Ripple goodness, I wasn't all that entertained. ACDC's ability seems dumb to me -- the sort of superpower children the age of 10 think up when trying to invent their own superheroes and supervillains -- and JoJo's outsmarting ACDC with the thread by way of stage magic seemed rather contrived. It was also hard to believe that in 30 days JoJo has come so far with his training that he could incinerate an immortal's body like that, just by using the Ripple and thread.

But the cliffhanger ending, with ACDC's brain apparently clinging to Joseph's back as he returns to Lisa Lisa and Caesar, is pretty true to the title of this franchise: bizarre. Memorable ... and bizarre. Whether the brain will take a new body for itself soon or not, and whether that body will be Joseph's, Caesar's, Lisa Lisa's, her other manservant's, her house maid's, or someone else's, who knows. The sneak peek does imply though that the house maid is murdered.

One last thing: lol @ a droplet of snot-like liquid ~magically~ instantly dissolving a ring around JoJo's carotid.

So once Commie gets 18 out, I'll watch it. And then I should hopefully be caught up to you guys giving or taking a few days.
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Old 02-15-2013, 02:29 PM   #60
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Remember that when Araki was writing Jojo, stuff like hot blood, extending knuckles, windmill fists and things were considered on the same level of plausible as something like Dragonball's training routines (where one could get super-human strength lugging 50 lbs of rock up and down mountains day after day). He got less ridiculous as time went on, but it's really apparent there in the early parts.

Also remember, Joseph (while the weakest Jojo) was already powerful enough to beat guys like Santana and Straights before getting pummeled by the Pillar Men. And ACDC is weaker than Wham even though ACDC is higher ranked than Wham is. We're not talking about Naruto going from smashing Haku to owning Orochimaru here, it's like a zoo lion versus a wild wolf...the lion doesn't have experience on his side, just instinct and natural talent.
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Old 02-23-2013, 11:57 AM   #61
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Ah, yeah. This episode.

This was one of the big ones. It had one of the best fights until Part 3. Suffice to say, I think the anime did a tremendous job on this one. I can imagine a certain FSN fight Talon might compare it to.

Budget also saw an uptick and it's not surprising, it's tremendous.
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Old 02-23-2013, 12:13 PM   #62
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Sadly, Commie still hasn't subbed 18 or 19 yet, much less yesterday's 20. It'll probably be several weeks before I see whatever it is you've just witnessed. I imagine it's JoJo vs. Cars, but maybe it's JoJo vs. Wham or Caesar vs. Wham. *shrug*

I'll be interested to know whether the series is still only slated for 26 episodes or what. Assuming from your post (don't clarify) that Episode 20 still dealt with Story Arc 2 material, that would leave only six episodes for Story Arc 3. The one you say is the best, and the one which by most accounts seems to be "the iconic JJBA story" given that the protagonist and the antagonist from that arc are the ones I typically see in video games and pop culture. Strikes me as very odd. So ... I'm thinking that the report of 26 episodes for JJBA might've simply been people reporting that at least 26 episodes had been confirmed and not that the series itself had been confirmed for a finite length of 26.

Allegedly the hangup with Commie's JJBA releases is typesetting SFX and signs and such. At this point, I feel like it's not worth holding back the project for such trifling matters. A lot of North American licensed manga don't even bother with the SFX, or when they do they do so seemingly at random. I'd much rather have timely JJBA releases (say 3-4 days after it broadcasts, I can live with that very easily) than be told that Episode 18 has been translated, edited, and timed "for days" back on February 14 when today is February 23 and there's still no sign of it.
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Old 02-23-2013, 12:38 PM   #63
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I will note that given the hype I've thrown out here, I imagine you and BBB will find Part 3 (at first) as a step back. I may have mentioned this, but Part 2 consisted almost exclusively of "boss fights" where the Jojo team went up against the strongest characters of the story arc without many filler/fodder characters. A big part of that is the Pillar Men didn't need minions...they were so strong such a thing was trivial.

