JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable

Episode 11

After last week's episode being easily the best of the one-offs, this week's installment of Diamond is Unbreakable brings us back around to something resembling a main plot. The Stand, “Red Hot Chili Pepper” (truncated to just “Chili Pepper” for legal reasons in the subtitles, and throughout this review for the sake of brevity) has returned to torment the Morioh crew, looking to pick a fight with Josuke and test his strength before fighting the much more intimidating Jotaro.

We have yet to see the mysterious Stand user who commands Chili Pepper, but as of right now we can think of him as the overarching villain of JoJo Part Four thus far. He's currently in possession of the bow and arrow that's been used to create Stand users all over town, and his Chili Pepper draws its power and reach from just about any source of electricity you can imagine. The Stand user himself doesn't even have to be present in order to fight.

This episode presents us with a race against the clock. It's made abundantly clear that Chili Pepper is nowhere near strong enough to kill either Josuke or Jotaro, but the old man Joseph Joestar is on his way to Morioh as we speak. Joseph, who's current state is still kept out of our visibility, is necessary if they ever want to track the bow and arrow down, as his Hermit Purple could potentially uncover Chili Pepper's user. However, Chili Pepper learns about his arrival, and is able to travel throughout the town's power cables to reach him much faster than our heroes.

That's how the episode ends. However, before any of that happens, it looks as though the crew has Chili Pepper right where they want him: in the middle of nowhere without any electrical sources other than the battery of a lone motorcycle. Both Josuke and Jotaro present and ready to kick some ass, but it's Okuyasu himself that takes the fight the most seriously. There's a really fantastic and exciting sequence where Chili Pepper is using the motorcycle to get away, but Okuyasu, putting his relaxed doofus mode behind him for a second, uses his Stand to close the gap of the space and time between them and cripples the bike without hesitation.

The two JoJos don't even need to do anything but sit back and watch as Okuyasu handles the fight both sternly and smartly. He's the one who has beef with Chili Pepper the most, due to the death of his brother Keicho towards the beginning of the season. However, he keeps a level head throughout most of the fight. “My Big Bro deserved to die. I knew that someone would kill him someday,” he says with pragmatic acceptance. He makes it clear that he's willing to put the capture of the bow and arrow ahead of any hot blooded revenge.

This is such a strongly directed episode across the board. From the cold opening with Josuke being pestered by his mom to stop playing N64 (I was gonna ask if Josuke was a Sega or Nintendo guy, but I guess now we know), to the fight between Okuyasu and Chili Pepper, there's an extra ounce of energy to everything. The stakes feel so much different now that we have both a primary antagonist to focus on and the encroaching arrival of Joseph Joestar to have us on the edge of our seats. I like the stylish, “let's have a bunch of goofy fun” version of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure as much as the next guy or gal, but sometimes it's easy to get lost in the antics of the series and forgot that there are times where you actually want to know what happens next.

Rating: A

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach writes and records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw