#jojo analysis

[homicidal-lagamorph]

Something I realized when watching Part 4 of Jojo:

Hair is such a fundamental part of this story.

Josuke's hair correlating with his backstory, and being the source of his inspiration.

Yukako's hair being a representation of her love (Love's Deluxe)

Koichi's hair changing to represent every time his stand changed.

(i.e. his hair being slicked back when it was an egg, being out at Act1, a flat top at act 2 and once again out and free at act 3)

Yoshikage Kira's hair changing as well when a new plotpoint arose.

(i.e. blonde when he was the initial simple lifed serial killer, Black when he changed his identity, and salt and pepper when he gained Bites the Dust)

I can't think of any other examples, but I just think it's a really cool detail because hair kind of does showcase a lot about a person.

[brugioshi]

ハッピーイースター | Blessed Easter, AKA, Christ symbology in BruGio's relationship

I originally made this for Twitter on Easter, but something exciting happened today re: my career as a theologian, so I'm feeling even more hyperfixated than usual & wanted to bring these graphics over to Tumblr for the first time. The religious analysis is still relevant after Easter, haha! I hope you enjoy it.

[mitch-the-simp]

Fuck off mom! I don't wanna go to sleep early! *writes an essay about how Araki used "The Golden Experience" to design Giorno*

[tentativegodcomplex]

"Heaven and Free Will" Stone Ocean and the role of Fate in a Predetermined Reality

Stone Ocean (and Slaughterhouse Five) SPOILERS below the cut.

When it comes to Pucci's "Heaven Plan" I've found that it resembles, to some degree, the way in which the Tralfamadorians of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" view the world. In the minds of these beings, everything is predetermined and they have come to accept this fate, as any attempts to change the course that the universe has set for them would be futile. Life, for the Tralfmadorians, is not a matter of memory, but rather a map of existence, allowing them to view every point throughout their lives, past, present and future, at once. Death doesn't scare them for this reason, as in their minds death only occupies a small sliver of time compared to the rest of life, despite the fact that after death there is nothing. The human experience is viewed through a linear lens, each step towards death existing for a moment before quickly becoming the past, through this limiting world view death is seen as the absolute end rather than a single step in the process of life.

To view ones memory in their entirety offers the opportunity to accept events as they are and to make peace with what is to come. Every Tralfamadorian knows exactly how and when the world is destined to end, but none of them have any desire to make an attempt to prevent it, because that is what has been decided.

Dio's idea of heaven is much the same.

This mindset is balanced upon the belief that after humanity becomes aware of their fate, they will come to terms with and accept the circumstances of their lives as they are without the desire to change their future. One widely accepted phenomena of the human experience is our assumption of free will, which encapsulates the faith that we choose our own destiny through our actions. Our thoughts guide us, but we are offered the choice to either act upon them, or change the course of our reality. To be stripped of our free will is to lose a piece of our humanity and, as a result, to bring about a hopeless resignation. As Vonnegut states in his novel, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference" (Vonnegut, 77.) People may come to terms with their fate, but would this truly be a peaceful shift, or would people only accept their realty because they have no choice? There is a difference between accepting that death is inevitable and realizing that your death, down to the specific date and time has already been decided and there is nothing you can do to change this. It is so painfully human to try and to fail, knowing that your efforts are futile and pushing forward anyway because to accept a seemingly unfair fate means to give in to the will of the universe.

Enrico Pucci himself offers an interesting insight into why his heaven plan would not work nearly as well as he believes. Throughout the series, his hypocrisy becomes evident in his refusal to accept defeat and, in turn, come to terms with the potential idea that his fate is not the same as the plan he has in mind. Coming to terms with death is not easy, even though the process of dying is one of very few shared human experiences. There is certainty in death, and while the time of death may be uncertain, it is unavoidable.

A similar situation plays out in Slaughterhouse Five as Billy Pilgrim relives the events of his life through brief vignettes. There is no true sense of emotion throughout his retelling, only resignation to his fate. He has grown desensitized to the pain and suffering experienced during the war, regarding even the most brutal and violent events with the detached response of "so it goes" completely shrugging off the weight of the world around him. He knows how his story ends and this has no reason to attempt to change or care deeply for the events that unfold around him, knowing that they are all a means to an end.

Of course, in reality there are no aliens or time travel, but these delusions are still a means to escape fate and to rationalize the pain of human suffering. Billy Pilgrim's difficulties with coming to terms with his memories are a direct result of him feeling as though he has been stripped of his free will, trapped in a life where no matter what he does or where he ends up, everything has already been decided and there is nothing he can do to change the course of his life.

