Damn what a fantastic conclusion. It's so easy to forget Jojolion came out after a real, major calamity deeply affected Japan and then to tie it all back into the themes of the story and stick to it after an entire decade is such a powerful piece of writing that I'm sad got lost on me, and likely many others due to how far away from it's original context it got. Great video 10/10, I'm gonna go reread Jojolion now.
Toru has been alive for decades, thus memories are so abundant they lose meaning and now are nothing but tools for him to exploit. Josuke has been alive for months, so every little moment is precious. I think the people saying Toru is stuck in the past actually have it opposite.
Yeah it feels hard for someone with seemingly no emotional attachments to be stuck in the past. He always came off as his sole purpose to be working toward his future of superiority to humans.
I think it's just hard for most humans to understand a concept like that because none of us even have the chance to live long enough to have these feelings first hand, but I agree, once you've been alive long enough, memories and people start to mean less and less.
Poor Tom making Jobin bury the Lego replica was just a flex. It has no bearing on his actual stand whatsoever, he just wanted to see if Jobin was fool enough to go along with his request
My personal JoJolion theory is that Cato was meant to be the main antagonist. Since she has a Space themed Stand like Funny Valentine and was introduced in the middle. But Toru invaded the story, like a parasitic species, killed her son, and took the main villain spot for himself. Thats why Cato fighting in the last moment was so perfect for me.
I always considered Toru AND Wonder of U to be the main villains as SEPERATE entities, not just "Toru is the true main villain" or "Wonder of U is the true main villain." I'm glad somebody else finally talks about the characters like that, saying Part 8 only had one main villain always felt weird to me with how seperate and autonomous Toru and Wonder of U are despite being a stand and stand user.
I would even go further and posit that instead of Tooru or Wonder of U, the main antagonist is the force of Calamity itself. The opposing force to the Miracle of Josuke. Tooru is a villain on his own, like Damo or Jobin, but WoU is the vector for Calamity, Tooru is the avatar.
"Ozone Baby's dormant form appears as a near-exact replica of the LEGO Architecture White House 21006 set. However, the 1x1 studs used for the trees are instead replaced by a 1x1 round brick, with a cone piece on top of each 1x1, and the special 1x8 printed tile is instead a normal version of the piece." Araki and his writing process leave me scrathing my head sometimes.
The really ironic thing about what you said about Vince Gilligan being a master of the flashforward, is that he actually takes a very mangaka-esque approach to it in that he and his co-writers dont have the answer to what its foreshadowing to, he only figures it out later on 😂 the teddy bear scene is so specific youd figure he did have at least an idea, but according to him; NOPE. Same with the machine gun in S5, and apparently that in particular he wrote himself into a corner with and regretted doing it, but ended up pulling through.
Dolomite's arc is probably going to be one of those fights where it will be massively improved in animation. That arc's pacing was grueling, anime will probably tighten the action scenes more.
22:45 There are 2 things we know about the Locacaca organisation Its 2 wings operated mostly independently with one of its wings connected to Jobin(told to us by Holly) and Toru already knew about the plant appraiser as we have seen from the flashback(which means they didn't need to access Norisuke's phone) In fact, in chapter 60 it is conjectured by Josuke that the rock humans didn't know about the phone, but then they knew eventually and here's how: Once all of the Damokan group members were dealt with, the information about the new locacaca was leaked through Jobin to Dolomité and then to the hospital ward group's Urban Guerilla Urban Guerilla is said to have attacked plant appraiser even before Josuke boarded the bus Now since plant appraiser is the only one besides rock humans themselves that know how to locate the Locacaca branch, and since the hospital ward knows that Josuke knows too much(which is something that Dolomité feared), their main priorities were shown in the chapter: first kill the plant appraiser so that nobody else could locate the new locacaca and then kill Josuke, not just for avenging the Damokan group but probably because he is an active threat to their organisation and knows too much Also, they didn't follow around Josuke at all times, this is made quite clear as a result of the scenario as described above They seemed to either have followed Josuke or Jobin starting from chapter 59 Either way, they'd have ended up in the same position where they'd know about what exactly happened to Damokan group In short, Damo died which was probably the first cause of suspicion for the hospital ward Jobin got the info about Josuke and Norisuke talking with each other through Kaato Jobin then decided to find out what Josuke knew Jobin then leaked the info about the new locacaca's exchange to Dolomité to recruit him and get info from Josuke This was also the arc when it all leaked It is also made clear that Jobin was the first person they seemed to have went for since Poor Tom might have known about Jobin and his connection to smuggling operation, hence I think Tom sent out Guerilla to investigate during the Blue Lagoon arc which then lead to Josuke and Guerilla crossing paths seeking Rai Or perhaps they just followed where Josuke was taking them since he was the one that killed Damokan(though this seems less likely) They tried to eliminate this opposition but failed but Poor Tom was also looking forward to protecting the grafted branch So he contacted Jobin and placed Ozone Baby in the orchard, safeguarding his interest in the new Locacaca Considering this, it's clear that they're not an omniscient group, which is a relief considering just how many problems would have been caused if they were Hell, they barely knew about the shenanigans that the Damokan group got themselves into and it seems to also work the other way as Damaki doesn't seem to have known about their hospital involvement judging by what he said about trying to find out the main culprit and how difficult it proved(which wouldn't have been the case if he had known about Holy) I think the clear disconnect between the 2 halves of JoJoLion makes sense as the 2 groups have been not only shown but outright confirmed to have operated largely independently The Damokan didn't seem to know much about the hospital involvement and the hospital ward didn't seem to know about Damokan group's utter failure to handle the Locacaca leaks Considering just how little the hospital ward considers Damokan group to be, it is no surprise that stuff like this just didn't register on their radar, probably because Damo didn't tell them(I mean, he did mess in a big way, I don't see that going over well with the hospital ward) This is answering the 30:00-33:00 Moreover, this doesn't really need assumptions I only used what was stated outright in the manga to answer these Though we have no clue what information Tomoki actually received from his reconnaissance
I think it’s also telling, the detail that Rock Humans don’t work well together and tend to be antisocial/grow up independently. They already don’t really like each other and probably all act pretty selfishly even between each other. Also to use one assumption that would still avoid omniscience, they could have just had the plant appraiser flagged in a way that whenever someone looked up something about him, they could track the ip and get info from the device, much like what happens when you scan a dollar bill and the fbi calls you to make sure you’re not counterfeiting, or googling bombs and certain political topics.
