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Old 03-15-2013, 09:30 PM   #76
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Regarding Cars, it's more about his personality.

Wham and ACDC pretty much consider themselves beyond needing minions to serve them. They're powerful enough and intelligent enough to solve problems without having to rely on lesser beings. So why does Cars, their superior, decide to use them?

The Pillar Men also predate humanity, although it's more accurate to say they evolved alongside us like how viruses did. Ethnically, all three of them are Aztec/Mesoamerican, but they're also well-traveled as well (hence why Wham is an admirer of Roman culture, despite living on the other side of the world). Given the Ripple users originated from Tibet, and they battled in Europe (the site of where the three Pillar Men were entombed) you can imagine that they've seen a lot of the ancient world.
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Old 03-15-2013, 09:41 PM   #77
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As far as his personality goes, the only thing I can think of that the series has consistently hinted at is how much Cars values the lives of non-humans. First the dog, and then the flower .... But I don't see how this ties in to Dio at all. Dio didn't really care about anyone's life other than his own. He had freaky pets and minions, but that was just part of his megalomania. Cars hasn't struck me as megalomaniacal.

You say they evolved alongside H. sapiens sapiens. Are they still members of the genus Homo? Are they evolved from a common hominid ancestor (e.g. Cro-Magnon or Australopithecus)? Where is the divide between us? Don't tell me they evolved directly out of a completely different bacterial lineage. That would just be dumb then how they would have oh so coincidentally evolved to look like humans. ^^;
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Old 03-15-2013, 09:50 PM   #78
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I'd imagine that maybe we share a distant common ancestor, especially given what happens toward the end of Battle Tendency. Maybe the relationship is similar to the chimpanzee and the red colobus (both are primates, but the chimpazees prey on colobus)?

Also, Cars has no connection to Dio. Absolutely none. Dio only has connection to the Joestars, while the Pillar Men are tied to the fate of the Stone Mask.
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Old 03-16-2013, 01:12 AM   #79
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Just finished 22. Will probably watch it again if 23 is not out by tomorrow for me to move on to.

I watched with MMM. Would do it again. I couldn't always be confident that their subs were right -- a lot of quickly-spoken lines in this one with words I don't know -- but from what I did catch they were good, a certain improvement over gg and from what I can tell no worse than Commie. I might test BuddyWaters, Nutbladder, or DeadFish with 23 if any of them are faster, but I might also just stick with MMM and wait for theirs. (So it begins once again! )

Like a lot of this arc, I can't help but to feel torn over the events in 22. Half of me is like "Well this is contrived! " and half of me is like "That was awesome! " Low points are enemy stupidity for a race that's supposed to be so goddamn brilliant and for individuals who are so long-lived and experienced; high points are Joseph's lovable tendency to outmaneuver brawn with brains.

Spoiler: show
Cars was most like Dio this episode, what with the wine, the arrogantly calling things before they were truly concluded, and the groupies, but I'm still not sure what Doppel is suggesting. No spoilers! I'll just have to see if I can figure it out.

The bit with Wham's arms being destroyed was pretty amazing. And what about the part where he blew that one horse's head off? Good lord!

That iron ball to the back = oh shit. At first I instinctively thought "I hope he used Kou to lessen the blow! " Then I realized that that's Hunter x Hunter, not JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. So yeah. I gotta wonder if Joseph just got fucked up for life by that shot or not.

Wishing I could watch 23, 24, 25, and 26. This is going to be a painful three week wait for 26.
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Old 03-16-2013, 12:10 PM   #80
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Doppel, you big liar!