So the true question is, what does it mean to be at peace with fate? Is it as simple as numb acceptance or to accept ones destiny would a person need to truly embrace and find happiness in their current life, even with the knowledge of exactly when and how it will come to an end?

As much as I want to answer this question, a part of me genuinely thinks it would be impossible. There are too many factors to consider, alongside personal differences and the question of individuality. There is no true answer to the meaning of life, a question which has been debated for centuries within the field of philosophy. From the mindset of an existentialist, life is what you make of it; however, this viewpoint would completely fall apart without free will.

Maybe fate is as simple as embodying whatever you believe it to be. Some may believe that fate can be changed, while others think that it is predetermined. There's no right or wrong answer and no way to prove one over the other. The truth of existence is as simple or existence as you want it to be, and maybe there is some comfort to be found in that.

[sweatpantsprincess]

I wrote about race representation in JoJo’s Part Three for one of my final journal assignments in Sociology!

Spoilers for Stardust Crusaders, Part Three, and the most recent episode under this readmore.

Picking something to write about was difficult, but it was easiest to write about something close to my heart. I like Japanese animation and comics, and this past week I've been having a lot to say on one in particular. There is a long-running franchise called JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and the recent anime adaptation was reaching a certain part of the arc. It's an infamous part; a certain popular character was to kill another very popular character. While this is the sort of thing that happens a lot in the series, this instance is striking because of what it says for race representation.

A little background: this section of the series comes at the conclusion of a somewhat globetrotting arc, a journey that moves from Japan to Egypt, and whose eclectic characters span a number of nationalities beyond the regions in their own right. The protagonist group has a biracial Japanese/white American protagonist- still an unpopular choice for a main hero, despite the arc having been penned in 1989-, his British-American grandfather, another Japanese boy, a white Frenchman, and a definitely black Egyptian who was explicitly Muslim. The latter character is named Mohammed Abdul, in what I would ordinarily refer to sarcastically as a stunning display of creativity, but I'm also pretty sure he was a genuinely groundbreaking character in terms of genre representation, so I won't. Also, nearly everyone is named after musical artists, which is a bit of an excuse.

Abdul is portrayed very positively as a character. He doesn't run into many stereotypes based on his race or nationality, and the ones he does I can count on one hand. He is a fortuneteller by trade in a public market, where he presumably caters to tourists. At least, all the white guys know where to find him. He's considered a great resource for the supernatural elements of the story because of his gifts, and because of his knowledge of Tarot and its relation to the motifs of the antagonists. Abdul is actually one of the smartest, if not the smartest, protagonists- this is in terms of book smarts and street smarts, both of which are shown demonstrably, from sitting in a library to teasing his "lily white" friends for being afraid of going to India. He's also a skilled fighter, planner, networker, and strategist, with effective observational skills and memory, who takes care of the other protagonists in a strongly brotherly sense. Perhaps more than brotherly, considering his attitudes and behaviors towards the others at times, and his canonical shyness and lack of interest in ever speaking to or finding a woman.

This makes it even more upsetting when he dies.

First.

Twice.

Of the three protagonists in the arc's group who die by the end, the black guy dies first. Takes a knife to the back so his friend can live. Except, wait, he faked his death! So he's back to save his friend's life again! And later he tells everyone to be ready to die, so it's someone else's turn, right? Nope! Abdul dies again! FOR THE SAME FRIEND. Naturally. For narrative purposes, killing off the most capable character close to the final battle makes sense, but when put into the context of only one other black character existing in the past century and him receiving nearly no screen time, in addition to the fact that Abdul only existed to serve the interests of and sacrifice himself for his pale friends, it doesn't sit so right with a critical audience. On the one hand, at least he exists? On the other hand, he didn't have the most dignified of departures from this world.

Which brings me to the man who killed him. As I mentioned earlier, characters in the series are named primarily after musical artists, and the man who killed Muhammad Abdul is called Vanilla Ice. Another thing about the series is that the manga artist is a big fan of pop art and couture fashion, and he rarely assigns ultimately definitive colors to the character designs. This means that, over the course of merchandise, colored reprints of the comic, animated adaptations of the work, video game releases, and figurines, a lot of varying color schemes have emerged. One of the characters with the loosest senses of a design palette is Ice, whose hair and earrings and leotard run the gamut of the rainbow. As does, on occasion, his skin. There have been a number of designs where Ice was white, and a number of designs where he was not, and was ambiguously brown-skinned.