Dio is smarter in this regard because even if he's powerful, he's was still going to slow the Jojos with minions in the hopes that one of them randomly kills off an ally. That happened in Part I where Tarkus off'd William Antonio. I personally think Jonathan and William Antonio could have completely killed off Dio in the castle confrontation (rather than Jonathan with Zeppeli's ripple) had Tarkus not done him in.

I suspect that, given the format, while it'll likely be 26 episodes for both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency, Stardust Crusaders will take 26 episodes on its own, unless multiple fights are devoted to each episode (which would be cool).
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Old 02-23-2013, 12:40 PM   #64
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Oh really. In that case, the 26-episode countdown might still be on the table. For all we know, they might take a season, two seasons, an entire year off between the end of Battle Tendency and the beginning of Stardust Crusaders.
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Old 02-27-2013, 03:34 PM   #65
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Just saw Episode 18. That was ... odd. ^^; Not really my cup of tea, but at least the end of the episode had a very Indiana Jones universe feel to it.

Spoiler: show
Not really keen on the idea of Joseph pairing off with Suzie Q. when she hasn't even been much of a character until just this very episode where she got pwned by ACDC and almost died. She's not especially attractive, and she looks a lot like Erina Joestar née Pendleton. ^^; It's almost like that's what the author is trying to suggest: that JoJo has some sort of complex regarding his grandmother and, while he isn't directly incestuous towards her, he still wants to pair off with a woman who reminds him of his grandmother. *shrug* Whatever, let's say we roll with it. That pretty much kills any chance we might have had, however slim, of Joseph pairing off with the smoking hot Lisa Lisa. Will she end up dying, as I've figured she would all story arc? Or will she miraculously survive and, if so, pair off with Caesar? Who knows.

Not a fan of Cyborg Stroheim. The original FMA anime jumped the shark for me when it reintroduced that made-for-TV asshole in the army who then wound up becoming a cyborg. I dunno, the whole "villain died but was rescued and reborn as a cyborg" plot device has never appealed to me. Inexplicably, Darth Vader is like the one exception. Anyone else, I tend to dislike them as a character and frown at the story for going in that direction. So ... boo, I say, boo on JJBA for giving us Cyborg Stroheim.

That stated, I do like how the German army was one step ahead of Team Lisa Lisa and how they at least offered to invite them to the lodge and exchange intel. The invitation to the lodge felt very realistic, and the Germans being one step ahead of the heroes had a strong Indiana Jones vibe, and Indiana Jones is almost always cool.

The scene with Cars and the dog was obviously meant to lend some important insight into his character. Namely, it showed us that it's not like he has zero respect for lesser lifeforms. He bothered himself to save the dog when he could have just as easily allowed it to get run over or killed everything there in sight. The fact that he didn't kill the dog himself proves he's not some insatiably bloodthirsty monster, and the fact that he did kill the humans proves that he's not merely indifferent to others' lives either. He cares. He cares on at least some level. Now whether it's that he places animals above humans or whether it's that he places innocents above miscreants, who knows. All we know is, he killed the drunk driver to save the dog.
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Old 03-09-2013, 03:03 PM   #66
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I just got to watch Episode 19. It was good.

Spoiler: show
While I'm not a fan of cyborg Stroheim, I did at least appreciate how he did things like try to shred Cars apart by firing 600 shells of machine gun fire at him or firing UV light at him. TBH, it'd have made a lot more sense for the German army to have given Stroheim a UV floodlight that could so illuminate the area in UV radiation that Cars'd have been turned into stone on the spot. Oh well. (Too easy? )

The race to the cliff and the ensuing fall down the cliff were exciting scenes. I was very distracted though by how long it took them to fall only a couple hundred feet. ^^; What should have taken ten seconds took more like five minutes! Pretty silly. But I appreciated as always how Joseph is just so clever. Shielding himself with the Stone of Aja seemed a bit silly insofar as I don't get why Cars merely didn't slice JoJo from another direction, but it was a great answer on JoJo's part as far as the whole "you can't bring yourself to risk destroying the stone" bit.

