SPOILER HEAVY SEMI-RANT:
TLDR: JoJolion turned out horrible, gonna wait for Part 9 to come out and redeem this mess.
This was the worst part in Jojo I have ever read. The worst. I used to think that Part 2 wouldn’t be overtaken by any part, but I obviously thought wrong. Araki, what happened? How do you go from Part 7, the best part in the entire damn series, to THIS?
The main character, Higashikata Josuke, is an amnesiac with four scrota, that is actually the result of the fusion between a Kira Yoshikage and a Josefumi Kujo . Pretty interesting premise, and I was hoping that it’d lead to some interesting moments and drama, but was pretty piss poor, to be honest. Around the halfway point he just becomes a slightly less bland Giorno.
The setting is in Morioh, but not the one from the main universe’s Higashikata Josuke, but an alternate universe. I personally think that Part 4’s setting was one of its strongest points, the city just seemed so alive and fun. Part 8’s setting is kind of a reduced, less fun, bland version of that. If he was going to do this, then why even use Morioh in the first place? It was whatever though.
The only characters I particularly liked in that whole thing were Jobin, Tsurugi, and Rai. That’s literally it. Everyone else was either meh or legitimately annoying as hell.
Jobin in particular definitely should have been the main villain - he had the presence and allure for it. Maybe it would have been predictable, but predictability shouldn’t stop something from being interesting. Valentine and Pucci weren’t twist villains, but I’d say they worked pretty well.
Joshu is a fucking mutt and I hate him with every fiber of my being. Every time I saw him with his lame ass face and his fucking horrible haircut, I wanted to flip the page. Such a lame unlikeable character, and for no reason too. The only person I hate more than Joshu is Tooru, and that’s only because he BUTCHERED that ending and not on the grounds of his personality.
And now for the ACTUAL reason I think this part is horrible: The final part. Really? I mean, I know there weren’t a lot of villains with actual presence in JoJolion besides Jobin (maybe Tamaki Damo, idk, still lackluster though), so I don’t really understand how much crack this dude was snorting up his ass-crack when he decided to not to make him the villain.
Tooru is just thrown into the story and becomes a villain out of nowhere. It’s lame as shit. He has no presence. He doesn’t give me a feeling of urgency. He’s not cool at ALL. Literally one of the better stands in the part and they give it to this lame. He just pops up, kills people, and leaves. He’s only introduced in the last, like, 20 chapters, and even then all he does is lurk and make Josuke jealous. Probably one of the worst twist villains I’ve experienced.
Also, the way he is beaten is like Deus ex Machina gone SSJ3. Rai just tells Josuke “use the spin!1!” and dies, and suddenly Josuke can beat him now??? It’s not even like Part 5 where the whole fight was about claiming possession of the super OP arrow, he just gets it out of nowhere. The only time this ever happens is in Part 4, but that fight was cool enough that you could just ignore it and immerse yourself in the spectacle. This one wasn’t.
I’m not joking on the “use the spin” part, by the way. Rai just comes to the marvelous conclusion that because the bubbles are actually spinning, therefore they don’t exist in this world?? It’s so STUPID. I swear to god, if you’re going to do this dumb shit at least introduce it earlier.
Half the fight was literally just Wonder of U doing the drip Goku pose with a cane and talking to Josuke because his power basically kills any potential for a slightly interesting fight. His power is to automatically attract calamities to anyone who attempts to pursue him. Note that the pursue here can mean even thinking of chasing him. Later, the fight comes to the Higashikata house, and eventually the mother just pops up after chapters and chapters of doing fuck all and finishes him, while somehow not being iced IMMEDIATELY by Wonder of U.
The one other character I was interested in (I swear, it’s only partially because of the thigh highs) is Kei Nijimura, and she’s basically genderbent Jotaro Kujo, to be honest. She just gets introduced, fucks off for like 2/3rd the chapter, and then appears again only to die in the blandest way possible. I couldn’t even register it, I thought she was just injured until it kicked in. What the hell. There’s also Karera, who has one of my favorite stand designs in the entirety of Jojo, but just appears and never comes back again.
Yasuho’s stand is pretty cool, but she herself is pretty bland. I liked the interactions between her and Josuke at the earlier parts - you know, when Josuke wasn’t bland as shit - but he became boring and she became boring so, yeah. It’s such a sad case.
Anyway, I hear the 9th part is being called Jojoland. I hope this one isn’t as disappointing because I really want to like it after this trainwreck.