Having the token black man killed by a white guy is different than having him killed by a brown one. Sacrificing Abdul again has a different meaning if the man who takes his screen-time is also nonwhite. The sad thing is, there are far more dark-skinned characters who are antagonists than protagonists, across the series. They have attitude and agency, but are they really better than nothing in terms of representation? Well, when it comes to Vanilla Ice.... I think so. The first episode showing Ice in this anime aired this week, and I was disappointed by the dull brown hair and pale skin he was eventually given for his appearance. It shows a lack of creativity on the animators' part, a dearth of willingness to take risks, and a sad but not wholly surprising generic aesthetic angle with regard to skin color and representation. That is to say, the absence thereof.

I can't fully call racism in an American sense when demonstrated in a non-American country; the reality is too nuanced to paint such a broad brush. For one thing, American media heavily informed the franchise, and so it's really the fault of American media that melanated people have such poor representation in it. For another, there's no almost no pressure or acknowledgement of poor race representation or stereotypes in Japanese media by darker individuals, due to the citizens' population demographics. But in a franchise with such an international cast, the discrepancy stands out, I'm afraid to its detriment, in the eyes of a similarly international audience.

[sweatpantsprincess]

I had some unposted character analysis from reading Vento Aureo, let's get the ol' analy tags fired up again to celebrate my grand return or some bullshit.

NOT. That I ever intend to open the can of angry, ugly worms that is the development of multiple personalities and more importantly their relationship with each other. Or address the actual science and psychology behind the phenomenon raised in Vento's primary villain. but... Look at the emotional logic people have for shipping Diavolo and Doppio (if not the physiological logic). They believe in and trust each other. Would it be some kind of externalized wishful thinking to create a someone who has that protective trust and closeness with you? Is it a replacement for the lack of that in daily life, for various reasons? Or is it that no one else is good enough and worthy enough of his trust to provide that? For whichever one came first, if indeed they didn't exist alongside each other from birth, how did he come to depend on the other? It's incredible that he has to trust this other side of himself while he so clearly doesn't trust anyone else. Is Doppio a coping mechanism? Does Diavolo know he's really him? Does Diavolo regret trusting Donatella at all? Is he just as incapable of trusting his own self any more than others as like, Abbacchio, and he simply projects it through Doppio because he doesn't have a Buccellati to put his faith in? Trust and psychology are really important themes throughout Vento Aureo, and it creates a very important and real parallel to Giorno.

Also, what asshole puts Polnareff of all people in pt5.

I mean, at the end, with all the sleeping slave and inevitability of death stuff, is poor JP the guy you want to introduce? Not only is it saying there was never a chance for Cherie, but it's saying that no matter what was promised Abdul and Iggy would have had to sacrifice themselves, and that their existing promise and attempt at saving themselves was futile. It's saying that Polnareff's grief of loss is a fated circle. And he can never be free to join them, because it wasn't... in his cards. He's destined to stay lonely and losing everyone because they can't fight their fates and their deaths are predestined. Why woULD YOU DO THAT??? TO MY HEART

i had the thought "could jonathan have been saved then, if bruno gets to unlive" and it hit me! that's it! this is how it was done! the ability to manipulate life! it truly was passed on! when jotaro wondered if giorno inherited anything in his body from dio, that's it and his stand has the ability to grant unlife as well as create life because dio regenerated and cut off his body and created zombies and there you GO giorno's doing the same thing it's explained all of it is explained xcept for the stand being brought back too thing uh --wait. duhh. vanilla ice. pft.

diavolo, the devil, is a cursed man who sought godhood for himself to reign

dio, lord 'god', is a man who believed himself godlike & superior all along

cars was beyond humanity from the beginning and knew it

and then there's yoshikage Kira goodbye killa u are the worst pun

(and none for funny valentine)

>mfw giorno is explicitly atheist but mista is explicitly religious

trish is an aspie

ghiaccio is autistic

fugo is autistic

giorno is autistic

jotaro is autistic

giorno replaces jonathan, lisa lisa, kakyoin, and jotaro as the resident big biology nerd. loser. No but it's actually really neat that he understands plant and animal biology well enough to put his stand's ability to creative and effective use like he does? He didn't come from a household that prized education, for crying out loud. Is it part of his penchant for observing and coming to understand the world around him? Or is he truly just a nerd who kind of likes knowing these kinds of things? And is there an intentional contrast between him innately understanding the way things work physically but still trying very hard to observe others psychologically?

please for the love of god someone design a standswap/abilityswap for Diavolo and DIO i need this thing please