I liked the twist regarding JoJo being against going into the castle during the day, but I kept waiting for him to explain what it is about attacking during the day that makes things worse than attacking at night rather than simply being equally bad. That explanation never came, so that was frustrating and confusing.

What the hell got into Caesar? Guess we'll find out next episode.

Despite what may seem like a list of criticisms, I enjoyed the episode. It was exciting at times, entertaining pretty much always, and advanced the plot along a decent amount, if a little less than we're used to getting from this series. (Wuh oh. A sign of slow down?) Once again we see Cars going out of his way to save a non-human life, in this case a flower on the canyon floor that he would have otherwise crushed with his body had he not changed his trajectory. We saw our heroes get the Red Stone of Aja back. We saw them offer Stroheim an alliance. (And while it wasn't shown, I assume he accepted it.) We headed off to Cars' lair. Not bad progression.

20, 21, 22. Commie's still three episodes behind (and now 2 weeks late with 20). While its already been translated, thank God, 20 hasn't been typeset or edited yet. -_-; Not gonna lie: it is very tempting to go fetch 20 from some other group right now.
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Old 03-09-2013, 03:17 PM   #67
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I liked the twist regarding JoJo being against going into the castle during the day, but I kept waiting for him to explain what it is about attacking during the day that makes things worse than attacking at night rather than simply being equally bad. That explanation never came, so that was frustrating and confusing.
Joseph was against going into the hotel at all, and preferred letting Cars leave to attack him. Cars could have set up traps in his stronghold so it would be a lot more inconvenient to fight him there, whereas the reverse is true for the ripple team. If they waited long enough, Nazi reinforcements would have arrived with tanks/planes to raze the hotel while Cars was stranded inside.

Quote:
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Despite what may seem like a list of criticisms, I enjoyed the episode. It was exciting at times, entertaining pretty much always, and advanced the plot along a decent amount, if a little less than we're used to getting from this series.
If you like this one, I think you'll like the next. It's the best episode of the series thus far.
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Old 03-13-2013, 03:59 PM   #68
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Just finished Episode 20. It was good. I wouldn't call it great, but it was good.

Spoiler: show
I'm torn over Caesar's death. On the one hand, there are factors like:
  • he fought his hardest
  • he used some pretty great strategies to defeat Wham (even if, in the end, he failed)
  • the part with Joseph and Lisa Lisa entering the hotel and weeping for Caesar was one of the best scenes in the series so far
But on the other hand, there are other factors like:
  • it felt premature for Caesar to die here and now
  • I may need to rewatch it, but I really didn't get the impression on my first viewing that Wham's air strike tore Caesar's body (specifically his muscles and blood vessels) to shreds
  • I don't know that I really care for the forced parallel between Will A. Zeppeli and his grandson Caesar
I mean, it's cool and all that Caesar wanted to help Joseph out just as Will helped Jonathan out, but I don't get why Caesar also had to die in a manner loosely similar to Will's. I mean, the parallels are kind of too much. ^^; Tarkus, Wham. Will pouring all of his Ripple into something (Jonathan), Caesar pouring all of his Ripple into something (the bubble). Will's sacrifice not being in vain (Jonathan got super-charged), Caesar's sacrifice not being in vain (he greatly injured Wham). Will dying a pretty terrible death (he got torn in half!), Caesar dying a pretty terrible death (he got crushed beneath a giant slab of rock ... as he was bleeding to death from lacerations!). I'm not sure if I like this level of similarity or not. ^^; Is it cool? Is it not cool? I don't know! I don't know how to feel about it. Part of me doesn't like it and worries that this is going to become a trend in every single JJBA story arc -- a Joestar will meet a Zeppeli and later on the Zeppeli will sacrifice himself for the Joestar -- but at the same time part of me wonders if I could come to like that quaint little recurring plot device. I dunno. I just don't know.