Not gonna lie, I really was straight up gaslit by Toru when he was Gaslighting Yasuho with the Phone charging speech, which is hilarious to me I love JoJolion so much already, thank you for making me appriciate it even more LOL Also man, I feel kinda dumb in retrospect misubderstanding him so much
The editing is popping off in this one. Having tried my hand at editing myself, I can see how much thought goes into the transition of the images, the thematic moving background, the sound design and so on. Not even to mention the quality of the analysis. This might be your best video
cool analysis of tooru... ur indignation at people taking what he says at face value reminds me of how i feel about people legitimately saying that "kira had a point" when the ACTUAL point was that as part 4 progressed, we slowly saw how his "quiet life" philosophy was just an elaborate lie he came up with to justify/rationalize away his genuine sadism and desire to cause others pain actions speak louder than words, and i feel like in general araki enjoys having his villains show their "true colors" right before they die... looking past the surface level and understanding how characters like kira, valentine or tooru actually think beyond what they say out loud is super interesting
As a person who loves to investigate about art movements and their meanings, the fact that it took this video for me to realize the deep connections between Wonder of U, Go Beyond and surrealism ( besides the obvious visual elements of course ) is both a bit embarrassing on my part lol and honestly just fucking awesome because of how great your explanation of the themes was. You made me love a stand that I already loved a whole lot even more now and you did made me consider a LOT of stuff I had not thought about with Toru. Great video man, keep up the awesome work!!
Thank you for finally making a good summary of the meaning behind his "dreams and memories" line; Its so weird how so many people understand the complete opposite of what he means when he's talking down on the heroes' motivations. If you do make these into smaller videos the Dreams and Memories topic should definitely be one of them
Glad that you gave proper credit to Jobins entire point in the story. Many people just seem to gloss over the fact that his feud with Norisuke had been foreshadowed in every single flashback since his first one. With Jobin choosing the path of his mother Caato. Even tho Jobin died, Caato was able to forfill his goal of saving Tsurugi with the fruit. It’s ironic that the entire point of this path was to save Tsurugi without sacrifice. But in the end, breaking tradition still resulted with sacrifices, but this time double. Awesome video man! Glad we could get some actual good criticism on the part that isn’t just: “Toru bad cuz introduced to late.”
11:26- Sure Norisuke would condemn her for doing it and ask for forgiveness for the bully's actions even he doesn't deserve it, but at the same time, Kaato would die and Jobin would likely still be a victim of the bully's antics until it got worse and Norisuke just accepted it as fate. It's definitely something that builds up to their karma of unscrupulous actions that leads to their deaths as they continue to justify it even it leads to more devastating issues on the family, but the initial reasoning and intended future definitely not as bad as typical Jojo baddies doing it for the evulz- making more murky as it did lead to Jobin having a son that ultimately did play a big role in defeating the major cause of their family's misfortune as did Kaato's actions so it balances out even if it's not the typical Jojo miraculous solutions of justice that solved it.
So I finally was able to watch through both Part 1 & now 2 of this series and I've got to say bro, this was fantastic. A wonderful review and retrospective of a part I spent over 5 years reading monthly. You reviews of each chapter were always a highlight and helped me appreciate this series more. Keep up the amazing bro as always!!!!1
2:33:08 This meme summarizes JoJolion so damn well it made the entire series worth making just so it can be inserted into the end Bravo 10/10 video
Despite my problems with Jojolion that final page with Yasuho looking back at the remaining family as she leaves still brings tears to my eyes. It may not have been the strongest plotwise or have been the best monthly read but the themes of family and going beyond calamity are done so beautifully that I wouldn't trade it for anything. Great video, my appreciation for the part has definitely grown after watching this retrospective.
I mean, important thing to note is that parts of JJBA are not written in vacuum and they all somehow connect to each other and Tsurugi is in Jojolion rather young person with a lot of future. I'm curious if all that crazy stuff happening to him will be explained in Jojolands or hell, even in theoretical part X or some side stories.
I think that the problem with JoJolion doesn't come from people not understanding themes, but from the work not making efforts for readers to actually grasp those themes. Yes, although it is great that authors don't treat readers as children, they must set the field so that the sequences of events actually make sense and the motivations are clearly portrayed (as an example, Valentine does tell his goals; however, the philosophy, themes, and connections are implicit. This makes the reader actually care for Valentine and have a reason to find those implicit aspects). In Go Beyond, there is NOTHING AT ALL that makes the reader feel like Josuke even understands anything about spin then, why is he using Spin at the perfected level that Johnny reached at the end of part 7? You claim he deserves this power because it comes from the combination of the powers of the people he is made of, but this is not earned, this at most would be inherited and this would mean that from then on any offspring would be able to use spin just because. For Tooru, although we do understand his worldview, why would he even need to kill anyone or engage with anyone in any sense if his motives are related to solitude and not valuing memories or relationships? There is nothing that connects his worldview with his actions and this leads to readers not giving a damn about him, and there is nothing in his actions that convey a life purpose that requires the conflict that was presented. Personally, nothing excuses JoJolion, and we really need to face the truth that Part 8 was actually a waste of potential.
Also, What Josuke and Tooru represent is very clear (their ideas and their own themes); however, that alone does not make everything make sense. If I show you an entangled wire and a peeled banana, I can claim the entangled wire represents totalitarianism and the peeled banana represents freedom; however, this alone wouldn't make any reader care for an entangled wire and a peeled banana.
Hey man, good job and thank you for making this video, like many I was very disapponted with how Araki ended Jojolion, you video helped me view the manga from another prespective, the thematics, some hidden references, the motivations of Tooru and much more... personally for me Part 8 will still remain one of the weakest Part in all Jojo, with the untapped potential of many of his wonderful characters, but overall it was a fun and interesting manga to read, thanks again for helping with the summerization and the highlighting of moments that if was not for you video I would have forget them.
This was an excellent retrospective, but this made me scared of if/when Jojolion gets animated, it might be a one-to-one adaptation. Inconsistencies, misunderstandings, the flashforward, and all 😅
Yasuho is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, I really related a lot to her the deeper I got into the part as I followed the releases and her personal journey of self-actualization and rising out of the miseries of her past was very gratifying. Paisley Park was very much a reflection of her growth throughout and was one of my favorite powers to think about from the part.
the amount of work put into this video is nothing short of amazing. good fucking job man. this is a perfect send off for the weirdest and most fun part of jojo.
