Forum - View topicREVIEW: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable
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SkerllyF
Posts: 244 |
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For me, a good stand out of this season is the villains. Playing like a "How to Write a Good Villain 101", the villains have understandable motives for doing what they´re doing, making them look not so evil(well, apart from other villains). They are defined for their personal traits as well as for their creative use of their stands, instead of one aspect overtaking the other.
And in a sort of unique case, it seems that every peroson is smart enough to use a stand like if they were super smart people. It´s like, everyone is smart even if some of them are dumb, because they are intelligent at something. But so is it in real life, where you are smart even if you´re dumb, because you are intelligent at something. I think this part of the series is the one to watch is any aspiring writer wants to know how to write good villains, and it can be seen as a standalone entry too. |
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MalcolmBelmont
Posts: 22 |
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I hope Part 5 gets really good animation because Part 5 relies on its fights compared with Part 4 - it's very battle focused
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0Ninjaz0
Posts: 31 |
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This was a really good review Nick. I'm impressed. Keep up the good work. I feel like you nailed this one.
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fathomlessblue
 Posts: 345 Location: Manchester, UK |
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It’s been fascinating seeing the fan divide between those that preferred either Stardust Crusaders or Diamond Is Unbreakable. Personally, I’m firmly in the latter. SC bugged me right from the get go with its drawn out pacing and attempt at establishing a race-against-time conflict that was almost immediately abandoned by queues of Stand of the (two) week disposable villains. It was always difficult to care about the central conceit when 10-15 episode spans would frequently go by without Holly even being mentioned. That, coupled with the large amount of underwhelming fights (particularly in the first half) and a main cast that veered too much towards mean-spiritedness and general stupidity made it hard for me to engage roughly half of the time.
DIU largely solved those problems for me. Here we had an end goal villain that existed more to infuse the premise with a low-level mood of paranoia and dread when they weren't being addressed, presenting an inescapable haze of adolescent uncertainty while also allowing the cast to act far more free and at ease than previous arcs. Granted, they still tended to act like idiots, but being teenagers that felt a far more natural response of youth as opposed to whatever happened to Joseph between Battle Tendency & SC. I also really enjoyed how many of the stands, particularly in the early run, were tied into central themes and societal issues, from the classic high school coming of age concerns of Yukako’s fairy tale romance delusions or Toshikazu’s ‘nice guy nerd’ resentment, to deeper problems such as the cyclical hell of domestic violence that Okuyasu & his brother find themselves trapped in. Sure, it’s not exactly profound stuff given the show, but Araki allowing his characters to breathe and have fun while also examining the quirks, worries and follies of small-town life ultimately made this my favourite season of Jojo’s so far. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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Reading the manga/watching the TV anime reinforced for me how good the original Jojo OVA was. I always loved the 1993 release, and I used to think the 2000 prequel episodes weren't as good (compared to that, maybe not), but watching the new Stardust Crusaders anime served as a reminder of how beneficial it was to cut out a lot of the crappier Stand battles while still managing to keep some of the good parts from them. A number of the reveals are scarier/cooler, too. It obviously had the advantage of being able to just pick and choose from the existing story, but still.
Just in general, the more cinematic feel of those OVAs really worked out for that story. If I were to go by the TV anime alone, I don't think I could blame anyone for preferring Part 2 or Part 4. Here, Part 4 benefits tremendously from both Araki honing and focusing the Stand stories from the start, and from the anime being in a comfortable production groove (which I sort of doubt would've been the case if Parts 1 to 3 weren't produced before now). It used to be, it seemed like, that Part 3 was the most popular and Part 4 was kind of the Secret Best Jojo, but that's probably changing... Sure do hope we get Part 5 too. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5312 |
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So to summarize; Diamond is Unbreakable is about a bunch delinquent teenagers who hunt down a respected citizen of their town who repeatedly mentions that he "Just wants to live a quiet life". Eventually he is pushed into a corner and must take on a new life in order to escape persecution,. However his son in law takes an instant dislike to him and conspires with the delinquents to murder the man on his way to work, and after taking time out of his day to bring his son the hat he forgot, is ganged upon and killed.