I didn't really care for the backstory involving Caesar's father if only because 1) there was little reason for Caesar's father to jet on the kids without at least telling them that Daddy has to go away for a while (especially since he did so after their mother had died, not before, thus knowingly rendering them all orphans) and 2) by having Caesar encounter the Pillar Men way back when, it grossly begs the question of why he was so calm about it when his German friend took him back there with Joseph and Speedwagon. Or why he didn't act like this was his second time seeing them. Maybe he did and I am just not remembering properly? But didn't Caesar act just as surprised as JoJo upon discovering the Pillar Men? Weren't they all led there by the German soldier and not co-led there by Caesar too?

It still kills me that Joseph plans to wind up with that maid of Lisa Lisa's instead of Lisa Lisa herself. The author seems to be strongly sending us the hint that Lisa Lisa won't come out of this alive. It's sheer madness that he'd pass over a fine woman like her for mere table scraps like her maid should she survive the showdown with Cars and Wham.

The fights were well done. Nicely choreographed, nicely animated.

Not a fan at all of Wham's stupid air pipes. Man, these Pillar Men make me eye roll so hard at their dopey power ups. "I have tentacle rape arteries that will pour molten lava into you!" "I have bone-blades with little shark teeth on them like a chainsaw!" "I have dick-pipes growing out of my torso that gush out tons of air!" Just ... what?
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Old 03-13-2013, 06:29 PM   #69
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Spoiler: show
Caesar is the last Zeppeli in JJBA until Gyro in Part VII. He was the only living member of William A.'s line who could use Ripple. With his death, the Zeppeli connection to the Joestars got wiped out.

As for your questions Talon, Japan is huge on parallels like that so it's really a cultural distinction I think. Much of JJBA, like the manga of its time, was big on inherited will. While the characters you grew to like die, their will was carried on through their descendants, so it's almost like the character got reincarnated. That's why the star of each story arc is "Jojo".

There's a bit of kismet going on, too. William A. altered the course of the Joestar's destinies by involving himself with the Stone Mask, and had to rely on the Joestars to close that chapter on the family history. Likewise, the Zeppelis themselves got drawn into the Joestar's issues, so fate "obligated" them to likewise help out. And unfortunately, it's ended in a Zeppeli's death.

As for Wham's attack, it's pretty much instant death if it connects directly. And Caesar, having leapt into the air, could not dodge it at all.

The powers are a bit silly for now but remember how old this arc is, I can tell you in later arcs Araki is a lot better at making super-powers believable.
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Old 03-14-2013, 10:36 PM   #70
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I'm still keeping up. It's just...shounen so I haven't really felt the need to talk about it.

Anyway on episode 20 (episode 20 spoiler)
Spoiler: show
Am I the only person who did not like the scene where JoJo and LisaLisa discovered that Cesar died? I thought it was ridiculously cliche and cheesy. I spent the entire damn scene making fun of it. JoJo said things that I felt didn't make sense at all, and I just saw it as him spouting cliches. It also dragged on for way too long. Maybe part of the impact died on me when the OP basically spoiled that Cesar will die?

"Cesar.....YOU TAUGHT ME TO LOVE WHEN I WAS UNABLE TO LOVE ANYONE! With you gone, I may never be able to love again. However, I'll love in memory of you! For Cesar! For love! LISA LISA! WHY AREN'T YOU CRYING?! BE SAD! *10 minute monologue about how she's keeping it to herself*"


This week's episode was pretty exciting though.
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Old 03-14-2013, 11:27 PM   #71
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I dunno, but that scene was the episode highlight for me.

23 airs tomorrow, right? I have yet to see 21 or 22. And now even Commie's translator is behind again (COME ON, GUYS ), so I'm thinking this might be it for me sticking with them. That and their stupid typesetter is doing WEEEEEEE frivolous typesetting magic now (starting with Episode 20) that makes the subs vanish on me 5% of the time. Tried in both VLC and SMPlayer2, nothin' doin'. So yeah, unless gg's subs are ass, there's no reason not to switch at this point. In fact ... fuck it, I'll watch 'em tonight or tomorrow. That's it. I'm tired of being weeks behind you guys and it hampering our discussions.
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Old 03-14-2013, 11:35 PM   #72
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I think whoever's subs I'm watching (the one who subs the Medicos Entertainment ads) is pretty good. They made sure to sub the Blu-Ray ads, too, which were darkly funny-

Spoiler: show

The week Caesar died, it kicked in immediately after Jojo/Lisa Lisa started tearing up. It was Stroheim going, "Buy Jojo no kimyou boken blu-ray DVD! They're SEKAIIIICHIIIIII!"

