JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 5: Ougon no Kaze
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 黄金の風
In the coastal city of Naples, corruption is teeming—the police blatantly conspire with outlaws, drugs run rampant around the youth, and the mafia governs the streets with an iron fist. However, various fateful encounters will soon occur. Enter Giorno Giovanna, a 15-year-old boy with an eccentric connection to the Joestar family, who makes a living out of part-time jobs and pickpocketing. Furthermore, he is gifted with the unexplained Stand ability to give and create life—growing plants from the ground and turning inanimate objects into live animals, an ability he has dubbed "Gold Experience." Fascinated by the might of local gangsters, Giorno has dreamed of rising up in their ranks and becoming a "Gang-Star," a feat made possible by his encounter with Bruno Bucciarati, a member of the Passione gang with his own sense of justice. JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Ougon no Kaze follows the endeavors of Giorno after joining Bruno's team while working under Passione, fending off other gangsters and secretly plotting to overthrow their mysterious boss. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Synopsis
In the coastal city of Naples, corruption is teeming—the police blatantly conspire with outlaws, drugs run rampant around the youth, and the mafia governs the streets with an iron fist. However, various fateful encounters will soon occur. Enter Giorno Giovanna, a 15-year-old boy with an eccentric connection to the Joestar family, who makes a living out of part-time jobs and pickpocketing. Furthermore, he is gifted with the unexplained Stand ability to give and create life—growing plants from the ground and turning inanimate objects into live animals, an ability he has dubbed "Gold Experience." Fascinated by the might of local gangsters, Giorno has dreamed of rising up in their ranks and becoming a "Gang-Star," a feat made possible by his encounter with Bruno Bucciarati, a member of the Passione gang with his own sense of justice. JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken: Ougon no Kaze follows the endeavors of Giorno after joining Bruno's team while working under Passione, fending off other gangsters and secretly plotting to overthrow their mysterious boss. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Reviews(20)
Johan__Liebert_
July 28, 2019
[Spoiler Warning] I am a fan of JOJO, a big one at that, but this part, i.e. part 5 is kind of overrated. Now, before you guys unleash the 7-page Muda on me, let me address this first - overrated does not mean bad, it just means that while the show is good, people put it on a pedestal reserved for the greats. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started. JOJO Part 5 aka “Golden (Experience) Wind” aka “How does King Crimson work?” aka “Araki flexes on you with his awesome taste in music” aka “Girono’s piss drinking adventure” is the fifth instalmentin the Jojo franchise. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the few shounen that does something which most other shounen don’t, that is, it’s actually manages to be interesting. This season we follow Giorno Giovanna as he has a dream in which he pledges to become a gangster and kill the reigning mafia boss. The plot is as simple as it gets but the way it is crafted is what makes Jojo an amazing series. The characters are colourful and flamboyant as has been the case with previous instalments of the franchise and each character brings something new to the table. There are many characters that have been introduced thus far in the series and no two characters feel the same. They all have their unique personalities and powers. That being said, many of the characters in this season are quite boring. Comparing the characters in part 5 to those in part 4 or part 2 makes me feel like there’s something missing with the characters in this part. The characters in part 4, along with being awfully stylish and making me self-conscious of my own image, had their own distinct personalities and received immense characterisation which helped solidify their place in the overall narrative, but Golden Wind decides to not have as much depth to the characters and instead gives them some kind of unique trait, which, when applied to minor antagonists works to some extent but, when the same strategy is used for main characters, it falls flat. There are 6 main characters this time, viz Girono, Buccellati, Mista, Narancia, Abbacchio and Fugo. Girono is a great main character and so is Buccellati. Both are well characterised and I really enjoyed their backstory, I really wish I could say the same for the rest of the characters. Mista is a character who religiously believes that every person in this world has a destiny set out for him and a man cannot deny his destiny no matter how hard he tries. He believes this because he was sent to prison and then got out. That is all it takes for him to follow his religion of fate. Abbacchio is a dick to Girono for some reason and only trusts Buccellati because he has “lost faith in humanity” due to him, with his own volition, receiving a bribe from a criminal which ultimately resulted in the death of his partner. Can you find the logic in here, because I surely can’t. Fugo and Narancia can be described as 150 IQ and 50 IQ respectively and that basically sums up their character. Any attempt to flesh out their characters via backstories felt cheesy and banal. Instead, I would’ve preferred if they’d developed throughout the show’s run. I am admittedly shitting on the characters but I can’t deny the fact that watching these characters’ dynamics with the plot and each other was a Golden experience (heh, see what I did there?). Anyway, I don’t hate the characters, but I don’t LOVE them either; I just wish more care was put into the characters. The main antagonist, Divolo, is great. His end goal is to completely erase his existence so that no one can trace him, but he acts in pretty questionable way in order to achieve his target. Questionable not in the sense, “Oh boy, that was a pretty evil thing to do”, no not that, but questionable in the sense, “wtf is he doing?”