JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable

Episode 6

How do you warn people about an episode that features animal cruelty that later turns out to not actually be animal cruelty? I mean, the idea of something especially brutal is there and the show definitely asks you to use your imagination in a pretty frightening way, so there's that.

The episode opens with Koichi, one of our central Part Four heroes, biking and accidentally running over a bag with a kitten trapped in it. It eventually gets revealed that it wasn't really a kitten at all and it was just our villain of the week being a manipulative scumbag, but the initial scene is still bloody and shocking. It's weird to think that animal murder is just JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's "thing" but here we are. The rationale is that it makes the audience hate the villains that much more, but I think it ends up being more about tone than anything else. Violence against fictional animals is one of the few things that still feels taboo in a series that's much less nice to its fellow man.

The dead-kitten-in-a-bag scheme comes courtesy of this week's antagonist, Tamami Kobayashi, an afro-donning con man who's Stand focuses on summoning heavy locks onto people's chests that weigh according to the amount of guilt they feel. Koichi is the most softhearted of our main cast and easily falls for his tricks. “That was my cat, so give me money.” That kind of stuff. Eventually Josuke and Okuyasu are at the scene and solving Koichi's problems for him. Though, it's nice to see Tamami trying to trick them as well and seeing Okuyasu start to grow “the lock” out of the goodness of his heart. Josuke's a little too smart for the whole thing, additionally.

All seems well and resolved until Koichi returns home that day to find Tamami making himself cozy in his mother's company. The schemes continue until Tamami is burdening both Koichi's mother and sister with his guilt locks and Koichi has to summon whatever power he can in order to save them. It's easy to sweat a bit when you realize the show just introduced several women and immediately turned them into damsels-in-distress, but, you know, “it was a different time” and such. There's some slack to give, but it's still amusingly naked.

From here the Dragon Ball fan in me has some questions. When Koichi's Stand (“Echoes”) hatches from its egg and I found myself trying to cross reference when these manga chapters would have come out relative to the Cell arc of DBZ. I think of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure as one of the staples of Shonen Jump, and that other properties should be making allusions to it, not the other way around. Koichi looks like a Super Saiyan and Echoes looks like Cell. JoJo's is a pretty reference-heavy series, but I guess I didn't expect it to be borrowing from its own neighbors.

As is, Echoes doesn't seem capable of causing a whole lot of damage, much to Koichi's despair. What it can do, however, is write manga-style sound effects on the opponent's body that release the given sound in a constant echo. Tamami is driven insane as the sounds assault his entire body, giving Koichi leverage to demand his family be released from the locks. Of course, this is not without a fight as Tamami keeps trying to guilt them into committing suicide with his powers.

I really like seeing the more bizarre, practicality-focused powers that we often get in JoJo's, as alternatives to the all-purpose punching machines like Star Platinum, but that's not to say they always make sense. JoJo's is a series that's frequently about problem-solving and trying to get our heroes out of unique situations. As much as I love the personality of the show, the solutions rarely feel like they follow any actual rules. Koichi solves his problem by summoning a "believe in me!" sound effect on his mother to rid her of the magic-induced guilt, and that just highlights how much anything goes once the drama has reached its peak and the story needs the day to be saved. JoJo's is very good at writing problems, but seems somewhat lackadaisical when it comes to writing solutions. This is something that's bugged me for a while, but I never quite put my finger on it before.

I wouldn't put this episode up there as the be-all example of this problem, since JoJo's never would have gotten this far if it didn't carry itself with so much confidence. Tamami is probably the most entertaining foe in Diamond is Unbreakable yet with his con artist style, and the episode never stops being as magnetic as always. I like seeing Koichi come into his own and having something interesting to do beyond being "the weak one". On top of that, despite how mean the whole dead cat thing was, my eyes were glued to every frame of those opening scenes. That "man, they're really doing this" feeling goes a long way sometimes.

Rating: B+

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

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