Then two weeks ago, it was Caesar going "Jojo no kimyou boken blu-ray DVD. Jojo, take it!!!"
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Old 03-15-2013, 07:08 PM   #73
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So, true to my word, I ditched Commie and decided to try out some of the other groups. First up? Controversial gg, who sometimes does really good subs and other times does really trolly subs. I had heard it said that their subs were trolly for JoJo, but I still figured that gg had to be better than Nutbladder, MMM (who? ), or the other group I saw (also who? ).

Boy was I wrong. Here is just a sample of the "Britfag" language that the translator forced into JJBA Episode 21:
Quote:
Crikey!
Quote:
Golly gee whiz!
Quote:
Cor blimey!
Quote:
We're buggered!
Quote:
Jolly good!
. The worst part about it is, a lot of the time JoJo was simply saying things like 何!? (nani "What!?") or 何だ!? (nanda "What was that!?") Specifically, I'm pretty sure it was 何だ when gg offered the "We're buggered!" one. ¬_¬ I forget what the others specifically were, but all of them were very ordinary Japanese. The appropriate English translation would've been (duh) things like "What!?", "What did you say!?", etc. The British stuff isn't just stupid of them to use, it's also inaccurate: it's too strong of language in English for the Japanese being spoken. So blegh. Blegh, blegh, blegh.

Then you say, "Well, so it was only the 'Britfag' lingo you noticed, Talon. The rest was good, right? Right?" Wrong. Oh how hilariously wrong. I daresay I was distracted through a good half of the fucking episode because the words coming out of people's mouths were not matching up exactly with the words onscreen. Oh sure, the translation was passable, but it was like, ... every ~ fucking ~ sentence seemed to have something wrong with it or, if not downright wrong, then at least questionable. Would I recommend the gg translation if absolutely no one else were subbing JoJo? Yes. Would I stick with it if only gg and Commie were subbing it and Commie continued its retardedly slow pace? Probably. Do I plan to stick with it as is or do I plan to shop around some more? Ohhhhhh do I plan to shop around some more. Do I ever! This was bad. I don't know why gg is fucking around with such a big name franchise like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure but they are. Clearly they have no respect for it and are just having fun with it the same way a bunch of 4channers would have fun "translating" the anime based off of the source material of all their favorite image macros. Note to self: if Hokuto no Ken ever gets a reboot anime, do not watch it with gg!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So what did I think of the actual episode itself and not the sub job? It was okay. Two three of the twists I thought were dumb, but one of the twists I thought was pretty neat and didn't see coming. (You can probably guess which one that one was.)

Spoiler: show
The first twist I didn't like was that Cars has been turning people into vampires ŕ la Dio Brando and that he had amassed a small army of some 100 vampires to help defend him against the Ripple users. The reason I didn't like it is, 1) that's Dio's schtick , 2) we haven't seen Cars show any interesting in vampirizing people until now so I feel like it's too late to do it now and have it seem like something he'd do, and 3) it seems to imply that Cars and Wham are a lot closer to Dio Brando's power level than Doppel suggests they are and than I myself have believed them to be given what all's been shown on television. Meh. Not a big deal but let's move on anyway before it bugs me more.

Second, I didn't much care for the manner in which the duels were arranged. Obviously we knew JoJo would be taking on Wham while Lisa Lisa took on Cars one on one. I mean, I called this last time. And can it even be said to be "calling it" when it's that frickin' obvious? So like, this isn't the problem I have. No, the problem I have isn't that they're fighting one on one in pairs like this ... it's that they're formal duels, with start times, locations, a cheering audience, the whole nine yards. What the hell. It just feels so silly and camp. I can't imagine Cars agreeing to something like this ... and yet he did! And yet he did. Ridiculous.

