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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
Episode 10

by Sam Leach,

How would you rate episode 10 of
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind ?
Community score: 3.5

It's Narancia and Aerosmith vs. Formaggio and Little Feet, a battle between the undeniable prowess of a little toy plane and the terrifying ability to make objects a wee bit smaller than usual.

Oftentimes in Jojo's, the absurdity all starts to blend together, and you can develop somewhat of a "yeah, I get it" attitude when trying to push through the more tedious Stand battles as they lob bizarre eccentricities at you in a fervor. This episode feels like it should be inspiring those same feelings in me, but it lands in a really comfortable sweet spot between the weird and the mundane. Most of this fight is watching Narancia gradually shrink as part of Little Feet's powers, as we grow increasingly bemused by the minor inconveniences this causes him. You gotta love a villain who cackles gleefully about the basic mechanics of a payphone because that's one of the few situations where his power is actually useful. The usual JoJo's formula got a few more audible laughs out of me than normal this week.

In reality, the monster-of-the-week fight ends up being only about half of this episode, with the other half segueing into our new villain squad. Formaggio is part of a hitman team associated with Passione, a group of gangsters who at one point went looking into the boss's identity and got a couple of their friends murdered as a result. We're introduced to this team through a flashback (and an uproarious scene where we get to witness Formaggio's Stand at its deadliest), and they form a bunch of wild character designs, which means we're going to be fighting a fair number of these guys as they try to intercept Trish.

I think another story would have tackled this increasingly large variety of villain groups by making them their own distinct gangs instead of competing factions within one gang. This feels like a very deliberate choice, so I wonder what elements Golden Wind will lean into as we move forward. Does it say something of the boss' power that he holds his coveted position despite his subordinates all seemingly wanting his head? Or is this to juxtapose the loyal against the disloyal? Passione is clearly its own worst enemy, and that will either be its tragic weakness or the very thing that makes it a force to be reckoned with.

The way we've been looping between antagonists has been really effective so far. We could have easily faced more enemies like Zucchero and Sale who were just looking for money, but now we have a whole team of baddies waiting in the wings who are directly tied to Trish and Giorno's goal of uncovering the big boss' identity. The Formaggio fight doesn't look like it's going to fit into the usual two-parter, but that's because the episode takes some extra time to establish our new story arc, reminding us that this is just the beginning of something much bigger.

Rating: B+

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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


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