The Women of JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE...?

A shark gets flung straight out of the sea by an invisible
uppercut - - only to then be pummeled
into a bloody pulp, in mid-air, by that same invisible assailant. This,
friends, is why I keep coming back to JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURE. This is why I
love anime.

== TEASER ==

You know, there’s an odd dichotomy to this show. The events
unfold at a manic clip - - with a bizarre
ideas being thrown at the wall constantly - - yet the tone and rendering
style is really more deadpan than any other self-serious shonen. Araki once
again demonstrates that there’s definite method to his madness in the way he earns
sympathy points for Jojo #3.

It’s pretty much the same trick he did for Jojo
#2. You can get away with as many episodes as you want where your hero is a petulant
brat… as long as you show him sticking his neck out for somebody at some point. Araki takes that a step further by having these guys do right turns for kids
who’ve just wronged them. Forgiving somebody who’s stowed away on your ship isn’t
as big doing it for somebody who’s just grabbed your wallet (like Jojo #2 did
for Smoky), but the principle’s still the same. It’s quite deft.

Of
course, Jojo #3 isn’t saving a cat out of a tree here; he’s a saving a kid from a
shark. So... that makes up sympathy points.

Said sympathy point address the show’s other
unique dichotomy. I don’t know how old Anne is intended to be, but her
introduction works enough like Susie Q’s that I could easily see her becoming a
love interest for Jojo #3. In comparison to other major shonen, JOJO’s is
unusual for giving its leads girlfriends, and consummating their romance rather
quickly (I mean, no joke, there’s a lot
of reproduction going on).

You juxtapose that most character’s… er… metrosexual fashion, and the show’s
overall admiration with the male form, and it really seems like this whole
series might a be Araki’s epic, ridiculing comment on that hyper-macho FIST OF THE NORTH STAR. It’s
playing with gender roles aggressively, as if to say that a hero can be
manly while still having a very feminine sense of style.

Watch "Dark Blue
Moon" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous batch
of episodes.