(spoiler regarding stuff that hasn't aired yet but which you can infer from what's been told already)
Spoiler: show
So I went back to look for whatever it was that was said that planted the seed in my head that the two babies (Jonathan's and Erina's on the one hand, the baby Jonathan saved on the other) grew up, got married, and had Joseph. And I found it in under ten minutes! (Was watching on faster than 1x speed.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by 13m42s of Episode 10
The child [Erina] was bearing at the time and the girl she'd saved from that ship eventually got married and had JoJo. They both died in the war.
Smokey says this, narrating for the audience, during the scene where Erina, Joseph, and Smokey are taking a taxi cab to dinner. Considering our story takes place on the eve of World War 2, the war that Smokey is referring to must have been World War 1 some twenty years earlier. This lines up perfectly for JoJo to have actually never known either his father or his mother: since he's only 19 or so years old himself, his parents would've had to have died while he was still just a baby if Erina's and Speedwagon's claim to Joseph that both parents "died in the war" was to be credible. So ... let's do some easy sleuthing:

1 - Lisa Lisa is confirmed to be the baby that Jonathan Joestar rescued. (Episode 21)

2 - That event is confirmed to have taken place roughly 49 years ago and places Lisa Lisa at around age 50. (Episode 21)

3 - If Joseph is around age 19 or 20 right now, then that means that Lisa Lisa would've been around 30 or 31 when he was born: a prime age for having a child.

4 - Lisa Lisa does have some physical traits in common with Joseph. (The black hair, the blue eyes.)

5 - Why would Araki not have paired Joseph off with the smoking hot Lisa Lisa? There has to have been some reason for it. Could it be ... because that would be Oedipal!?

6 - Smokey tells the audience that the two babies were married and had Joseph together. (Episode 10)

You add all these up together and it's not exactly rocket science: I was right! Lisa Lisa is Joseph's mother! Whoa. Mind blown. Did not see that one coming.

Doppel, you big liar. Why did you lie to me? Don't lie to people when they call something right! You can always opt to, I dunno, not comment on it or something. Or, if the cat's already out of the bag, you can sigh and say, "Yeah, you got it. But you weren't supposed to yet. *shakes fist at Talon for remembering that vital piece of information*" But you don't lie to me just to throw me off the trail! XD That's terrible! hahahahaha Bad Doppel, bad! hahaha
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Old 03-16-2013, 12:40 PM   #81
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Oh my.

Well, I'd forgotten that, and a certain other poster hadn't figured it out yet, so I wanted to tip-toe through the tulips.

Also apparent...

Spoiler: show
Lisa Lisa's ethnicity is English, but I don't think you'll ever hear of an English woman with a name like "Lisa Lisa" proper. He real name is Elisabeth Joestar.
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Old 03-16-2013, 12:50 PM   #82
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To be fair, I almost didn't remember it myself. Like a wisp of smoke, it delicately danced around the surface of my brain as I was wrapping up the post. I mean, you can even appreciate that my own memory had forgotten details since:

Spoiler: show
In this reply post, I agreed that it would seem silly for Joseph to not recognize his own mother, indicating that I had forgotten that Joseph was raised by Erina from pretty much start to finish. I figured he was raised by her from, I dunno, age 7 up or something. It wasn't until checking back with Episode 10 that I realized, "Ohhhh. His parents 'died in the war', so Erina must've raised JoJo for as long as he can remember. She's pretty much his surrogate mother, even if they maintained a grandmother-grandson relationship in many respects."

Also, to be fair to you, I didn't quite remember your exact choice of words yesterday.

Spoiler: show
Looking back at them now, I can see that you were very careful and deliberate in your word choice so as to neither lie to me nor to confirm that I was correct. Still though. You had to have realized (and if not, well, I'm telling you now! ) that I would take those words as a solid rejection of my theory. When you say something like "I have no idea where you got that idea from," that sort of language translates to like "That is one crazy theory. " Especially coming from you who already knows how things play out. When somebody who knows how things play out says "I have no idea where you got that from, " it gives the theorizer the impression that, "Oh shit. I must be way off base. He's laughing at me. But I could've sworn ... "
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Old 03-16-2013, 02:00 PM   #83
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Yeah I completely forgot that line from the earlier episodes, in fact it's kind of nuts that Araki left that in there. There's two more "easter eggs" as it were, one of which is a blatant plot-hole, to come up soon.

I'm watching the new episode right now.
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Old 03-17-2013, 12:58 PM   #84
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Episode 23 ...

Spoiler: show
... was pretty darn good. Pretty darn good.