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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you forgot something very important in your summary... the homoeroticism.
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tintor2
 Posts: 1817 |
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You want more of Joseph and Avdol's dance? 
Still, I enjoyed this part. What kinda bothers me is how some Stands are useless in battle situations. Both Part 3 and 4 had convenient ways to use Stands. Also, sadly this season didn't answer some questions like who saved Josuke's life or where are these Stands are actually coming from. My favorite characters from this Part are Koichi and Okuyasu. The former surprised me a lot considering Araki prefers ripped heroes while Okuyasu was quite dumb but at least for some ways to solve conflict. As a result, I felt Josuke was overshadowed by the entire cast. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5914 |
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You mean a trio of high school students, a practicing marine biologist, & an insufferable manga artist get into to a series of misadventures that involve serial killers, evil high school school students, and some rats. |
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Koda89
 Posts: 278 |
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I prefer DiU to SDC, but Battle Tendency is still my overall favorite by just a little margin, mostly due to BT's great pacing, with no episode feeling like a waste to me, whereas DiU does have some episodes that could have been cut and nothing would be lost.
So right now my JoJo's anime rankings are: 1) BT 2) DiU 3) SDC - Battle in Egypt 4) SDC 5) PB |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Haven't finished DiU, but so far it's my least favourite JoJo part. After the globe trotting adventure of SDC, which brought the "story" of the Jostar's conflict with Dio to a close, a lot of DiU so far feels like an author scrambling for ideas after their editor told them they need new chapters starting next week even though they thought they were done. Wouldn't be so so bad if so much attention wasn't paid to Kouichi, who is like the worst parts of Polnareff & Iggy combined into an annoying twerp & his Cell/Frieza ripoff Stand.
They come from the need in SDC to do something other than another guy learns how to harness the power of Harmen story. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4570 |
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Diamond is Unbreakable wound up being my favorite part besides Battle Tendency, and it might even wind up surpassing it in some aspects. The ensemble cast was diverse and eminently likeable, the town of Morioh felt like a character in and of itself (Morioh-cho Radiooooo!!!), and while Dio may win for sheer charisma, Kira was a deliciously menacing villain with a terrific endgame. The ending was pretty much note-perfect too. It's going to be a big downer not having this to look forward to every week.
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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In all honesty, some people are really liking this part, but for me, Part 3 and 2 are undoubtedly my favorites with Part 4 and 1 being tied for second. Part 4 was far more claustrophobic and much of the series was spent meandering with regard to figuring out the identity of the main villain. Whereas for Part 3, we have a grand adventure/quest, which if you think about it, is even part of the title "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure". We have clear goals, meet a wide variety of characters with a huge array of colorful villains that took advantage of the different settings and situations and a big bad at the end that put up much more of an impressive fight than Kira ever did that led up to a far more spectacular finale.
While I did enjoy the psychopathic, psychological nature of Kira, his abilities just pales in comparison to that of Dio's. The fact that they had to get a number of the characters to sit the final battle out just because "they couldn't hear them over the rain" really speaks to the contrivances that allowed Kira to last for so long and to stand up the other characters. So yeah, if we're talking about JoJo's it's definitely 3/2 and 4/1 for me. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5914 |
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Dio only put up the level of fight he did in SDC because he was overpowered....which lead to really janky final battle because of it. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2418 Location: Germany |
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TheGamingBrit did about the best JoJo Part 4 review video that can be done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4AsrbYe3OI I gave it a "very good". The pacing never fully worked and it´s "just" Jojo but i voted for the show in my top 5 of 2016, so there is that. The pseudo remake Part 8 is way different and much more out there btw. Part 5, if we will get it, is a bit of a mess. Can´t say i am excited for it but the setting is cool. |
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