Does JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE Need to be Explained?

Since this arc has wound up playing like Araki’s
comprehensive homage to ‘video nasties,’ I have a strong suspicion that he must
have watched at least one David Cronenberg flick before he dreamt up this evil, little wart. When people use the term ‘body horror’ these days, they’re pretty
much referring to that guy’s oeuvre, or to other movies paying direct tribute
to it. From titles like THE FLY to THE
BROOD, Cronenberg demonstrated that monsters who seem to have grown off of you
(more often, from your naughty parts)
are far creepier than any gill-monster or werewolf.

(Special tidbit for
J-horror fans: Cronenberg’s decades-ahead-of-the-curve movie VIDEODROME
provided more than a little inspiration for the RING movies).

So, suffice it to say, Araki’s pool of inspiration spreads
far wider than Japanese shonen and American pop music.

== TEASER ==

To hop off the praise train for a second, I guess I ought to
rub my thumb over the double-edged sword of this show’s exposition. I’m really
curious if the forthcoming dub will minimize or outright remove it. The thorny
issue of all the copyright-violating names means the translation team will already
have to be putting the material through more scrutiny than usual. And having
characters say what they’re doing – instead of just showing it – is really one
of your most basic red flags for storytelling. I wonder a lot of times if the
show would be even better with another pass that trimmed the dialog.

However…

On the one hand, these breathless, hysterical monologues are
part of the appeal, aren’t they? Much like how, say, the 60’s BATMAN show would
lose some of the fun without all the tongue-in-cheek, on-the-nose asides. Plus, since Araki’s
trying to one-up himself with the intricacy and creativity of the Stands, I don’t
know if you’d even understand a lot of these fights if the characters didn’t
explain their tactics later. I feel like the whole back-and-forth with the
barrel of tar and the map Jojo #2 divines in the sand would be lost on the
audience without those various explanations.

What say you?

Watch "the
Empress" and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episodes.