I hope that in the far future, when this is adapted to anime, a lot of changes are made for the better. I know, for the most part, David production has been pretty faithful, but a mix of small and some more substantial changes with new foresight could do WONDERS.
Despite the flaws of Part 8, I really loved reading this part. I had only heard hearsay about it for the last few years but finally binge-read it over like 3 days for Part 9's release. And when those powerful moments hit, they really hit. And Toru and WoU, who I had almost no knowledge on prior, surprisingly became a fast highlight of the part for me. WoU's stand design is by far one of my favorites and the moment Toru started singing and dancing to his own theme music while everyone is crying or screaming or dying at the Household instantly sold me on him. Excellent video and well worth the wait
It's very ambitious even though there are several points that aren't truly followed up or explored completely, it was still fascinating. Hopefully Part 9 will manage to improve on Part 8's example.
2:19:46 Holy herself has mentioned that even Tamai Damo's group had no idea what purpose they've been actually serving for. She said they were meere dealers who get money and test the fruits on some randoms
What's interesting to note is that Holy has been under effect of her disease for close to a decade to some extent So that should've been enough to figure a few things out Though we never actually saw it
I’m surprised during the Go Beyond section, you didn’t mention that it wasn’t just go beyond, but Yasuho using Paisley Park to guide GB to Toru that ended up mortally wounding him. I feel like that fits perfectly of love going against Toru’s ideology, and it being the thing that defeats him in the end. (Also just a sweet way to tie up Josuke and Yasuho’s romance). Great video regardless!
13:15- Although with the new game reveal with the voice acting and the unique ability of Wonder of U makes him a very interesting addition to the Jojo main villain roster, it would've been more fascinating for a female main Jojo villain with Kaato, being a morally grey yet in a different flavor than Funny. A what could've been that could've resulted in a possibly engaging climax if it were pursued.
I believe that Jojolion's misinterpretations are kinda a result of it no longer being a shonen manga, this allows Araki to have a more complex and subtle way of writing. However, a lot of the reader still kinda treat it as the old fashion shonens where the protag and antag lay out their goals and ideology, make Jojolion's finale feel like an "ass pull" and "shallow antagonist".
I disagree because the last part gave up the shonen brand and still told a concise and clear story while JoJolands as of the moment has a clearer goal and intent with the writing JoJolion is written vaguely and indirect which was its biggest strength early on because of the mystery where it lead to one of the best arcs in the entire series but over time, when the mysteries started to be demystified, araki still chose to write that way and it led to strangeness that is the 2nd part of JoJolion wherein things like Yasuho splitting up and Flash Forward should've been told much more clearer and more direct with their intentions
My thoughts for JoJolion themes completely changed after this video where it went from Dreams vs Experiences to Realism vs Idealism where Realism is bound by logic of this world while Idealism is beyond logic and is what helps us move forward. I'm sad that these two videos have lower views so I'm doing my part by commenting. Favorte part even though it has massive issues
It's interesting because Tooru is driven by goals of a hierarchy that there's supposed to be a logic in this world that everyone should follow disregarding how other peoples feel (reflecting the Rock Human mindset) while Josuke disproves that notion by being a man outside of logic, a man born out of a miracle which couldn't be explained at all which is what led to Calamity being triumped as it's putting down logic on something that exists outside of logic
I always took a lot of the weirdness of Tsurugi's Rock Disease to just be a callback to Chariot Requium, turning the stand against the user in really fucked up ways. Justifying it via Calamity feels like a cop-out, unless Tooru targeted Tsurugi first but we don't see it, but it's by far the only reason i can see it working like that when fucking every other depiction is a more of a straightforward petrification event.
1:15:57 Wasn't the whole point of that misdirection? If they made the flashforward more apparent, it would cease to be much of a misdirection But I'd argue it's surprising how we didn't think about this in hindsight because literally the same chapter shows Tsurugi's curse manifesting and we already have seen what that curse does Though I do actually mostly agree with you on this one It really was kind of puzzling why it was included
Instead of the final reveal of Tooru being the main villian being flawed, wouldn't the the big reveal be that what was thought to be the main villian, the head doctor, was actually just a stand?
I've been awaiting for the second part to this video for a while and it was all worth the wait. I think that what I can appreciate the most, is that through this analysis nothing seems to invalidate anyone's opinions and feelings on aspects of part 8, even when all is contextualized. As an example, while this video certainly is helping me understand the beauty behind the themes behind Tooru and Wonder of U, I don't think I'll ever be able to shake the distaste I have for them. The analysis is likely spot on, and I find a lot of what has been attempted and conceptualized truly commendable. But I found their execution so catastrophic that I grew resentement towards everything they represented. I don't think I'd ever wished so much that I could rewrite parts of a piece of fiction just to set things right. It truly felt like Wonder of U was rewriting its own rules as Josuke progressively found ways to circumvent them, which I interpreted as a form of power up that the stand never earned, since neither the stand or Tooru were evolving in any significant way shape or form. It simply felt like the stand was cheating, in a way. As for Go Beyond, I really could have gotten behind the idea of "To defeat something that cheats reality, you have to go beyond reality" since I find that when Araki is going profoundly abstract, his ideas are often very stimulating. But here it felt like nothing was any different from usual as far as josuke was concerned. There was neither an attempt at explaining the unexplainable, nor was there an attempt at showing what can't be shown. It simply happened, as it could have had at any other point. Even if the power behind Tusk Act 4 in itself makes very little sense, it at least does a great job at showing and explaining how the idea germinated inside the mind of the author. Go Beyond in comparison, makes little to no attempt to show how any of it is different from a regular stand attack. It's as if the author had suddenly decided "the hero will now be able to shoot the villain" and thus spoke Araki.
Go Beyond is a miracle, that's the point of it, one that is supposed to oppose Tooru's cold and materialistic logic, it has to be abstract and without a "logical" explanation. It's like complaining that in the Bible you can't wrap your head around how a guy could turn water into wine, the hole point is that you can't wrap your head around it, it wouldn't be a miracle otherwise.
@@doublel1503 it is a miracle in the same sense that Josuke's fusion is a miracle. But in the case of the fusion, you have clear visual indications of said miracle, an actor for said miracle (the ground they were buried under.) as well as a rough idea of what the process may have looked like. You could somewhat see the miracle of their fusion like grafting a branch. But Go Beyond has none of that. It lacks in style, effect, and execution. Some could say it's all balls but no cock.
