Joe The Lion – Crackpot JoJolion Theory Time!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a mammoth of a manga series that has been running for over 25 yeWHY THE FUCK AM I TELLING YOU THIS WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU EVEN BE DOING ON MY BLOG IF YOU DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW THIS

Anyway, the newest arc, JoJolion (pronounced like “Evangelion” not like the animal), revolves around the core mystery of just who our amnesiac protagonist is.

This is the entire arc.

Almost every single chapter of JoJolion has raised questions, and even the ones that have answered some of those questions have raised even more questions with their answers.

$t€ins;Gat£

Steins;Gate is one of the most popular (and of course, overrated) anime to have been released in recent years. Banking on shock factor, moe, and grimdarkness, it’s no surprise that it’s a hit – hell, I actually enjoyed it a fair bit at the time in spite of it being absolutely plagued with all my least favourite anime-isms ever.

Literally no-one over the age of 12 acts anything like this.

So why did I enjoy something that caters to pretty much everything I hate in the anime fandom?

 

Well, part of it was how well-done the buildup was… there was always a subtle air of suspense, it was always clear that it was building up to some big event that was just round the corner that could happen at any moment but you didn’t quite know when – and when the event happened, it was exactly the kind of thing you’d hope for.

Isn’t she adorable? Clearly nothing bad is going to happen to her ever.

Not to mention that sci-fi anime that actually focus on their sci-fi aspects aren’t all that common – most of them just use them for mecha or as the backdrop to a war or something, rather than making them the bulk of the actual plot. So Steins;Gate building up a chain of time-travel worldlines to subsequently undo, despite being a simple concept, was a treat. Most of it dodged the complete bullshit that comes up whenever fiction tries science, too, but there’s one clear exception to that – Reading Steiner, the enourmous gaping plothole that made no sense. It basically amounts to “only Okarin can remember what happens from one worldline to another. Why? Well, because the plot wouldn’t work without it, of course! Oh, wait, you mean why does he have it? Well, because shut up and watch your Chinese cartoons.”

 

This brings me to the reason I’m writing this article. Steins;Gate – Burdened Domain of Deja Vu was recently released. Now, when I heard Steins;Gate was making a sequel movie, I thought it was going to be a pointless cash-in created, not out of any artistic merit or because the plot needed it, but because it was White Fox’s first major hit and this movie would basically make shitloads of money no matter what they did. But to my surprise…

 

…Wait, no, that’s pretty much exactly what it was.

If they didn’t give out a free promotional Dr. Pepper at the screenings, they missed out on a great business opportunity.

The worst part of it is, they almost made something of this. Because they almost

Top 10 JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Characters

Have I ever mentioned that I love JJBA?

Does a bear shit in the woods?

Having run for 25 years, over 8 arcs in which a whole new cast of characters is introduced each time, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has exactly one metric motherfuck of characters. And herein, I select something of a balance of personal favourites and generally great characters (admittedly my favourite of the lot is #3, but I don’t quite consider him the best).

P.S: A couple of these writeups will be copypasta’d in part from previous writeups because what even is the point in rewriting the exact thing I already wrote?

The Animation of Evil

So, those of you who keep up with current events will need no introduction to Aku no Hana, the Spring 2013 season’s pet trainwreck. To many, myself included, it was one of the few anime that actually seemed worth looking forward to from this season, as the manga was at least reasonably popular (not necessarily a good sign, but at least that means it’s probably worth talking about if nothing else).

Then this happened:

Kill it before it lays eggs!

Alright, to finish recapping what most of you know already, the director of the anime clearly fancied himself as some form of visionary genius and decided to use rotoscoping for the animation, in the process making it completely fuck-ugly – not a bad thing in of itself, but I’ll elaborate on that later.

My love for you is like a truck.

So 5 years ago, when I was first getting into anime and manga properly (I had enjoyed series here and there beforehand, but was only becoming a heavy watcher then), this came up while I was talking to a friend of mine in the Media course I was on at the time. And as it turned out, he was much more experienced in anime than me. And his first and foremost recommendation to me was Berserk.

Of course, me being the consumer whore I am, I insisted on actually buying it first, and as until recently the cheapest I was able to find Berserk for was £50, I have gone without it until now, 5 years later. As such, I am incredibly late to the party, and have only now watched one of the greatest works in anime history. Yep. I’m slow.

“Hey guys, have you heard of this new anime called Evangelion?”

DON’T READ A MANGA NAMED JOJO

MAN, THIS SHIT IS SO WRONG, IN SO MANY MOTHERFUCKING LEVELS, Y’ALL.

I was talking to one of my Asian friends, and he sent me 107 folders with the names only labelled JoJo. I said to this dude, “what’s THIS shit?”, and he just giggled and said “just read them, and make sure nobody is around when you’re reading them!”

Whoops, I forgot how to JoJo.

The anime adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency has been quite a ride. As with the rest of the fandom, I was utterly thrilled at its announcement, and considered them to have done a fantastic job with it – in spite of some overly-long static panels, which are justifiable, since there is more focus on actual dialogue here than in Phantom Blood, which instead just had Speedwagon constantly narrating (rather than doing anything actually useful ever).

“Sorry, did I say “meddler”? I meant “narrator”.”

Stop comparing Slam Dunk and Kuroko no Basket.

Alright, so, here’s a history lesson for you. At some point in the 90s, when basketball was extremely irrelevant in Japan, a manga series called Slam Dunk came out, and it was fucking awesome. So awesome, in fact, that it helped to popularize basketball over in the land of the rising sun. Which isn’t all that surprising to those who’ve read it – after all, it’s greatest strength was how amazing it managed to make basketball look without even embellishing it (sans the average skill of Japan’s highschool teams), and putting focus on fundamentals over flashiness. It remains one of the most famous and critically-acclaimed manga ever made to this day.

It also had perhaps the best art of any weekly series ever.

Fast forward almost 20 years. Another manga comes out in Weekly Shonen Jump about basketball – specifically, Kuroko no Basket.

Psycho-Pass – You Are (Not) GitS

Hello and welcome to Psycho-Pass, a futuristic Sci-Fi cyberpunk anime by Production I.G. starring a special task unit working for a morally questionable government. Sound familiar?

Yes.

The most meagre of glances at Psycho-Pass make it clear that comparing it to Ghost in the Shell is a must – to the degree that the producer has dubbed it “The new Ghost in the Shell”. Wishful thinking, really. Superficially, Psycho-Pass is very similar to Ghost in the Shell, but unfortunately it’s beauty is skin-deep.

Just a note about why you haven’t seen a top 10 of 2012 from me yet

There’s a few reasons behind this. Mainly, I want to wait until Psycho-Pass and Robotics;Notes have finished so I have a better idea of how to rate them… also it will better legitimise my extremely obvious top choice. You’ll see. That, and I’d like to wait until Mamoru Hosada’s new film actually has subs. You know, Ookami Kodomo to whatever the fuck the title was. And I haven’t seen Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun yet. Since this post feels awfully empty, have a funny cat GIF.

Meow.

That’s all, folks. See you whenever my blood caffeine content is high enough for me to roll this shit off the top of my head next.