I enjoyed the conclusion to JoJo's fight with Wham. My only complaint was how (oh so obvious from the moment he did it in Episode 22 ) Wham's own self-inflicted blindness proved to be a crucial problem for him in that final showdown between JoJo and him. It gave JoJo juuuuust enough time to hatch his plan with the Molotov cocktail and Caesar's bandana. Aside from that, it was a great scene. Loved the idea of getting him to intake the fuel and set it on fire, exploding him. Loved the idea of using Caesar's bandana to do it. Loved how they played that Italian opera music again during that bit. Loved the bits that followed with JoJo showing Wham respect, and Wham in kind showing JoJo respect by preventing the vampire minions from interfering. It was bromantic. I think that tends to be where JoJo shines best as a franchise: when it's doing bromance. Even when someone is your enemy and has killed your friends or family, you still manage to respect them for the things they did that deserve your respect. Looking forward to what Stardust Crusaders will have to offer us on that front.

Doppel has suggested similarities between Cars and Dio. I don't know that I really saw much up until now, but this episode really bore all in that regard. Cars was incredibly Dio-like in this episode. Total lust for power, no respect for decorum, rules, honor, etc., treated everybody like they were dirt, lapping up Joseph's misery like sweet nectar, ... yeah, he's pretty much not a nice guy. Kind of begs the question of why Wham was serving a guy like Cars, but whatever. Wham, while not exactly stupid, always did seem a bit simple-minded. Or maybe it's nothing to do with intelligence and it's simply that he felt like more of a follower than a leader. Regardless, Cars is bad news and completely undeserving of Joseph's respect where we stand right now.

SPEEEEEDWAGON! STROOOOHEIM. xfd; Smokey. ("Hey, remember me! I'm Smokey! Let's have Mr. Speedwagon remind you of this in case you forgot! We haven't seen each other in over ten episodes!") That scene was awesome. The German army lending substantial meaning to that old saying, "Here comes the cavalry!" In rolled all those troops and vehicles and whatnot, and *SHOONK* *SHOONK* *SHOONK* on go all of those UV floodlights. Awesome. A bit deus ex machina-ey ... okay, maybe a lot deus ex machina-ey ... but for some reason here, this one time, I quite enjoyed it. I normally hate deus ex things, but here, it was just great to see the Brits and the Germans come to JoJo's and Lisa Lisa's aid like that.

I was looking forward to a great fight out of Lisa Lisa. She started off nicely enough ... and then PWWWWWNED. I did like that bit though because I totally did not see it coming. As Cars continued to skewer her, I kept expecting her to reveal, like JoJo did when he got "hit" by Wham's Holy Sandstorm attack during the chariot race, that she hadn't really gotten hit at all by Cars and that, just as he had used a clone, so too had she, or something. Something. So not only did they surprise me with the first stab, but they continued to surprise me as she just kept getting skewered and not fighting back and it looking very, very real. I was like, "Dayum. I hope JoJo's mom doesn't die. "

And speaking of that ... looks like I brought this up right in the nick of time! Had I waited any longer to bring it up I would've been too late! I still wonder though how come Smokey was able to put two and two together but not Joseph. Doesn't he know that the baby that was rescued was his mother? And if not -- if that was deliberately kept a secret from him -- then how come they divulged that information to the recently-hired servant? Seems so weird.

I'm pretty curious to see whether Cars' defeat is going to come in Episode 24 or not. I would expect it to, but then that would mean we have two episodes left over. That seems like too many episodes to be dealing with epilogue, but of course it's far, far too few to go starting up Stardust Crusaders. Does that mean 24 is going to be a stallfest -- the series' first? -- and have Cars not get defeated until 25? I guess only time will tell.
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Old 03-17-2013, 01:43 PM   #85
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Most if not all of your questions will be answered in the next three episodes. I do anticipate it to go the full 26 episodes. Episode 26 will possibly by an epilogue, if the pacing continues to match up. Rumour has it that Stardust Crusaders is not starting immediately after Battle Tendency, with David Production working on Hyperdimensional Neptunia for Spring season and returning to Jojo for summer/fall. This isn't confirmed. I predict that Stardust Crusaders alone will form out to a 26 episode series on its own, so we're in for a long ride once it starts up.
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Old 03-17-2013, 06:09 PM   #86
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I just realized something loltardedly obvious.
  1. Lisa Lisa smokes.
  2. Lisa Lisa is a Ripple user.
  3. To a Ripple user, your breathing is everything.
  4. Smoking kills your lungs.
Umm ... plot hole? ^^;