@@SinderSoyl But, the miracle that gave birth to Josuke is the same one that gave birth to Go Beyond, Go Beyond has been there since the beginning as we can see in the first chapter, Josuke just wasn't aware of it's existence. They are both part of the cure that was brought into the world by fate to stop calamity. They are not to separate events, they are parts of the same process, that's why we get a flashback of Josefumi and Kira about to fuse during the reveal of Go Beyond.
Personally if I were to add more about Tooru, I would have probably added something regarding the nature of Rock Humans. Not the ones we've encountered, but rather Rock humans that are living normal lives. As the nature of Rock Humans is to take over an identity of a person, but what if those Rock Humans were actually dedicated on the people they were replacing. In a way where they grew to love the lives they now had and effectively accepted their new lives, but perhaps Tooru could have viewed it as 'giving up' or 'accepting mediocraty. Thus morivating Tooru wanting to do the opposite and recruit like minded Rock Humams to achieve power rather than comfort.
We got a little bit of that with Aisho and Dolomite, that they cared about their human partner before getting fuckced by circunstances wich made them go back into the regular behaviour of their species. It would have been cool if it was revealed that Tooru was somehow responsable for those situations (maybe using a mind controling rock-insect for Aisho's girl and WoU for Dolomite's) in order to keep them in line.
Thank you for all of your hard work in putting together this awesome retrospective! Like a lot of western JoJo fans, JoJolion was my first time reading a part as it was ongoing. I actually caught up right around the start of Urban Guerilla, aka when a lot of the big criticisms started popping up within the community. I think the resulting discourse we saw in the part's final years is just an inherent aspect of any fandom's relationship with a work that's incomplete; you aren't sure where things are going, you make theories and have hopes and ideas, and it can be hard to avoid unfairly putting those expectations on the work/the author. My point being, I think a lot of us got swept up in the negatives and the inconsistencies, the could-have-beens, that the overall thematic beauty of the part got a little lost in it all. My opinion on Wonder of U as an arc has become more positive over time and with new rereads, but initially the ending of that fight left me unsatisfied. And a lot of those criticisms I still stand by, but when I read that final chapter it hit me like a ton of bricks and I bawled my eyes out. All of the gripes left my mind in the face of such a great thematic conclusion. And this retrospective series really helped me, as I hope it does for others, remember JoJolion for all of its positives, because they greatly outway the negatives imo
1:39:06 I see it as the same thing that was in the Rohan Louvre story / Mochizuku family moonviewing TSRK chapter (also that was mentioned in the Yasuho's monologue during 1st chapter) There's no such a thing as rock "disease", it's simply a bad karma that was craved into each current and future member of the family by their ancestors
46:52- this is JoJo's long standing trope of the villain of the week style of enemies always needing to attack during their time to shine works against the narrative for this half of the story. Rather than play the long game and retrieve it to get the mental upper hand on the heroes to have the advantage for the arc to make more satisfying when the tables are turned, they essentially brute force into getting results and predictably fail when the heroes do their usual miraculous turnaround, forcing the main bad having to clean up for them to get their results nearly completed. Esidisi partially averts this in Part 2, but only after losing his body, forcing him to be crafty in getting the larger objective achieved, only to foiled by Kars' incompetence. It's never a problem in the previous parts that are usually the big bad throwing killers to just kill the heroes and it looks like Part 9 is returning to form.
Couldn't agree more. People regularly are looking at specific boxes that need to be checked in order to enjoy something instead of viewing the art on its own merits. Not to say that they shouldn't criticize but they should atleast acknowledge where the artist is coming from and not immediately reject everything about it.
Just to make sure I understand you. Are you saying that Toru & wonder of u aren't 'true' to the core of surrealism and act more as attempts to be surreal. If so I was considering the same thing, it's strange how WoU has connections to surrealism which is described as overcoming logic despite its general ability is to utilize logic; this could add to the relationship between Josuke and WoU as WoU, despite appearing to surreal i.e. overcoming logic still has its ability be based in logic (manipulating the flow of calamity) while josuke has completely overcome logic with his go beyond
Genuinely I feel like, when the stand like energy is shown is the panels when Josuke is staring downward at the head doctor in the stairwell that thats Wonder of U’s ability activating to directly mark Josuke in the flow of calamity at that moment
The connection to Wonder of U and surrealism is my favourite analysis of this stand that I've seen so far! I think it really show's Araki's progression and experimentation as an author/artist (and auteur overall!) He's always trying something new and you gotta respect that from someone who's been working on Jojo since the 80s 👏👏
Absolute masterpiece of a retrospective so I'm leaving more comments as I watch 🤣 I love how you pointed out the parallel between SBR's fatherhood themes and motherhood in jojolion!!! I've always found the themes of family and lineage to be such a unique aspect of jjba and I'm excited to see how jojolands expands on this with the siblings dynamic 🥰
i hope in the anime adaptation tooru is added to a lot of these scenes that dont make sense or maybe the wonder of u, maybe as damo is fighting the higasikatas he notices wou standing outside the house, or perhaps tooru walks by the window, when they're interrogating dolomite the wonder of you is barely visible between the trees, etc etc. not only would it be incredibly funny but it would also work to make the rock docs feel like there was a reason they knew.
I will pay you outside of donating you do this fir part 7. Thank you for putting so much effort into these. Whoever did the opening animation is incredible too
1:08:48 actually in the bible beside the tree of knowledge of good and evil there is also mentions of tree of life in the garden of eden, and it's says that if one would eat of this fruit he would live forever, and there are discussions among scholars if both trees are actually the same tree
I realize that not all the parts are as long or substantive as part 8, but I'd love for you to give your in-depth thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of the other parts as well. JoJolion is definitely much more divisive and ofc newer than all of the other parts, so there's less of a common consensus as to what value it brings to the table, thus feeling more fitting for this sort of thing, but you always pose such nuanced and insightful takes regarding this series and I'd love to hear your more or less comprehensive thoughts on everything at some point or another. Even if we never get that though, this retrospective has been a treat and has even opened my eyes to certain aspects of the part which i hadn't previously considered. Wonderful work !
Loved this I have a lot of issues with JoJolion but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and this video was a wonderful watch. I particularly enjoyed your discussion about WOU's ties to surrealist art
My personal theory with Jojolion's writing is that I feel that COVID was a personal calamity to Araki and made him change the arc due to how he felt with the events of the time. Especially with how Araki lamented about COVID disrupting his life in his author's notes and through Rohan in Hot Summer Martha. So it probably has had an effect on the writing. As for the video itself, I really like the discussion of surrealism with Wonder of U and it is really interesting. Though while Wonder of U is a cool stand with a lot of meaning with it, the arc still was not that good to me with the plot points that went nowhere, Tooru being not the most compelling villain, and how various characters were handled like Caato and Kei. This video does a really excellent job showing the best and worst of the second half of Jojolion. Where there were concepts that were either executed in an interesting way, missed the landing, or was just wasted potential.