Giorno makes stupid risks/mistakes based on his sense of logic. It's dangerous, but it's how his mind works. It also ties into his frequent sense of certainty, which to an outsider seems pure arrogance. He's very polite, but still a very blunt guy. Giorno gets sweaty when he's badly shaken- /out of ideas/. He's a resourceful bastard, and doesn't waste time thinking about 'failure'. When he still has confidence in coming up with something, he's cool as a cucumber. Serene, like Hirose said. Giorno inspired Bruno to go on, Bruno said so. He said that Giorno's actions and faith restored in him his passion, gave him new life. If moonlighting as a revenant isn't a great fate for the healer son of a vampire, I don't know what life is anymore. Does Giorno tend towards snakes/frogs, plants, and body parts most often with his stand ability? tfw this kid works best with cold-blooded reptiles, photosynthesis, & regeneration. is it in the blood? or is Giorno's blood influenced by, long ago, the hands of a man whose body carried the energy of life and the sun itself and made flowers on a dead tree bloom through his passion?

Somewhere in between being unable to read the atmosphere/trusting too much/being pigheadedly optimistic, and manipulating people/trusting no one/an inspirational self-confidence, lies GioGio. Observing, absorbing and analyzing constantly, causing chain reactions in people's emotions for fear or inspiration, judging them as allies on his side- this is his distinctive personality and way of interacting. This is what distinguishes him. In pursuit of his dream, the dream for himself and for people around him, he'll make any sacrifice and cross any line, pragmatically weaving his moral code and his goals together to create a seamless knight whose armor cannot be removed or manipulated. This confidence in himself and in his goals and in his personal moral code is definitive, emblematic of Dio, but it's the ideals themselves and the fact that he can forgive because he knows when to judge people as good that ties him to Jonathan. Giorno is almost recklessly self-sacrificial. His body isn't something to be protected, to him. It's a tool to break and use frequently. The way he feels pain may not even be normal, since he causes himself so much and yet doesn't respond to it, for so many ploys. If it is for his goals, he is cold as ice and unyielding and uncompromising. He's detached and yet simultaneously grounded in the most frightening of ways- in reference to his relationship with people, the world around him, and his own body. He tears, smashes, burns, abuses himself routinely, for intentions and plans and diversions and reveals and for his determined greater good. Limbs, organs, blood, eyes, skin, they are all just tools for him, to be used and destroyed for his ends, perhaps fixed and replaced at a later time- if it is beneficial and convenient. Is this attitude self-destructive, or realistic because of the abuse he suffered as a child, or is it as the heir to a man who cut off his own head to pragmatically live? This is beyond ambitions, goals, the slytherin ways. This is beyond good and evil- there is only the goal and nothing else. It is simply convenient that for Giorno, the goal is Good. Giorno is the epitome of a combined desire for power and for gentlemanliness. Petition for narrative parallels to stop forever?

petition to fund an examination paper on the jojo villains and their relationships with the metaphorical concept of 'identity'? especially re: valentine, dio, diavolo, and kira.

I started interacting a lot with the rpers behind the Vento Aureo character quote-bots on twitter, too, this week. And those bots got me feeling some kind of way so complicated about setting examples and being influences for strangers based on morality and goals. That feel when character who was noble experiences psychological and moral breakdown and develops a fatalistic and pessimistic attitude for every future. That feel when a character who had some kind of dream for themself shatters it, and becomes unable to find hope for anyone else, because it's inevitable that everyone falls down this path and no noble dream will ever reach success, and they become utterly hopeless in that belief. I keep having a feel so complicated about character parallels, send me some help before I go on about corrupted kinds of characters who hate and blame themselves for destroying their dreams, vs ones who keep their dreams shining in front of them. Looking at a protagonist and the protagonist's person-they-don't-get-along-with, and looking at their opposing worldview dynamics and imagining them getting along... I am having SUCH!! an emotion right now about fucking Abbacchio, and fucking Giorno who could have helped him s o m u c h if they'd become able to get along and Abbacchio could trust him, it's unfair.

I just started thinking about how Buccellati tried to be a good role model and balance obedience with protection and guidance & discourage joining Passione. And I'm now wondering if Abbacchio would be more likely to try to keep someone on a path of ideals, or allow his own fatalistic self-doubt to overcome whatever hope made him want to be a police officer in the first place... and make him unable to guide anyone else young.

Giorno is hands-down my favorite character here, but damned if Abbacchio isn't my second. I'm a sucker for a good self-redemption-is-impossible arc with social commentary, mm mm good. And you throw in Diavolo's identity issues and broken yet incredibly successful path of ambition? TAKE ME VENTO AUREO YOU'RE MY FAVORITE PART.