Well, maybe not "plot hole". 'Cause I mean, I guess you could say that people didn't know any better back in the 1930s. I'm not sure if I buy that the Ripple users, whose very lifestyle depends upon maximum lung efficiency, would not have known about the deleterious effects of smoking; and it's not like tobacco is the only thing that's been smoked in the thousands of years of human civilization; but still, I guess that could be one counterargument Araki might make and which I might accept. "She simply didn't know. If she had known, she'd have never smoked again."

Still. Thought I should bring this up.
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Old 03-24-2013, 06:17 PM   #87
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Still. Thought I should bring this up.
That's actually an old joke people bring up about Lisa Lisa. I mentioned it to BBB coincidentally right before you posted that.

...

New episode! JJBA is about to go Splash Star on our arses! This week's Medicos Entertainment ad-

'Wham: "Now, show me what you're made of. Buy the Blu-Ray."'

Also, I'm going to boldly post a spoiler. It's alright to stare at the abstract for hours and wonder what the heck I'm talking about.

Spoiler: show

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Old 03-24-2013, 06:27 PM   #88
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FYI, won't be touching your spoiler. Sorry, Doppel, but you've burned me one too many times even on untagged spoilers, so there's just no way in Hell I'm going to click on one you had the foresight to spoiler tag yourself. ^^;

Not like it matters though since I wouldn't have clicked on it anyway considering I haven't seen JJBA Ep24 yet, nor will I get a chance to until after 25 is out.
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Old 03-24-2013, 06:32 PM   #89
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I only tagged it because it's a picture, and would otherwise potentially break the borders. And unlike the last spoiler, which took away the surprise for something way in advance, this one is more ambiguous and less plot pivotal. It's safe to look at.
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Old 03-24-2013, 07:46 PM   #90
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Well, on that note I took a look at it, and my thoughts would be:

Spoiler: show
One, it looks like generations of Joestars, perhaps. With Joseph in the front and two as-yet unknown Joestars behind him. None of them looks like JoJo #3 so if I had to guess I'd guess they were any of 4, 5, or 6, but *shrug*.

Two, there's a thorny vine/root. Not sure if that has any significance or not.

Third, it looks like Joseph (in the foreground) has a belt buckle around one of his wrists.

Probably not what you're alluding to, but that's all I see for now.
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Old 03-30-2013, 08:26 PM   #91
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One more episode left! I'm a bit worried about how you lot will take to what's going on in these past few, especially with respect to Talon, but it's still exciting!
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Old 04-02-2013, 03:09 AM   #92
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I'm watching through this now, hoping to catch it in time for the finale. I like the show so far, and figured it was time to give this classic manga a look.
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Old 04-03-2013, 08:28 AM   #93
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I've got other things to attend to right now, but damn if these 8-bit remixes don't make me want to catch up on JoJo right this second.

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Old 04-03-2013, 02:48 PM   #94
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Watched 24 and 25.

24 was okay. Stalled a lot in the middle, but otherwise good.

25 reaffirmed that this is most definitely a kids show, mature though it may be by modern Western standards. Painful lols throughout at many of the ridiculous developments like ...

Spoiler: show
Cars' magic hand ...

JoJo magically going from the top of a cliff to the inside of an already-running fighter jet's cockpit in a matter of two seconds ...

Cars' various animal-based projectiles (fucking LOL at those piranhas devouring a plane) ...

JoJo flying into an active volcano ...

But best of all? STROHEIM HAVING BEEN IN THE PONTOON ALL ALONG! Right. Because he totally wasn't with Speedwagon when JoJo made a break for it.

Criticisms aside, it was a hell of a lot of fun. I guess in that regard it's sort of like SAO? Only much better written. Like ...

