Ooh nice, return of the CG opening animations. I loved how wild those could get with the camera work.

 

NGL, this new first OP of Stone Ocean is very good; The actual song itself does has a more modern J-pop tone to it which helps set it apart from the previous seasons, and I especially love all the callbacks to the events from the previous parts; From the stone mask, the Red Stone of Aja, DIO meeting his end and exploded, Stray Cat, Requiem Stand Arrow, etc. are all nice touches as if we went through all the main villains' defeats leading up to this; In a bit of an opposite parallel to the start of Sono Chi no Sadama flipping from Jolyne to Jonathan.

Can't wait for December 1st to arrive.

 

Fuck yes, CGI intros are back, and that song is a banger. I love when Jolyne breaks her cuffs she pulls the same pose as Jotaro in the first Part 3 opening with her stand just in reverse.

I'm so pumped. Can't wait to see my second favourite part be animated at long last.

 

Reddit Fan Art. You decide which is the Stand and the user.

 

I really hate this recent trend of Japanese comics biting off the exact thing that doesn't work in American comics: Treating the characters as generic vehicles that any writer and artist can pick up and continue. It's good for creating soulless franchises but horrible for personalized storytelling.

 

I'm more concerned about the several times I've heard it said it's a prequel. As in set before the events of Part 4. Considering Josuke has clearly never met another Stand user before Jotaro, I don't really see how that'd work. (though it's obviously non-canon anyway, a sequel would at least be more interesting given his experiences)

Which is a shame. I'd love to see more Part 4 Josuke after the series, but by Araki himself, and at least based on the continuity of Part 4.

 

The universe supports non-Stand-based adventures and shenanigans. There's the whole Rohan Kishibe miniseries. Josuke obviously had plenty of opportunities to get to know and understand the limits of Crazy Diamond before his season began, so there's a bit of room to play, there.

 

Except Hol Horse is clearly using his stand. Eh, it doesn't matter. I'll leaf through this on the stands, but I won't be reading it.

 

Hol Horse's stand is just a gun, though. If nobody actually calls attention to it, then Josuke would have no reason to believe it was otherwise.

We'll see what winds up happening, if the writer goes full obsessive JoJo fan, or if this turns into another "Araki forgot" scenario.

 

How can it be "Araki forgot" if Araki has nothing to do with it?

Or is that a joke on how Araki doesn't actually forget all that often and fans just get stuff blatantly wrong, because a fan is the one writing it?

 

That's why I put the quote marks around it, because I wasn't being literal. I'm sure you're well aware of the fandom memes regarding the series' continuity slips.

Anywho, if the franchise can handle Thus Spake Rohan Kishibe and Purple Haze Feedback, then these new stories won't be any more out-of-place.

 

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (I will never understand why they translated the title that way) is different because it was written and drawn by Araki. Purple Haze Feedback on the other hand is written by someone else and thus worthless.

 

I figured as much, but hey you never know. There's people out there that legitimately think Jotaro drew "The World" as his first card.  

Also there's not really that many continuity errors. Most errors/plot holes are just people not reading or not understanding the series. (or more frustratingly, thinking that any character or plot point not revisited after it's concluded is "forgotten")

I wouldn't say worthless, it's a decent story I guess, but I certainly don't think it counts.

Nobody can match Araki's writing. He has a particular lack of sentimentality that makes his worlds feel truly dynamic and hard-edged. Other writers, especially fan writers, tend to be too... I dunno, reverent with it? I think it says a lot that Part 4 Josuke is his favourite JoJo and yet he's never written him again outside of that part. Not many writers have the integrity to move on from characters once their story is told, despite their personal affection.

I think that's what bums me about this spinoff. P4 Josuke is my favourite character, and it would've been really cool to see Araki write him again, but Josuke under anyone else's pen just isn't Josuke.

 

That's also why I chose the phrase "continuity slips" over "plot holes". There's really nothing in the series that requires huge logical leaps to reconcile.

