A short Jojo retrospective and my feelings/impressions/rambling about Diamond is Unbreakable.
TL; DR I encourage anyone to give a try to the series, you won’t regret it.
I started watching Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure around June or July of this year, thanks to a certain OP of certain anime thread, and needless to say I fell in love with it, from its lovable and fun characters, how over the top and bizarre everything was, the amazing soundtrack, I loved all of it.
Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency were excellent and while Stardust Crusaders was a bit slow at times in terms of pacing, it still was Jojo at its finest.
Which brings us to Diamond is Unbreakable (DiU)
DiU as a whole goes for a different setting and structure than the previous parts. It takes more of a Slice of Life route, DiU is not about some grand adventure in India, or going find fabulous pillar men; is just about our protagonists dealing with Stand users (people with special powers basically), making new friends and establishing key and recurring characters, some intense and touching moment, etc.
Speaking of characters, they are all great ranging from weird, fabulous or just plain awesome; another aspect that I love about Jojo as a whole is that some characters from previous parts show up again, while still letting the new characters have most of the spotlight, it gives a sense of familiarity and continuity for those that follow the series while still discovering great new characters. One of my highlights was Koichi, which had a good development arc and growth alongside his stand powers across the series. Another one was Rohan, badass mangaka and just a joy to watch in action.
In terms of action, the introduction of Stands in Stardust Crusaders was a great way to make fights more creative, which is also put to full use in DiU, now with crazier and more creative and unique stands, it also brings back the feel of tension and strategy to every fight from the first two parts, making them even better. Highway Star and any fight against Kira being some of the best ones for me. The greatness of the fights are accentuated thanks to Jojo’s style and great use of color palette, basically Jojo isn’t big on animation, fights are very dialogue heavy and much slower than in your usual shounen, which in no way that is a bad thing, because Jojo really shines in those still moments, the over the top expressions of the characters, the onomatopoeias, the color changing palettes to match certain emotions in characters where is needed in a way to make some scenes have more impact, the great use of sound effects that makes every action have that extra feel of BOOM to it, all of this makes for some very immersive and satisfying fights.
Another highlight of DiU and Jojo as a whole is the music, either its BGM or the Opening themes. From the cheery themes like Morioh Cho Radio to the more intense tracks like Irreversible Sadness is all great and right to the mood of each scene.
Instead of the usual one opening per arc, DiU brings 3, each of them being Jojo at its finest, expertly crafted credits with a great use of the visuals for foreshadowing, winks, nods and the mood of the part that is representing. I’m just going to give a general impression of each opening and their arcs, because explaining what makes each of these openings so special may as well could take individuals posts for each of them and is quite easy to understand why once you have experienced the series for yourself. The first one, Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town, really puts a 90s feels on it (since that is the period of time that DiU takes place) and the more SoL nature of DiU.
With the second OP, chase, things take a different turn, at this point in the story, it focuses on the main villain that has been built up and foreshadowed since the start, Kira Yoshikage and the entire mood becomes a lot more dark and tense, with some of the greatest moments coming from Kira’s arcs, Kira Yoshikage wants a quiet life and Sheer Heart Attack.
And now the final OP, Great Days, the song has a more triumphant feel to it, a sense that our heroes are finally going to defeat Kira. This last part focuses on developing more of Kira’s character and our protagonists while building up the moment of the final battle and of course the battle itself.
Since I have mentioned him so often may as well go a bit more in depth about him, Kira is my biggest highlight from the show, Jojo villains are awesome, but Kira is on another level, fitting both as a villain with his very intimidating and imposing nature and quite an interesting character, not only from his OCD (which is quite funny at times) but for his development, little nuances and conflicts that appears in the later episodes, wanting to live a quiet life, and not wanting to hide from people that may want to chase him for his crimes, etc. making him feel like an actual person and relatable at times, quickly becoming one of my favorite villains of all time. His Stand, Killer Queen is also amazing, being able to explode anything it touches and leaving no trace of his victims to not get caught.
And of course, I have to give an applause to the studio behind the Jojo adaptations, David Productions, since the first part, every adaptation made by this studio has been excellent, following the events of the manga as closely as possible, replicating Araki’s artstyle and even adding new scenes that are there to improve on the already excellent work of the manga, as a whole it just shows how much passion, love and respect goes into the crafting of the anime, from its opening and ending credits and the content of the show itself.
Diamond is Unbreakable was overall fantastic for me, the great pacing, colorful visuals, memorable fights, some of my favorite stand abilities, Kira and the rest of the cast, soundtrack and everything else that I mentioned made this one of my favorite anime of all time, even surpassing Battle Tendency as my favorite Jojo part for me.
And as a whole, the Jojo series has quickly taken a special place in my heart, the anime adaptations making me have so much fun and being able to keep me at the edge of my seat, I even started reading the manga, as of now finished reading Part 1 through 5, all I can say now is, that I cannot wait for the Vento Aureo adaptation and the rest of the parts as well, while I continue to read the manga too.