. The next few lines have to be spoilers in order for me to explain my statement. --------------------------------------------Spoilers Start----------------------------------------------- He wants to kill his daughter Trish with his own hands in order to protect his identity as she could be a mean to uncover his past, and thus he cannot entrust this job to anyone. So, Girono and the gang take his daughter to a secluded island and are ordered to take the girl into an abandoned building accompanied by a bodyguard. Why didn’t he call his daughter in by herself? I’m pointing this out because this is the crux of the second half of the show. Had Buccellati not gone with Trish, he never would’ve found out about the true nature of Diavolo and the second half would’ve been about 50 episodes long or maybe would’ve never happened. --------------------------------------------Spoilers End ------------------------------------------------ Now, let’s get to the two main appeal of Jojo which is the fights and the stands. Araki really let out his creative genius in this part as almost all the stands are unique and have a very specific set of abilities which give rise to some great fights in the series. The stands in this part are my favourite as even though there are a ton of characters in this part who posses a stand, no two have the same abilities or even remotely feel the same. Girono has a stand that can give anything life, Bucellatti has a stand that can create zippers on any material, Abbacchio’s stand can replay any past scene etc. There are many great stands in this part; I can’t explain them all due to spoilers but trust me when I say that the stands are absolutely majestic and better than they’ve ever been, at least when viewed through a creative perspective. Now, the fights. The thing I like about fights, especially stand battles, in Jojo is that no matter how outlandish or cheesy they get, they are never boring. Battles are won through wit and shrewdness, not with “nakama” power and boy are there some great fights in this part. Since every new minor villain our heroes encounter has a different stand than the last, the Jo-Bros have to come up with new tactics every time in order to ensure their victory. No two villains are defeated in the same way and the stakes are higher than ever. All the fights in this part are great…, which is what I would say if they were. The stands themselves are great and utilised to almost their full potential, but the same is not true for the users’ brain. I could feel myself being irritated during some fights especially the one in which Narancia’s tongue was replaced with a stand and he was spewing nonsense. Instead of realising that they’re under an enemy attack, the protagonists start an argument among themselves. This shit goes on for two whole episodes until the enemy is finally defeated. I said that the stands in this part are my favourite, but there is a stand, an important one at that, which is just ridiculously overpowered and admittedly was an asspull. Gold Experience Requiem is Girono’s Gold Experience evolved and it comes out of a shell like any other non-mammal baby and that stand’s abilities are more broken than the shell it came out of. Before good old Gold Experience evolves, the protagonists are being overpowered, then literally 2 seconds after the appearance of Gold Experience Requiem they have the upper hand. I might be nitpicking, but it did take away from the overall experience of the boss fight. The art and animation are godly. Even though I prefer Diamond is Unbreakable’s art style, the art of this part has gradually grown up on me. The background art is fantastic and the whole show is vivid and vibrant. Every colour palette chosen for a particular scene is probably the best it could’ve gotten. The music is amazing as well. The first opening, Fighting Gold, is just pure epicness and the character themes are pure perfection. The sound that the stands make while doing stand stuff is well suited for each stand. The voice acting is great and there isn’t an insipid moment. What I like about JOJO is the fact that it does not try to be something that it’s not. The characters adopt the Robin-hood ideology but it’s not forced upon the viewer as is the case with many other anime. The characters simply are the way they are, they follow their own philosophies and are not brought down by or question the ideals or morals of others. Most of the fights are great, the stands are amazing and even though the characters do fall flat at times, it’s still an enjoyable ride and has probably the best villain you’ll see this year. All in all, Golden Wind is another great addition to an already great franchise. Tl;dr Go watch it.
