(Major JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime spoiler warning) My review of...
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable is fantastic if you ask me; 39 episodes, each one fun and funky, Diamond is Unbreakable brings in many new elements that the previous three seasons didn't. Being my second favorite season in the series, I'm very much ready to give my review so let's jump right to it!
First, I'm going start with those new elements since I absolutely love them; there's a couple of them so I'll try to be brief (but I know I'm not good at being anything but descriptive). First is the new art style. Trying something different from what he normally does, Araki went with the more popular art style of the time called Bishonen, which is basically just a softer, more boyish art style (translated, it means beautiful youth). However, the style Araki used for this season isn't exactly Bishonen, but is instead an art style inspired from it while also mixed with his own personal touches. This mix makes for a refreshing breath of fresh air for the series and I think that it's wonderful for Araki to try out new stuff.
Next is the universal-wide range of color palletes. It's far from unusual for the JoJo seasons to switch up from one color pallete to the next during battles, but Diamond is Unbreakable takes it to a whole new level. There's not much I can say in this category because, once again, things like this are better experienced first-hand, but I can say that it's a wonderful aspect of the season that I truly adore.
Third, we have the Stands. While Stands aren't new to the series at this point, the inspiriation and creativity for them are. Stands have stepped away from being representations of tarot cards and are instead true portrayals of their human counterparts. Josuke's Crazy Diamond is crazy tough, powerful while also being able to heal, which is just like Josuke's indomitable will, physical strength and readiness to protect those he holds dear. Okuyasu's The Hand gets things closer to himself, embodying Okuyasu's simple in-your-face style of fighting. Koichi's Stand, although changing throughout the season, keeps the same feature of supporting at a distance while still being able to throw one helluva punch; this characterizes Koichi in that he's not as violent as the rest of the cast but he'll kick some ass if he needs to.
For the last new added element, I'm talking about the behavior of the season's criminals. The words modus operandi, in terms of crime, refers to the method of operation (or MO) used by an offender to commit a crime while a criminal signature is basically the unique mark a criminal will leave (usually used to satisfy the criminal's needs like emotional needs and please don't ask how I know this stuff).
Moving on, while I usually take time to talk about the intro, I'm not going to in this post but rather a separate post. The reason for this is because, as I learned with my Stardust Crusaders post, I'm not going to be able to make a relatively short post if I include a discussion on the intro. Unlike the other seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Diamond is Unbreakable has three intros, each having different versions and unique additions. Since it would take a long time to talk about them, I'll save it for later.
With that being said, let's move on to the next topic: the characters. What can I say? I love them, the entire cast is so unique and special in their own way, even more so than Battle Tendency's. Much unlike Stardust Crusaders, most of the "enemy" Stand users in Diamond is Unbreakable aren't really enemies but rather people with their own interests who are just trying to achieve their own personal goals. Hell, you even have Stand users who aren't fought at all, with most of all the Stand users being reoccurring characters that fill the world (or in this case, fill the town) and get actual character development, minimal as it may be. You have the asshole Rohan who's only friend is Koichi due to Rohan being a very picky and particular person. You have Koichi (whom objectively has the best character development in the entire season) who gets stronger and braver throughout the season, confronting more and more problems head-on while also getting better at thinking on his feet in the heat of the moment. There's even development of relationships between characters, such as Josuke and Okuyasu going from being enemies to brothers by heart or Yukako going from trying to torture and murder Koichi to the both of them creating a loving and lasting bond.
Now, I want to go back to those little bits about criminal behavior and talk about one of the best anime/manga antagonists and the best JoJo antagonist so far: Kira Yoshikage. So the guy has a kink, but don't we all? Yes, he takes it too far by actively murdering people but it plays into that criminal signature I mentioned before and his Stand, Killer Queen, helps to create Kira's MO. Kira's signature is taking the hand of his female victims, which satisfies the psychological needs of his hand kink, and his MO is to explode people. The best part about all of this is that he didn't have either immediately: it took time for him to start stealing hands and it took him time to develop his Stand. Kira also has the most amazing motive of simply wanting a peaceful life; granted, that motive includes murdering people but I never said he's a good person, just that he's a good character. This all adds a very real feeling to Kira and makes him possibly the most human character in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Quite different from the rest of the seasons, Diamond is Unbreakable's soundtrack takes a more chill approach towards music in between fights; however, once a fight does hit, get ready for badass music to ensue (Sudden Battle is really good and A Blossoming Love is really cute). As for the outro, I Want You is my favorite outro across the seasons. Keeping that extreme use of multiple color palletes and emphasizing the softer art style, this outro has a groovy song and adds on more visual details as the show goes on.
Finally, I want to talk about three things that bothered me throughout the show. First was that, once again, Araki threw one of his characters under the bus; this time around, it was Joseph Joestar. While Joseph has shown himself to not be above cheating at games and battles, I don't believe for a second that he would cheat on Suzi. This woman single-handedly took care of him and kept him company during his recovery after his battle with Kars. Not to mention, as I've said before, Joseph has strong familial values and there wasn't even a given reason for his adultery. To top it all off, Tomoko truly loves Joseph; that means that he would've had to stay in Japan long enough, which he has gone on record to say how much he hates Japan, to make such a lasting impression on Tomoko.
Next is that Araki made the characters Shizuka Joestar and Mikitaka Hazekura, which are both cool characters in their own rights, yet never showed or mentioned them after Diamond is Unbreakable ended. I understand that Shizuka can't be used in the near future since she's a literal baby and maybe Mikitaka simply stayed in Morioh, but we never got any closure information on them (is Mikitaka an actual alien and what ever happened to Shizuka's parents, things like that).
Lastly is the absolute Deus ex Machina of Kira's Bites the Dust ability on Killer Queen. He got it when he was under extreme pressure and that's just not a good enough explanation in any world; not to mention it's a bit uncreative given that Dio ALSO had a Stand ability that allowed for timey whimey shenanigans. A cool ability no doubt but that doesn't make in any less bullshit