JJBA: a decently well-written kids show (w/ all the problems typical of such)
SAO: a poorly-written show for young adults (w/ a lot of the same problems as JJBA)

Excited for 26, absolutely, but man if this series hasn't been silly.
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Old 04-03-2013, 05:04 PM   #95
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Bizarre. Bizarre, Talon.

My approach to Jojo is as one would approach an eccentric grandfather, having heard stories of how cool he is. When one actually meets said grandfather, he may seem a bit antiquated, but he may indeed still dress to impress.

Araki's been writing Jojo for 20+ years, and the world of anime/manga has evolved around Jojo. So too has Jojo evolved. Jojolion and Steel Ball Run all feel like unique, but modern manga, so much so you might not believe it was written by the same man who crafted Phantom Blood. Araki cheated a bit, though.

Two things -

Spoiler: show
Stroheim jumped on the plane when Joseph dove close to the ground.

Ultimate Cars is the most powerful single being in the entire Jojo franchise. Later characters have conceptual powers that in theory could surpass him, but since Cars represents the peak of evolution, given the opportunity, he could probably formulate counters to those abilities. He is absolutely, ridiculously OP.
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Old 04-08-2013, 03:07 PM   #96
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Watched Episode 26, and with that finished JoJo's Bizarre Adventure ... well, the first season, anyway.

In the end, I never did manage to enjoy the series as much as Doppel seems to have. But a lot of that is grievances with its kids show elements. When I approach it as a kids show, and I try to be a bit more forgiving with a lot of its stuff that doesn't fly with me ordinarily and is pretty common fare in children's television, then I have to agree that the story is pretty incredible. I guess that's what JoJo asks of me: forgiveness and understanding. When you consider that it was written for kids and that it is nearly thirty years old, it's none too shabby.

Without further ado, let's dive into Episode 26, shall we?

Spoiler: show
Given there was a lot I liked about this episode and a lot I hated, I'm going to go through things in order but label them each with a Like or Dislike in front.

Like: the backstory for the Pillar Men's race and society was very much appreciated and, honestly, kinda cool. I do think it's a bit dumb that a completely separate race of organisms also evolved into hominids , but putting that criticism aside, I did quite like how 1) there were lots of them, not just Cars, ACDC, Wham, and Santana, 2) Cars was an esteemed prodigy amongst his own people, 3) the people feared him, even though he wanted what was best for them all, 4) the people betrayed him, and so 5) he slaughtered them. It would have been nice -- in fact, I would've really appreciated seeing -- how Cars, ACDC, and Wham wound up in that stone in Rome anyway (I wanted to see the Ripple user who pulled it off ), but other than that, the flashback sequences were good.

Dislike: not a fan of Cars being able to survive molten lava, and even less of a fan of Araki's purported mechanism for it. Pockets of air to insulate his body? Really? Pockets of air he put there ... after he was already taking a lava bath? If you were gonna do this, Araki, then you needed to have him shroud his body with 40°F air or whatever (the air temp around the crater) before having him take a lava bath. Once he's already in there, you'd damn well better believe that the air in that vicinity is hundreds upon hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit in temperature. Not to mention it struck me as a copout by Araki that Cars could regenerate his outer shell like that, given 1) it shouldn't be able to happen as fast as the lava itself eats away the newest generated layer and 2) the lava eats away the layers, i.e. it removes the matter (the chemicals, the compounds, the STUFF) from the system named Cars, i.e. Cars' biomass should be shrinking every cycle, i.e. this was dumb. Moving on.

Dislike: JoJo losing his arm. 'Cause I hate it when people lose their limbs or otherwise suffer irreparable damage.

Like: JoJo losing his arm. Paradoxical of me, I know. But the reason I like it is because OH SHIT! SUSPENSE! It definitely did its job of making JoJo seem very, very fucked.

Neutral: Cars using his razorblade arms to carve through the rock and get JoJo from underneath like that. Pretty silly but meh, it's Cars.

Like: Cars turning the tables on JoJo. Not "like" as in I'm rooting for him, 'cause duh I'm not, but "like" as in it was exciting for once to see JoJo without any smartaleck comebacks, Cars totally kicking his ass, and what's more --

Like: Cars using the Ripple! I thought this was going to happen last time (when they revealed that Cars had finally "conquered the Sun"), but then I forgot all about it when it didn't happen. It was a welcome surprise to see it happen after all.

