Been watching yewchoob horseshit on the TV downstairs when I’m in a living-room-adjacent chore.  By default when I first turn the smort teevee on, it’s in this app that has a variety of channels.  One is “Anime All Day,” which has often been showing JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.  JoJo has a wacky concept that the main character – the titular JoJo – is a different person from one season to the next.  This cursed family always has members whose names start with Jo, Joe, Gio, etc., who are destined to fight evil.  Of course there are superpowers and whatever whatever.

So there was a season a few years ago which is seeing a lot of play, where the JoJo duJour was trying to join the mafia in Italy, to become a “Gang Star.”  There have been a few things that jumped out at me as fun or noteworthy or weird about this show.  This be spoilery, but you aren’t going to watch this junk anyway, are you?

One.  People act surprised when somebody has superpowers, even tho superpowered people always wear wild-as-hell, very queer clothing.  But they’re all hetero?  Or not especially interested in boning down, that I’ve seen.  Ace?  But they dress like it’s always Mardi Gras.  What’s especially funny is they showed the childhood backstory of the supporting character Bruno Bucciarati, and his queer clothes were shown to be growing up with him!  Like, baby Bruno had a simpler version of the design, which added more details as he aged.  He always had hair like Louise Brooks, even tho he waited until he was a mob enforcer to add the little girl barrettes.

Two.  Bruno is the underboss of his lil squad of supergangsters, and is showing JoJo around.  One of the gang tries to prank JoJoJo by pissing in a teacup and handing it to him.  Now, this shit aired on TV in Japan, I imagine in an adult-oid-esque-ish time slot somewhere somehow, so there was no dongling on display.  They just showed a stream coming out from behind his hand, splashing in cup, steaming.  Then, “You have to drink this tea because I have offered it.  Don’t be rude.”

JoJoJoJo impresses the guys by drinking the whole mug.  They’re grossed out and amazed but surmise, correctly, he used a superpower to avoid swallowin’ that juice.  But here’s the thing.  That shit passed your lips, man.  You inhaled the vapors.  I don’t care if you transformed your teeth into jellyfish that could hold it until you spit it out later.  That’s just weird.  At that rate, you might as well swallow it.  I don’t know.  Maybe he had gout.

Three.  Trish Una is cute and cool.  The mob boss’s daughter.  Trish and Bruno are the obvious standout characters of the season, both looking way cuter and cooler than the JoJo.  Megan Thee Stallion did a cosplay of this character once, so you know she’s a winner.

People with superpowers have an inhuman projection of that power called a “stand,” which makes them “stand users.”  The stands are usually (if not always) named after rock or pop songs or bands.  Trish’s stand is called “Spice Girl.”  This gives me a Trish connection: Bébé Mélange is a joke off “Baby Spice“+”The Spice Melange.”  I can give more history on that in a separate post if anyone is interested.

Four.  The stands are named after music.  This shit would not fly in the USA, and good for Japan, frankly.  JoJo’s stand is named after Prince’s album The Gold Experience, Bruno’s is named Sticky Fingers after a Rolling Stones album, a character named Mista has a stand called Sex Pistols, and the big bad guy’s stand is named King Crimson.  One of the bad guys is ノトーリアス・B・I・G.  I’m tripping.

Five.  The best moment of the season (that I watched only in snipped moments) was when Bruno is taking Trish to see her father the mysterious mob boss.   They have this moment of tender melodrama, where she’s afraid of how it will go, and he’s reassuring, and she tries to act tough.  They hold hands as the elevator ascends.

Suddenly, Trish is gone.  Serious expression – what happened?  Then it’s revealed Bruno is still holding her hand – which is severed at the wrist.  It spews blood everywhere while he yells NANI?!! NANIIII?!?! with his eyes bugging out and wiggling.  The comedy, which I’m pretty sure was intentional, came from the contrast of the quiet, brooding, intense moment of dignity, of characters asserting their self-possession and humanity, contrasted with home boy losing his shit anime-style.

“Bizarre Adventure” living up to its name.  I’m down.  But still… Stop me before I weeb again.

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