I think, ultimately, Araki just didn't know what he wanted to do with JoJolion, even all the way up to the end. It's extremely telling that the Part's issues begin to multiply and intersect after the Damo climax, which resolved Josuke's singular motivation. The number of dropped ideas, disruptive character shifts and messy writing is too much to ignore and unfortunately significantly more prevalent here than in any other Part, despite its early promise of being even more well-considered and dense than Steel Ball Run. The fact that Araki couldn't commit to the flash-forward, which happened just before the final arcs of the story, is the smoking gun. Even that far in, he was still changing his mind about *critical story beats.* For me personally, I remember always thinking that the New Locacaca struggle was leading to something else, I never once considered it to be the end goal of the Part. Its value was never properly communicated in the way the Corpse Parts were (especially not any possible religious theming), and the Rock Humans' goals for the New Locacaca never explicitly stated except in a hypothetical sense by unrelated characters. Much of the symbolism and the Part's broader themes are obscured and referenced only briefly and sparsely, which makes it extremely easy to overlook or forget, especially during JoJolion's decade-long publication. So this years-long back-and-forth about this damn fruit just felt like the Part was spinning its wheels. The Wonder of U was the worst of this, taking up nearly an entire quarter of the part for what was essentially just a very long chase sequence.
I think the one thing that bothers me about Go Beyond is not that it doesn't make sense because I'm simply "not reading the deeper meaning" but that narratively and within the guidelines set up by the story, it isnt made clear at all how it can both exist and not exist, when the bubble is an existing property just like the spin as it is a naturally described force. It feels like cheating to just go "oh yeah it goes through anything even the unstoppable existence of WoU." At least there was some kind of suspension of disbelief that Johnny could generate through some perfected movement of nature a "perfect attack" that could not be blocked by anything, even an impenetrable shield like valentine's, because they both existed within the same material plain, whereas WoU argues that it is outside of the realm of reason and therefore can't be harmed, yet is harmed by an invisible bubble because it just can
I would say this is better explained when we understand how spin manifests Understand that every rendition of spin we have seen has been mediated by a pHYsical object We have seen everything from corks, balls, finger and toe nails, etc spin The commonality here is that objects are being infused with the property of spin, rotation given form What we see with Josuke is taking the limit of that medium By having his strings which spin be infinetesimally thin, the spin is still bounded yet unbounded It's bounded to an object but the tangible reality of that object is limiting to intangibility This essentially delocalizes the spin, stripping it from the object All that's left then is spin, pure and unadulterated spin We have sorta seen what this reason driven to its breakpoint looks like The bubble can pass through objects without hurting them but also erode them at the same time It's like an attack unbound from the logic of reality, with the only thing felt in this reality being spin Just like Johnny'z act 4 pushes the limit of the spin on an object, Josuke's bubbles pushes the limit of the object which spins, a perfect mirror Infinite spin Infinitesimal object On a personal note, I think that Johnny's spin makes somewhat less sense Because Act 3 was already supposed to be infinite, so I'm not sure what the horse could possibly provide But even then, I think it's too easy? I mean, is throwing a ball using the stirrups of a horse for resonance effect really that difficult for people that have supposedly honed this skill for generations? Surely multiple people would've learnt this right? But GYRo treats this as an untested HYpotHetical I think the super spin of act 4 creates more lore/world building problems than Go Beyond
@@it6647 Idk I'm more inclined to believe the super spin and the way its described. I always perceived the necessity the horse provides as as secondary "generator" of sorts for the spin as it strides in the perfect golden ratio, to then power up Johnny's shot even more. Thinking of it like a toy soldier, the horse is the crank on the back that winds it up. Except instead of just letting go and it going until it fizzles out, the spin, well, spins, in the perfect way to keep it spinning, kind of like if you could apply self sustaining energy through its own force. That way it is truly an infinite spin, one that has no end because there's too much force behind it to allow it to naturally stop, and because nothing it comes into contact with it has the friction needed to actually stop it. As for Josuke, it just still doesn't make any sense how it can exist and not exist. If it's invisible, it still exists. If it doesn't exist, then logically it cannot harm you. And if it exists outside of logic, well that just doesn't make sense, and thus is the definition of an asspull. Not to mention at least from a character standpoint, Johnny had to earn his way up to that point by mastering the spin over the entire part. Josuke just remembers he popped a bubble out of his shoulder after unconsciously using spin the whole part, and then suddenly knows how to use it to the degree of mastery over it despite not being aware of it at all. You can explain why a fight happens a certain way for the sake of narrative purposes, but you still need an actual in universe reasoning for it to make any sense at all
Okay so if you wanna kind of justify it with a stretch, the doctors MAAAAAAAY have found out about Josuke when he came to visit his mother after they thought he was dead if they were connected to Damokan (and I believe they are), isn’t record of visitation usually logged somewhere, especially in a super advanced ward like Holly was in? And Wu was probably administering the “treatments” to Holly so he may have seen records of his visit since the group probably exerts high amounts of control over everything about that particular part of the hospital so they can run their experiments. If they found out about Josuke because of his hospital visit and started trailing him it COULD POSSIBLY MAYBE KINDA SORTA make sense. Perhaps.
That's the main problem of JoJolion, nothing is told explicitly and clearly and Araki knew this which is why theres a boat load of explanations over certain topics like the Loca and Calamity. This worked for early JJL (Orange scene best scene in the entire series) but this style of writing suffered long term and readers have to justify certain things in order for it to work just like this one Still my favorite part
Im sure Hamon Beat could rationalize every single criticism that it was carefully set up and makes perfect sense in context, as thats usually what he does. His next video on JoJolion is gonna be fun, when people flood his comments with questions raised by this very video
While I do think Hamon Beat has done wonders for the community, and general jojo misinformation he also has a proclivity to sometimes willfully ignore things to defend Araki. For example in his JoJolion Araki Forgot he writes off the flash forward as making perfect sense in context, while pretty much disregarding the harvest timer, faded panels not always being time changes, why Tsurugi went to the roof, why he was using his stand, why the family would send Tsurugi, etc...