Dislike: JoJo not being devoured by Cars' Ripple in mere seconds. We were told it was hundreds of times more powerful than JoJo's, and JoJo isn't even a superhuman being like a vampire or a Pillar Man, he's just some ordinary human, so like ... I totally would've expected him to have turned to ash pretty quickly under this circumstance.

Dislike: JoJo not being devoured by Cars' Ripple in the end at all. I mean, wth. It's all well and good that JoJo survives, but like ... they never explained why JoJo should not have continued to have been eaten up alive by Cars' Ripple that was still inside of JoJo. Dumb.

Dislike: JoJo having the Red Stone of Aja with him. There was only ever one that we saw and it fell into Cars' possession. There is no reason to believe that it would have ever wound up back in JoJo's hands.

Dislike: JoJo instinctively raising the Red Stone of Aja to fend off cars. DEUS EX MACHINA, HOOOOOOOO~!

Dislike: the idea of the Earth ejecting Cars into space as a means of self-defense / rejection of Cars' supremacy / protecting mankind. Silly.

Like: the Earth spitting them up into the sky like that. Another paradoxical Like+Dislike where my adult mind dislikes it but the kid inside of me goes "WOW, THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME! " lol

Dislike: JoJo's arm impaling Cars' throat, thereby distracting him. I mean, come on. This was fucking ridiculous. And another bit of deus ex machina.

Dislike: the idea that the enormous chunk of rock JoJo was on is being hurtled with such energy that it can get that close to the exosphere ... and yet in the end fall back to Earth ... yet some tiny fragments manage to hit CARS AND ONLY CARS, giving him an extra bit of velocity, just enough that he attains escape velocity and hurtles away from the planet. COOOOOOOOOME OOOOOOOOOOOOON! So silly. If those rocks were really going that fast, then just like JoJo's arm they should have skewered Cars, not merely pelted him and lent him further upwards momentum.

Dislike: That JoJo not only survived the blood loss from his arm being chopped off, not only survived the infective Ripple that Cars put into him, ... but that he manages to survive falling along with a chunk of rock some 1,000 tons in weight back down to the sea from the reaches of outer space. Give me a fucking break. He should've been incinerated on re-entry. Or he should have turned to jelly the moment his body (falling at thousands of feet per second) collided with the rock slab (after the rock hit the ocean and decelerated to say tens of feet per second in descent). Or he should've been knocked unconscious by the shock, thrown off the rock, and drowned at sea. There is NO WAY he should have survived that!

Like: Cars still being alive in space. So there's always the possibility that he'll one day--

Dislike: "Cars would never return to Earth. He will wander the universe for eternity, existing between the boundaries of animal and mineral. And no matter how much he desires to, he is unable to die. Eventually, Cars simply stopped thinking." AW HELL. D: Thanks a lot, Araki. Thanks for declaring Cars' future for us, going so far ahead as "all eternity". Thanks for declaring that even if we did get to see Cars again, by the time we did he would, by your own declaration's restrictions, have to be a non-thinking lump of meat who went mad from eons of isolation and pain in space.

Like: The above. Third paradox this post! Sorry! But I do like that Cars is gone for good simply because he was way too powerful, so with him finally out of the picture, maybe the franchise can get back on track and give us a conflict between heroes and villains that adult viewers can enjoy without having to turn their brains off.

Like: JoJo died, for reals. We got an obituary and everything. (TOO BAD THIS WAS A TROLL. )

Dislike: JoJo lives. *sigh* See above.

Like: The scene at the funeral was funny but for the fact that ...

Dislike: ... Suzie Q never told them about Joseph surviving, and that's the reason they all presumed him dead. That was way too hard to believe. If any woman was actually that airheaded and failed to inform her fiancé's mother, grandfather, and friends of the family that he had survived, then you'd want to divorce her / break up with her on the spot. JoJo'd have to be insane to marry such a person.