Third, ... Judah JoJo Ben-Hur? ^^; Really? JoJo's duel against Wham is to be ... a chariot race? And not just any chariot race but ... a chariot race with vampire horses? -_-; I thought this series was called JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, not JoJo's Ridiculous Adventure.

So with all these complaints, what was there to like about the episode? Well, I've avoided the most obvious plot twist in the room, the one that perhaps most deserves to be called a proper plot twist. That's right: I'm talking about Lisa Lisa and how she was the baby Jonathan Joestar saved forty-nine years ago. Not only that, but she was raised by Straits. Oh man. When she told JoJo she honestly didn't know how to feel about him given he's her father's killer, and when he was like "Well this is awkward! I killed my teacher's father figure!", I was like, "Hell yeah this is awkward! " Maaaaaaaaaaaan. That is awkward! But yeah. I don't know why, but I totally didn't see it coming that Lisa Lisa was the other baby. Or that the other baby even tied into the plot anymore. Wait a minute ... didn't they say a long time ago that the other baby became Jonathon's son's wife? Now I'm all sorts of confused. 'Cause that would have to mean that Lisa Lisa is Joseph's mother. Am I just imagining that? Or am I rememberng correctly? 'Cause out of nowhere that thought just crept into my brain, that ghost of a memory that we were told that the two babies, raised by Erina, became Joseph's father and mother.

bbb says 22 was really good? Well, I got it with gg, but I'm not even going to waste my time testing that one out. gg's 21 was enough! Next up then I guess is this "MMM" group. Let's see how well or poorly they handle things. (Poor Nutbladder. ^^; My confidence in your abilities completely shattered by your meh Kaiji S2 subs.)
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Old 03-15-2013, 07:52 PM   #74
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gg was the worst. Duwang is similarly inaccurate, but the intent for that was humour, not pissing people off.

Spoiler: show

The vampire army thing suggests something about Cars that you don't see in Wham or ACDC, can you figure it out? it's only been modestly hinted at thus far.

Lisa Lisa looks a lot like Straights, doesn't she? It's hard to imagine they're not blood related. I have no idea where you got the Joseph's mother speculation.
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Old 03-15-2013, 08:30 PM   #75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
gg was the worst. Duwang is similarly inaccurate, but the intent for that was humour, not pissing people off.

Spoiler: show

The vampire army thing suggests something about Cars that you don't see in Wham or ACDC, can you figure it out? it's only been modestly hinted at thus far.

Lisa Lisa looks a lot like Straights, doesn't she? It's hard to imagine they're not blood related. I have no idea where you got the Joseph's mother speculation.
Regarding Lisa Lisa:
Spoiler: show
I have no idea where I got it from either. I'll have to go back and watch the old episodes again real speedily and see if I can find the segment I'm thinking of. It's around the time they mention that Joseph's parents died in a plane crash (iirc ... they did die in a plane crash, right? ^^;; ). Could've sworn that we were told that Erina raised both children, the boy (her son by Jonathan) and the girl (the babe Jonathan saved), and that incidentally the two fell in love, were married, and had Joseph. Cleaaaaaaaaarly I must be imagining things. Because obviously Joseph would recognize his own mother if he saw her. But still. I'm curious to see if I can find what exactly it was that was said which put this idea into my head.

Regarding Cars:
Spoiler: show
I wouldn't think to draw any direct comparisons between him and Dio Brando ordinarily. But since you're asking me to, and that forces me to be a bit more analytical ... I guess the first thing that jumps out at me is that Cars seems to always, always wear a shawl around his head and neck. Even when he's half nude, he's still wearing that shawl around his head. You wouldn't think it'd be a smart thing to wear ordinarily because it could interfere with your peripheral vision, give your opponent something to grab onto in a fight, etc. So why does he keep it? Maybe it's to hide something. And if we're to consider similarities with Dio Brando, well, the most obvious thing of all is ... a possible break between head and body. Just as Dio became nothing more than a head which then sought to attach itself to Jonathan Joestar's body, perhaps Cars did something similar. Perhaps he too became a severed head but then attached himself to his most worthy opponent's body.