More than anything, the man doesn't seem to be into meticulous note-taking as per, say, Ken Akamatsu, so he frequently winds up with Chekhov's Guns that go un-fired.

 

I wouldn't even go that far, I'd say it's more his propensity to add detail and grandeur to even minor aspects, even if they were never intended to persist past their relevance. It's less that the guns go un-fired, but that they're introduced and fired immediately before moving on to the next encounter. When every character, even extremely minor or one-time appearance ones, receive the detailed and distinct designs and flavour most writers would typically reserve only for main or recurring ones, it makes people unreasonably place importance despite JoJo's establishing pretty early on its dynamic, ever changing world. (albeit a lot clunkier in its earliest implementations compared to later on)

That plays a big part into what I said in the second half of my post, how Araki has an almost un-sentimental approach to writing where characters and ideas exist only as long as they hold relevance to the story, and either resolve/die or simply move on as people logically would. Few characters return simply for cameos, which you'd think would be far more prevalent in a series lauded for the multitude of unique and memorable characters it produced as time went on. Like I said, his own favourite MC never appeared again because, well, his story was told and that was it. :/

I think that's why the new universe, despite being really enjoyable, always felt a bit weird to me. The references and callbacks feel unusually own-horn-tootin' for Araki, though that may just be simple fanservice and coy references.

 

That is one way to look at it. I see it as Araki wishing to flex his creative muscles by employing as little continuity as possible.

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And I think that's an acceptable enough trade IMO, except where the Joestar family tree gets cut off and cornered. Johnny Joestar and Diego Brando couldn't be a distant relative of Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando, Josefumi Kujo is a chimera formed from a fusion dance of Jojos and Kira, no sign of Giorno and Jolyne after their stories end (not even cameos).

 

I suppose that's always the weird thing to regard with JoJo, is that most of its newer fans (myself included) are viewing the series through a "modern" lens. There's something of an expectation for a long-form, interconnected narrative because the precedent has been established through other franchise long-runners like Bleach and Naruto. But having been in the industry so long, Araki's writing style doesn't really lean on that style much, and he just kinda goes at his own pace like he always has, for better or worse. A significant part of JoJo was written long before those other shonen franchises were even a twinkle in someone's eye, and thus rather forms the baseline for many of the genre expectations, rather than necessarily falling in line with them.

Honestly, it's rather to the series' credit that its often strange, avant-garde presentation renders it timeless in many ways. So many times I've had to re-train my frame of reference, because some of the scenarios are so out there that they feel like they almost have to be a parody of some of the frequent shonen manga tropes. But no, many of those times, JoJo marks itself as the progenitor of many of those tropes instead.

 

Theres’s… a lot wrong with this:

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Johnny and Diego are alternate versions of Jonathan and Dio. It’s a completely new universe starting with Steel Ball Run, unrelated to the previous six parts in any way. I have no idea what you mean by “distant relatives.” That’s like Micheal Keaton Batman being a distant relative of Christian Bale’s Batman.

Josefumi Kujo also isn’t a fusion, Josuke Higashikata is the fusion between Josefumi and Kira. There’s been no sign of Giorgio or Jolyne because that universe is over and we haven’t had cameos from anyone from the original continuity. Why would they cameo? Unless you mean references to them/alternate versions, but who’s to say Part 9 won’t give us references to them?

You are right that Araki seems most comfortable telling largely separate unique stories rather than one linear overarching one. I think that’s what makes JoJo’s so successful, because each part feels more self-contained than you’d expect such a long-running series to be, and each feels like their own story with their own beginning and ending.

 

Read the first chapter of Demonic Heartbreak just to give it a fair shake.

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Its definitely weird that the writing doesn’t match Araki’s. It also had that same reverence I talked about where we’re seeing a lot of characters coincidentally converging in fanservice-y ways. Not that JoJo’s has never had fanservice, but Kakyoin being buried in Morioh just seems a bit contrived. Yet through the filter of fan adoration I can see people going crazy just seeing his name mentioned again.