It feels like it's been far too long since I've gotten to talk about Jojo's. When I started getting back into anime, this is one of the shows I picked up since I'd seen so many memes and wanted to know what it was all about. I started somewhere around the time Diamond is Unbreakable was running, and while the show had its faults I was hooked with the first season.
Now we are on to part five, Golden Wind. The son of long-time Jojo villain Dio, Giorno Giovonni, is the Jojo for this series (I'll avoid spoiling why he is a Jojo, as every Jojo is of the Joestar Bloodline), and we see Giorno and his stand, The Golden Experience, try and rise to the top of the gangster scene in Italy in order to overthrow it and all the problems it causes.
Joining with Bruno Bucciarti and his own little group, they are assigned to work on a massive case and deliver Trish, who is the daughter of The Boss, to him. Protecting her from other people trying to get information on who the boss is so they can get closer to the boss themselves, the show is basically a fight of the week kind of show like the third part, Stardust Crusaders, was. While this does change around the halfway point, the actual plot of the show does move forward very slowly as a result of this.
Thankfully the show is carried by having a few great characters. Mista is a lot of fun with how laid back he seems to be, while also being rather rude and quick to fight. A willingness to put himself in danger to some pretty extreme degrees to accomplish a goal, he wields the stand Six Bullets, which he can use to alter the direction of his bullets mid-flight with an extreme degree of accuracy (Also a bizarre tendency to get into fights that involve him getting shot with his own bullets). Abbachio has a strong sense of Justice and is very skeptical of any situation, he uses Moody Jazz to view events in an area that previously took place. And then you have the groups leader, Bucciarti. Using his position in the Mafia to help those of his home town, he is dedicated and clever. Inspiring great confidence from his fellows, he uses Sticky Fingers to attach zippers to things. Just.... just trust me, it is way cooler then it sounds. These three are the ones who really make the show worth watching.
There are two remaining members of Bucciarti's gang that are honestly just not very enjoyable, Narancia and Fugo. Fugo just doesn't feel like he's all that important, and Narancia is mostly just obnoxious. Fugo doesn't get much screen time, though Narancia is pretty constantly relevant to what's going on and, as a result, gets annoying quick. I'll get a bit more into those details when I talk the actual narrative, so I'll leave it at that for now.
The final character is honestly the biggest problem I have with the show, and that is Giorno Giovonni himself. The main issue comes from the fact he is the son of Dio. Ignoring his strange lineage not having anything to do with his own character or plot, he is the prodigy of a man with an overwhelming power and presence. As one note a villain as Dio was, he hit that note so well it didn't matter his character didn't have much depth, because he felt like the overwhelming threat the show made him out to be.
Giorno, on the other hand, has almost no presence in the show. If you take away the necessity of his power, as a character he doesn't really even serve a purpose in the narrative other then to keep the group from dying. Even his desire to take out The Boss was something Bucciarti already possessed. It could be forgiven if he was at least an interesting character, but there really isn't much to him.
There are also a lot of things that happen that just don't make sense. Getting back to Narancia, he is tasked with getting Groceries while the group is hiding out. He is selected because, allegedly, his stand is the best suited for the task in case he is being pursued. His stand, mind you, is a tiny airplane with Machine Guns that can detect Carbon Dioxide. And it is very loud, and unless he actively knows someone is already following him it's all going to be pointless. Furthermore, Narancia is a loud idiot he doesn't even understand directions. With a stand that doesn't actually help with keeping himself hidden, literally any other member of the team was a better choice for the task.
Throw in the writer of the manga, Araki, showcasing his worst trait in full force, his ability to forget what his characters can actually do. Every power is shown by Giorno in the beginning just kind of.... goes away. His ability to force a person into an out of body experience, reflecting damage dealt to anything he gives life to back to whoever hurt it, and even Bucciarti's ability to tell if someones lying by licking their sweat (Just run with it) never come up again after the first couple of episodes.
Despite the problems though, the show gives you an incredible number of fantastic fights, and continues the trend started in part four, Diamond is Unbreakable, of the group acting as a more cohesive unit than just a bunch of solo fights. Nothing wrong with having one on one encounters as the focus, but seeing how different stand users in this are able to come together to overcome some pretty crazy enemies is a joy to see. This season also got us some of the strangest enemy abilities to date. A guy who makes you grow older the longer you are in the range of his ability, a kind of bacteria-like ability that infects you whenever you descend to a lower altitude, and so many more. Interesting and bizarre abilities really are what drives this season of the show more than anything else.
Certainly it's not the narrative, because it's honestly pretty weak. A large part of it is focused around finding out the identity of the Boss, but learning that does nothing to help them fight him off. You think Trish, the daughter he wants to kill in order to eliminate any trace of knowledge of him from the world, knows absolutely nothing and in no way helps them find his weakness. Knowledge of where he came from or who he is has nothing to do with how they finally end up beating him. Even if they knew his identity from the start it's not like that gives them any kind of relevant information to take him down. This is especially frustrating considering the price they end up paying to learn what he even looks like.
Even though the overall narrative feels a lot sloppier, in the end, it's still Jojo's. Great fights and visuals, a fun cast, and loads of dated musical references to make the old man that lives inside your soul happy. While I suggest starting at the beginning of the franchise for anyone looking to get into the show, you can at least go in knowing that even up to the current season the show stays enjoyable and fun. Even without knowledge of what happened before, you can still enjoy Part Five, much like any part of Jojo's, on its own without knowledge of what came before, even if you miss some of the references to previous arcs. It's definitely worth a watch.