@@xForts I do agree. Im definetly interested in his point of view of those critcisms as people are definetly gonna bring them up in his comments. No shade to him, Im genuinely interested as he usually tries to find sense in everything
How anyone can say Part 8 is one of the best Jojo arlfter seeing a video like this is honestly baffling to me. Everything that makes up the final arc is a complete mess
Man, I love Jojo but Part 8 really went to shit on the second half. I don’t think any other part has so many loose ends and unsatisfying conclusions and character arcs.
My immediate go to comparison for Tooru and Wonder of U is Diavolo and King Crimson, more specifically with how the stand was the villain’s identity more so than the actual person, if that makes sense
The reason I watch this channel is because you point out the less obvious plots of Jojo. I am simple minded so even tho I agree with your criticism completely I really like the power he exhibited, he was fighting a family of Stand Users all at once and up until Go Beyond, Toruu had the upper hand. He was calm through out 90% of the fight in a way a lot of villains in Jojo haven’t been. It felt like instead of having overconfidence he had faith in calamity. Which makes him stand out to me. Every other villain knew to be aware or careful with other Jojos , Kira hiding from Josuke after his first encounter, Dio fearing Jonathan and Jotaro using techniques that counter them, Pucci being the most cautious antagonist in my opinion, and President Valentine still being careful with how he uses his stand because even tho he is hard to kill it is not impossible and he strategizes. Toruu felt like an impossible obstacle that would require a miracle and unluckily for Toruu that’s exactly was Josuke is
2:19:45 The way it was phrased in that chapter is that Holly built a lab about the fruit(but this was years ago so not even sure whether Yoshikage was aware of his mother's research) However we know that she failed her research We don't know how exactly she got her hands on Locacaca to begin with, which makes me wonder whether she had much of it at all So what I think is likely is that she might've discovered some incident involving a Locacaca and tried to research it without having much of it Once the rock humans took over, Kira had no other options but to scheme against them and steal a branch(I mean the odds ain't exactly in his favor considering that a single rock human is all that it took to almost kill both of them)
Here's an idea that might explain how the doctors found out, Blue Hawaii is not exactly subtle, perhaps Urban Gorilla saw him fighting and causing a Compton and was spying on HIM, when Joskae showed up, and he overheard the conversation.
Damn what a fantastic conclusion. It's so easy to forget Jojolion came out after a real, major calamity deeply affected Japan and then to tie it all back into the themes of the story and stick to it after an entire decade is such a powerful piece of writing that I'm sad got lost on me, and likely many others due to how far away from it's original context it got. Great video 10/10, I'm gonna go reread Jojolion now.
Toru has been alive for decades, thus memories are so abundant they lose meaning and now are nothing but tools for him to exploit. Josuke has been alive for months, so every little moment is precious. I think the people saying Toru is stuck in the past actually have it opposite.
Yeah it feels hard for someone with seemingly no emotional attachments to be stuck in the past. He always came off as his sole purpose to be working toward his future of superiority to humans.
I think it's just hard for most humans to understand a concept like that because none of us even have the chance to live long enough to have these feelings first hand, but I agree, once you've been alive long enough, memories and people start to mean less and less.
Poor Tom making Jobin bury the Lego replica was just a flex. It has no bearing on his actual stand whatsoever, he just wanted to see if Jobin was fool enough to go along with his request
It was a flex on Araki's part. He just wanted to demonstrate that he could illustrate a Lego set in all its minute detail.
@@nick-playercharacter8583 the art still holds up. Araki remains undefeated in a competition no one was even aware of.
Wait holy shit tom jobin
@@user-kg2lp8jz2rlowkey wish there was an ‘m’ in place of the ‘n’ in Jobin lmao
My personal JoJolion theory is that Cato was meant to be the main antagonist. Since she has a Space themed Stand like Funny Valentine and was introduced in the middle.
But Toru invaded the story, like a parasitic species, killed her son, and took the main villain spot for himself. Thats why Cato fighting in the last moment was so perfect for me.
Imagine Cato having Wonder of U instead
Oh man. I just realize we never had female as main antagonist. I wish Araki would do this in part 9. Part 9 rumored to be the last JoJo part 😟
@@storagecrafter5701it is the last JoJo part. Araki is in his 60’s and made it official jojolands is the conclusion to the AU
@@tiptaphooves that’d be cool. But I love Space Trucking way more. Also, I find it adorable that Cato and her son both have Deep Purple Stands.
@@wonderofu230 When did he say Part 9 is the conclusion? In May 2022 he explicitly said "I would like to keep writing JoJo forever"
I always considered Toru AND Wonder of U to be the main villains as SEPERATE entities, not just "Toru is the true main villain" or "Wonder of U is the true main villain." I'm glad somebody else finally talks about the characters like that, saying Part 8 only had one main villain always felt weird to me with how seperate and autonomous Toru and Wonder of U are despite being a stand and stand user.
I would even go further and posit that instead of Tooru or Wonder of U, the main antagonist is the force of Calamity itself. The opposing force to the Miracle of Josuke. Tooru is a villain on his own, like Damo or Jobin, but WoU is the vector for Calamity, Tooru is the avatar.
I IMMEDIATELY PUT DOWN WHAT IM DOING
HOLLOW IM RIGHT HERE WITH YOU BRO
@@LimeyLimer YO SUP MY GOAT 🐐 🫂
BRO ME TOO IVE BEEN WAITING
LMAO. Same
@@holloworacle3140excuse me good sir, your behind is looking quite delectable may I have a nimble of it
I always like referring to Mamezuku’s ability as peeling because of the connection to fruit
"Ozone Baby's dormant form appears as a near-exact replica of the LEGO Architecture White House 21006 set. However, the 1x1 studs used for the trees are instead replaced by a 1x1 round brick, with a cone piece on top of each 1x1, and the special 1x8 printed tile is instead a normal version of the piece."
Araki and his writing process leave me scrathing my head sometimes.
The really ironic thing about what you said about Vince Gilligan being a master of the flashforward, is that he actually takes a very mangaka-esque approach to it in that he and his co-writers dont have the answer to what its foreshadowing to, he only figures it out later on 😂 the teddy bear scene is so specific youd figure he did have at least an idea, but according to him; NOPE. Same with the machine gun in S5, and apparently that in particular he wrote himself into a corner with and regretted doing it, but ended up pulling through.
Dolomite's arc is probably going to be one of those fights where it will be massively improved in animation. That arc's pacing was grueling, anime will probably tighten the action scenes more.
