JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable

Episode 31

It's been a couple weeks since we last saw our heroes (and it feels like an especially long time since we saw Okuyasu to any meaningful degree), so now is an opportune time to resume our adventures in combating Stand-using weirdos. This week's challenger is Toyohiro Kandaichi and his Stand, "Superfly."

Immediately, Superfly comes off as a unique Stand in that it lives independent of its user. It exists in the form of a large, disabled pylon tower once meant for distributing electricity to the surrounding areas, and anybody who steps inside becomes trapped by it until another person steps in to take their place. Kandaichi has been living here for a while, acting as a friendly stranger who plays carefree until tricking Josuke into the inside of the pylon and trapping him, meaning that Kandaichi can finally show his true colors as a villain and escape. If Josuke tries to leave, his body melds with the pylon as seen in this review's screencap. Part of me wonders if Hirohiko Araki was watching Terminator that week.

This is a notably stiffer-looking episode than usual. JoJo's never looks bad, but every once in a while it runs out of steam and can't quite project the same level of enthusiasm into its animation. Even the more basic shots of characters standing around talking don't look as thoughtfully composed as usual. Although, of all episodes to take a breather on, this one doesn't seem like a bad spot considering it's yet another breather between the much more interesting Kira stuff.

Kandaichi's got one of those designs, the kind that's colorful and loud but ultimately not that memorable. His Stand is certainly interesting, particularly with the detail that its effects won't wear off even if he dies, but he himself is definitely not the star of the show this week. The strongest aspect of this episode is by far the implication of multiple enemy Stand-users working together to tackle the good guys on different ends. Josuke, Okuyasu and Mikitaka (who's still hanging around and demonstrating that his alien shapeshifting serves as a fantastic wildcard against the villains) have their hands full with Kandaichi, while Koichi and Rohan are seen being stalked on the other side of town.

With the turn of Kira's appearance in this series, I'm noticing a much less sympathetic edge from the antagonists lately. This works to create a sense of drama, since the bad guys feel much more villainous compared to the would-bes we met earlier, but it also makes me wonder if that theme is going to pay off by the end of the series. The sense that so few characters were truly evil was the most intriguing thing about Diamond is Unbreakable and I'd be sad if it was now in the past. While the likes of Kandaichi are certainly not Kira levels of horrible, there certainly isn't anything uniquely human about his role as an antagonist either.

Rating: B

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