Like: The epilogue telling us about what happened to all of the main characters from Battle Tendency. Lisa Lisa didn't get an obituary but both Erina and Speedwagon did, so I wonder if that's implicit evidence that she's still alive (if ancient) in Stardust Crusaders? ;o How the hell does Stroheim die in Stalingrad in 1943 despite being such an insane cyborg warrior who held his own decently well against Pillar Men and lesser vampires? Silly.

Like: Grandpa Joseph. Quite funny. And he's pretty handsome for a grandpa! I like the haircut + facial hair!

Like: the foreshadowing with (I assume, as I've seen this name dropped so so often) Jotarou.

Neutral: just an observation that we're shown the JFK International Airport scene takes place in 1987 but we're then shown the Dio's coffin scene and the Jotarou in jail scene take place in 1983, four years earlier. So either that's a small spoiler for the fact that Stardust Crusaders takes place between 1983 and 1987 and, by the end of it, Grandpa Joseph is still alive? Or else it's not a spoiler and never mind.

Good lord, that's a hell of a lot longer than it felt like while I was writing it! Well, suffice to say that I found stuff in Episode 26 that I both loved and hated (and sometimes it was the paradoxically the same thing! ).

As for my hopes for the future and JJBA, I would like to see Stardust Crusaders animated, of course, and it certainly seems like they plan to. I think David Productions did an admirable job with JJBA and would love to see them at the helm again. While it's true that the character art is in many respects less good than that done by studios like ufotable, Kyoto Animation, and P.A.Works, I still feel that David Productions did their best to try and "bring the manga to life," as it were, by giving us manga-faithful character designs and facial expressions, retaining much of the manga's sound effects text, and above all else giving us some really trippy colors for static cels, something that really, really fit JJBA as a whole and especially well fit JJBA as a story that has to do with vampiric übermensch from Mesoamerica.
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Old 04-08-2013, 05:13 PM   #97
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Spoiler: show
There was a small scene in Episode 25 where Joseph grabbed the very Red Stone of Asia that Cars dropped. It's not as hard to miss as Joseph swooping by the ground, allowing Stroheim to stowaway on board his plane, but it was there.

A lot of your criticisms are fully justified. Early Araki straddles a line between awesome and silly, so seeing things iron out should be a real treat. I found how he dealt with Cars an imaginative way to justify ejecting a super-being from the series without defeating him in an unsatisfying manner.

In Part IV, it's revealed that a meteor fell to Earth and did some stuff, so I like to imagine it was pieces of Cars that managed to find their way back.

Also, Joseph was able to use his Ripple to cauterize his arm and save himself from bleeding out. He's not nearly as talented as Jonathan who could outright heal himself from mortal injuries with the ripple, but Jonathan was a prodigy and Joseph, while skilled, just isn't that good.

Cars' Ripple was 100x Joseph's, but if you think about it 100x magnification isn't a lot. Orders of magnitude for electromagnetic phenomenon are on the 1000x scale in energy, and certainly even Jonathan, who was the strongest Ripple user before Cars, wouldn't have been able to do Dragonball Z style laser blasts with a super-powered Ripple. It just isn't that kind of power.

Now, when Cars funneled the Ripple into the red stone, that was powerful!

Lisa Lisa is alive as of 1987, in her 90's, but she doesn't appear in Stardust Crusaders, nor would she have been very useful even if she could still fight.


Also Talon, did you see the plot-hole? If you've forgotten...

Spoiler: show
Erina Joestar survived Dio's attack on the ship by hiding in Dio's coffin, which floated to the surface and allowed her to be picked up. So why is Dio's coffin at the bottom of the sea, with Jonathan's body, and without Jonathan's head?
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Old 04-08-2013, 05:28 PM   #98
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I'm not sure if that's necessarily a plot hole, but you tell me.