Will probably take me a few days to watch all this but I already know this will be incredible ❤️
Jojolion is my favorite part.
The amount of hype at the ending is crazy.
I am always down for late-game Jobin analysis. Such a peak character.
22:45
There are 2 things we know about the Locacaca organisation
Its 2 wings operated mostly independently with one of its wings connected to Jobin(told to us by Holly)
and
Toru already knew about the plant appraiser as we have seen from the flashback(which means they didn't need to access Norisuke's phone)
In fact, in chapter 60 it is conjectured by Josuke that the rock humans didn't know about the phone, but then they knew eventually and here's how:
Once all of the Damokan group members were dealt with, the information about the new locacaca was leaked through Jobin to Dolomité and then to the hospital ward group's Urban Guerilla
Urban Guerilla is said to have attacked plant appraiser even before Josuke boarded the bus
Now since plant appraiser is the only one besides rock humans themselves that know how to locate the Locacaca branch, and since the hospital ward knows that Josuke knows too much(which is something that Dolomité feared), their main priorities were shown in the chapter: first kill the plant appraiser so that nobody else could locate the new locacaca and then kill Josuke, not just for avenging the Damokan group but probably because he is an active threat to their organisation and knows too much
Also, they didn't follow around Josuke at all times, this is made quite clear as a result of the scenario as described above
They seemed to either have followed Josuke or Jobin starting from chapter 59
Either way, they'd have ended up in the same position where they'd know about what exactly happened to Damokan group
In short, Damo died which was probably the first cause of suspicion for the hospital ward
Jobin got the info about Josuke and Norisuke talking with each other through Kaato
Jobin then decided to find out what Josuke knew
Jobin then leaked the info about the new locacaca's exchange to Dolomité to recruit him and get info from Josuke
This was also the arc when it all leaked
It is also made clear that Jobin was the first person they seemed to have went for since Poor Tom might have known about Jobin and his connection to smuggling operation, hence I think Tom sent out Guerilla to investigate during the Blue Lagoon arc which then lead to Josuke and Guerilla crossing paths seeking Rai
Or perhaps they just followed where Josuke was taking them since he was the one that killed Damokan(though this seems less likely)
They tried to eliminate this opposition but failed but Poor Tom was also looking forward to protecting the grafted branch
So he contacted Jobin and placed Ozone Baby in the orchard, safeguarding his interest in the new Locacaca
Considering this, it's clear that they're not an omniscient group, which is a relief considering just how many problems would have been caused if they were
Hell, they barely knew about the shenanigans that the Damokan group got themselves into and it seems to also work the other way as Damaki doesn't seem to have known about their hospital involvement judging by what he said about trying to find out the main culprit and how difficult it proved(which wouldn't have been the case if he had known about Holy)
I think the clear disconnect between the 2 halves of JoJoLion makes sense as the 2 groups have been not only shown but outright confirmed to have operated largely independently
The Damokan didn't seem to know much about the hospital involvement and the hospital ward didn't seem to know about Damokan group's utter failure to handle the Locacaca leaks
Considering just how little the hospital ward considers Damokan group to be, it is no surprise that stuff like this just didn't register on their radar, probably because Damo didn't tell them(I mean, he did mess in a big way, I don't see that going over well with the hospital ward)
This is answering the 30:00-33:00
Moreover, this doesn't really need assumptions
I only used what was stated outright in the manga to answer these
Though we have no clue what information Tomoki actually received from his reconnaissance
I think it’s also telling, the detail that Rock Humans don’t work well together and tend to be antisocial/grow up independently. They already don’t really like each other and probably all act pretty selfishly even between each other. Also to use one assumption that would still avoid omniscience, they could have just had the plant appraiser flagged in a way that whenever someone looked up something about him, they could track the ip and get info from the device, much like what happens when you scan a dollar bill and the fbi calls you to make sure you’re not counterfeiting, or googling bombs and certain political topics.
Not gonna lie, I really was straight up gaslit by Toru when he was Gaslighting Yasuho with the Phone charging speech, which is hilarious to me
I love JoJolion so much already, thank you for making me appriciate it even more LOL
Also man, I feel kinda dumb in retrospect misubderstanding him so much
The editing is popping off in this one. Having tried my hand at editing myself, I can see how much thought goes into the transition of the images, the thematic moving background, the sound design and so on. Not even to mention the quality of the analysis. This might be your best video
Thank you so much 😊
WE SEATED, for the best 2 part Jojolion retrospective Video of all time 🫡🫡
cool analysis of tooru... ur indignation at people taking what he says at face value reminds me of how i feel about people legitimately saying that "kira had a point" when the ACTUAL point was that as part 4 progressed, we slowly saw how his "quiet life" philosophy was just an elaborate lie he came up with to justify/rationalize away his genuine sadism and desire to cause others pain
actions speak louder than words, and i feel like in general araki enjoys having his villains show their "true colors" right before they die... looking past the surface level and understanding how characters like kira, valentine or tooru actually think beyond what they say out loud is super interesting
As a person who loves to investigate about art movements and their meanings, the fact that it took this video for me to realize the deep connections between Wonder of U, Go Beyond and surrealism ( besides the obvious visual elements of course ) is both a bit embarrassing on my part lol and honestly just fucking awesome because of how great your explanation of the themes was. You made me love a stand that I already loved a whole lot even more now and you did made me consider a LOT of stuff I had not thought about with Toru.
Great video man, keep up the awesome work!!
Thank you for finally making a good summary of the meaning behind his "dreams and memories" line; Its so weird how so many people understand the complete opposite of what he means when he's talking down on the heroes' motivations. If you do make these into smaller videos the Dreams and Memories topic should definitely be one of them
Glad that you gave proper credit to Jobins entire point in the story. Many people just seem to gloss over the fact that his feud with Norisuke had been foreshadowed in every single flashback since his first one. With Jobin choosing the path of his mother Caato. Even tho Jobin died, Caato was able to forfill his goal of saving Tsurugi with the fruit.
It’s ironic that the entire point of this path was to save Tsurugi without sacrifice. But in the end, breaking tradition still resulted with sacrifices, but this time double.
Awesome video man! Glad we could get some actual good criticism on the part that isn’t just: “Toru bad cuz introduced to late.”
This video explains exactly what’s beautiful about Jojolion.