Aside: I doubt that Cars is Dio himself, because there's absolutely nothing to indicate this. Nothing yet indicating Dio survived the end of the first story arc. Nothing yet indicating that Dio made his way to the Mayan ruins where Santana was found or to Rome where the three Pillar Men were found. And besides: on the sheer basis of Wham and ACDC's relationship with Cars, we can reject the theory that Cars is Dio Brando as being absurd. If they've been alive for thousands of years, then so too must've been Cars. And if Cars has been around for thousands of years, well then, there's no way he can be Dio. So yeah. That theory is absurd, and can be ruled out as such.

Say the similarity you're speaking to has nothing to do with decapitation. And say it has nothing to do with Cars having some direct tie to Dio. What then could it be? What could be being hinted at that indicates some similarity between the two? You say it's something seen in Cars that is not seen in either Wham or ACDC. Well, besides the shawl ... hmm ... ACDC and Wham had fair eyes (Wham's were green and ACDC's were blue) but Cars has red eyes. Maybe that's meant to indicate something, given that most characters have realistic hair and eye colors in this universe. I forget what eye color Dio had once he put on the stone mask, but if his eyes were red as well, maybe it indicates that Cars and Dio are similar sorts of beings, even if (for all intents and purposes) Battle Tendency opened up with the premise that Dio's vampiric rank was one full grade less than Santana's, as were all humans who became vampires via the stone masks.

The thing is ...
Spoiler: show
One thing that bothers me with the stone masks, the vampires, and the Pillar Men is, when did it all begin? Caesar and Joseph keep telling ACDC, Wham, and Cars that these three can't understand humanity, not being humans themselves. But the thing is, were these three not at one point in their own lives human beings? If not, then from whence did they come? Outer space? A volcano? Where? If they were always and forever vampires, then why just the four of them? (No particular reason? ) And if they weren't always vampires ... if they were, at one point, ordinary men ... then how did they come to be like this? Which came first, the chicken or the egg the Pillar Men or the stone masks? Were the Pillar Men the results of the first successful stone masks, meaning some proto-civilization of men invented the masks? Or were the Pillar Men already around first, and they invented the masks themselves in order to convert other men into vampires?

What's weird to me is, why even invent stone masks in the first place if you, the Pillar Men, predate them? If you can turn men into vampires the same way Dio Brando did (just by touching them in a specific way), what need have you for the stone masks? This would seem to suggest that the stone masks really are more than just devices that turn ordinary men into low-level vampires. Even though JJBA sold it to us like this during the Santana part of Battle Tendency (by demonstrating how Santana so thoroughly pwned one of the test subjects who had been turned into a vampire by a stone mask), I'm not sure I buy the idea that "the stone masks produce lesser vampires than the Pillar Men". I feel like ... the stone masks are themselves the key to the production of more Pillar Men. If you want an ordinary vampire underling, you just touch them with your fingers and do your vampire transformation thing. But if you want a protégé ... if you want to an apprentice ... then you apply the stone mask, and while initially he's just an ordinary vampire, with enough training and enough time, he can start to become a Pillar Man. Maybe. Possibly.

Or I could be way, way off base. Curse you, Doppel! *shakes fist*

Back to Cars real quick:
Spoiler: show
One other odd thing is, both ACDC and Wham seem to look and dress (vaguely) like you would picture Mayan or Aztec men looking and dressing. Maybe not 100%, 'cause everybody in JJBA looks so weird. But largely Mesoamerican, yes. Whereas Cars' look bears zero resemblance to anything Mesoamerican. Not his facial build, not his clothes, nothing. I don't know what that's necessarily meant to indicate (other than that Cars' origins may lie outside of Mesoamerica, and that perhaps he may even be an ancestor to the Brandos *shrug*), but I'll throw it out there for now since I've noticed it.
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