Spoiler: show
Couldn't this have happened?
  1. Dio somehow manages to get himself inside the coffin, along with Jonathan Joestar's dead body, as the ship sinks.
  2. Erina, with babes clutched to her chest, jumps overboard out of sheer desperation. After all, the ship is on fire.
  3. The ship breaks into flotsam as it sinks.
  4. Some of the cargo, as well as some of the wreckage, floats to the surface. Among them are the coffin (with Dio's head and Jonathan's body inside).
  5. Erina spies the coffin and swims over to it. She climbs on top of it and lies prostrate on it, grabbing to the two babies to make sure they don't slip off.
  6. A boat appears and rescues Erina and the babies.
  7. They leave the coffin in the water. It eventually sinks.
  8. Erina and the babies are escorted back to England.
  9. *FAST FORWARD 100 YEARS*
  10. A team seeking treasure trawls up Dio's coffin.
  11. During the past century, Dio has allegedly had sufficient time to bust out of the glass case his head was in, slice off JoJo's head, tentacle-affix himself to JoJo's decapitated body, and meld with it.
  12. Perhaps for the nourishment he needed to make such an endeavor possible, he consumed JoJo's head, and that's why there's no head to be found. *shrug*
No? Is there stuff we'll find out later that renders this explanation impossible?

Don't you have Jonathan and Joseph backwards when you say:

Spoiler: show
Quote:
He's not nearly as talented as Jonathan who could outright heal himself from mortal injuries with the ripple, but Jonathan was a prodigy and Joseph, while skilled, just isn't that good.
? I mean, the show has said many times that it's Joseph who is the natural-born prodigy who, had he received proper training, would very likely have been one of the greatest Ripple users who ever lived; vice-versa, Jonathan Joestar is very good (very, very good), but his whole story is about hard work and passion, not about innate genius (be it mental genius or Ripple genius). Granted, because Araki seems to have had as much of a good handle on time as a child of ten , Jonathan's training with Will A. Zeppeli only lasted around a week or so, but still. One gets the impression from his story arc that he's Captain Hardwork (opposite Dio's Captain Naturally Gifted) while his grandson Joseph is another Captain Naturally Gifted.
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Old 04-08-2013, 06:27 PM   #99
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No, Jonathan was the prodigy with the Ripple, a once-in-a-century kind of guy. He was the most talented among the Joestar clan, but his knightly/nice-guy personality held him back from becoming like Joseph (crafty) and Jotaro. Because of that, his biggest asset was his endurance and ability to shoulder all the tragedy he's faced.

Joseph and Caesar are well above average ripple users, but if I'd rank the characters in terms of strength -

Ultimate Cars >>> Jonathan Joestar > Lisa Lisa > Cars > Wham > ACDC > Dio > Santana > Joseph Joestar = Caesar A. Zeppeli > William A. Zeppeli > Vampire Straights > Tonpeti = Loggins = Messina = Tarkus = Brueford > Straights > Dire > Jack the Ripper > Fodder Vampires > Wang Chan > Robert Edward O. Speedwagon

What I know:

1. Joseph and Caesar are about equal in strength.
2. Jonathan was stronger than William Antonio, then got really strong when he got William Antonio's ripple.
3. William Antonio was stronger than Tonpeti, who was stronger than Straights/Dire.
4. Messina and Loggins are considered "above average" for Ripple users.
6. Joseph and Caesar were among the most powerful ripple users Wham ever faced.
5. Lisa Lisa is extremely powerful and was strong enough to kill all the vampires except Ultimate Cars.
6. Santana isn't that strong, but his Pillar Man status elevates him above most ripple users and other vampires.
7. Tarkus and Brueford were Dio's strongest minions until Part 3, and were far above average for vampires.

As you can see from my rankings, a straight out power match rarely happens or dictates who wins the fight. Sometimes, a weaker enemy beats a stronger hero (Tarkus over William Antonio, Cars over Lisa Lisa, Dio over Jonathan) depending on how they conduct the battle.

Stardust Crusaders is a lot less linear as far as strength goes, because of the nature of what's going on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I'm not sure if that's necessarily a plot hole, but you tell me.

Spoiler: show

Erina spies the coffin and swims over to it. She climbs on top of it and lies prostrate on it, grabbing to the two babies to make sure they don't slip off.
Spoiler: show

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Old 04-08-2013, 06:34 PM   #100
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Yeah. Yeaaaaaaaaah. So much for that explanation.

Araki: Haow.
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