11:26- Sure Norisuke would condemn her for doing it and ask for forgiveness for the bully's actions even he doesn't deserve it, but at the same time, Kaato would die and Jobin would likely still be a victim of the bully's antics until it got worse and Norisuke just accepted it as fate. It's definitely something that builds up to their karma of unscrupulous actions that leads to their deaths as they continue to justify it even it leads to more devastating issues on the family, but the initial reasoning and intended future definitely not as bad as typical Jojo baddies doing it for the evulz- making more murky as it did lead to Jobin having a son that ultimately did play a big role in defeating the major cause of their family's misfortune as did Kaato's actions so it balances out even if it's not the typical Jojo miraculous solutions of justice that solved it.
So I finally was able to watch through both Part 1 & now 2 of this series and I've got to say bro, this was fantastic. A wonderful review and retrospective of a part I spent over 5 years reading monthly. You reviews of each chapter were always a highlight and helped me appreciate this series more. Keep up the amazing bro as always!!!!1
2:33:08
This meme summarizes JoJolion so damn well it made the entire series worth making just so it can be inserted into the end
Bravo 10/10 video
Her closing the elevator on that old lady is one of the funniest panels in all of jojos for me
Despite my problems with Jojolion that final page with Yasuho looking back at the remaining family as she leaves still brings tears to my eyes. It may not have been the strongest plotwise or have been the best monthly read but the themes of family and going beyond calamity are done so beautifully that I wouldn't trade it for anything. Great video, my appreciation for the part has definitely grown after watching this retrospective.
God JoJolion pisses me off
I love JoJolion
I miss JoJolion
Excellent video. BUT there is one small problem.
Jobin is not dead. Obviously he will return in Jojolands chapter 11. What you call Cope, I call Hope.
I mean, important thing to note is that parts of JJBA are not written in vacuum and they all somehow connect to each other and Tsurugi is in Jojolion rather young person with a lot of future.
I'm curious if all that crazy stuff happening to him will be explained in Jojolands or hell, even in theoretical part X or some side stories.
I think that the problem with JoJolion doesn't come from people not understanding themes, but from the work not making efforts for readers to actually grasp those themes. Yes, although it is great that authors don't treat readers as children, they must set the field so that the sequences of events actually make sense and the motivations are clearly portrayed (as an example, Valentine does tell his goals; however, the philosophy, themes, and connections are implicit. This makes the reader actually care for Valentine and have a reason to find those implicit aspects). In Go Beyond, there is NOTHING AT ALL that makes the reader feel like Josuke even understands anything about spin then, why is he using Spin at the perfected level that Johnny reached at the end of part 7? You claim he deserves this power because it comes from the combination of the powers of the people he is made of, but this is not earned, this at most would be inherited and this would mean that from then on any offspring would be able to use spin just because.
For Tooru, although we do understand his worldview, why would he even need to kill anyone or engage with anyone in any sense if his motives are related to solitude and not valuing memories or relationships? There is nothing that connects his worldview with his actions and this leads to readers not giving a damn about him, and there is nothing in his actions that convey a life purpose that requires the conflict that was presented.
Personally, nothing excuses JoJolion, and we really need to face the truth that Part 8 was actually a waste of potential.
Also, What Josuke and Tooru represent is very clear (their ideas and their own themes); however, that alone does not make everything make sense. If I show you an entangled wire and a peeled banana, I can claim the entangled wire represents totalitarianism and the peeled banana represents freedom; however, this alone wouldn't make any reader care for an entangled wire and a peeled banana.
Hey man, good job and thank you for making this video, like many I was very disapponted with how Araki ended Jojolion, you video helped me view the manga from another prespective, the thematics, some hidden references, the motivations of Tooru and much more... personally for me Part 8 will still remain one of the weakest Part in all Jojo, with the untapped potential of many of his wonderful characters, but overall it was a fun and interesting manga to read, thanks again for helping with the summerization and the highlighting of moments that if was not for you video I would have forget them.
This was an excellent retrospective, but this made me scared of if/when Jojolion gets animated, it might be a one-to-one adaptation. Inconsistencies, misunderstandings, the flashforward, and all 😅
Yasuho is one of my favorite characters in the entire series, I really related a lot to her the deeper I got into the part as I followed the releases and her personal journey of self-actualization and rising out of the miseries of her past was very gratifying. Paisley Park was very much a reflection of her growth throughout and was one of my favorite powers to think about from the part.
the amount of work put into this video is nothing short of amazing. good fucking job man. this is a perfect send off for the weirdest and most fun part of jojo.
I hope that in the far future, when this is adapted to anime, a lot of changes are made for the better. I know, for the most part, David production has been pretty faithful, but a mix of small and some more substantial changes with new foresight could do WONDERS.
Despite the flaws of Part 8, I really loved reading this part. I had only heard hearsay about it for the last few years but finally binge-read it over like 3 days for Part 9's release. And when those powerful moments hit, they really hit. And Toru and WoU, who I had almost no knowledge on prior, surprisingly became a fast highlight of the part for me. WoU's stand design is by far one of my favorites and the moment Toru started singing and dancing to his own theme music while everyone is crying or screaming or dying at the Household instantly sold me on him.
Excellent video and well worth the wait
It's very ambitious even though there are several points that aren't truly followed up or explored completely, it was still fascinating. Hopefully Part 9 will manage to improve on Part 8's example.
2:19:46 Holy herself has mentioned that even Tamai Damo's group had no idea what purpose they've been actually serving for. She said they were meere dealers who get money and test the fruits on some randoms
ooh should've watched 1 more minute xD
What's interesting to note is that Holy has been under effect of her disease for close to a decade to some extent
So that should've been enough to figure a few things out
Though we never actually saw it
I love jojolion so much, even though it may not have been written perfectly it still is able to get its message across is a beutiful way
I’m surprised during the Go Beyond section, you didn’t mention that it wasn’t just go beyond, but Yasuho using Paisley Park to guide GB to Toru that ended up mortally wounding him.
I feel like that fits perfectly of love going against Toru’s ideology, and it being the thing that defeats him in the end. (Also just a sweet way to tie up Josuke and Yasuho’s romance).
Great video regardless!
13:15- Although with the new game reveal with the voice acting and the unique ability of Wonder of U makes him a very interesting addition to the Jojo main villain roster, it would've been more fascinating for a female main Jojo villain with Kaato, being a morally grey yet in a different flavor than Funny. A what could've been that could've resulted in a possibly engaging climax if it were pursued.
i finished watching this on 3/11! after recently reading Jojolion and this was a good way to recap what a i just experienced.
I believe that Jojolion's misinterpretations are kinda a result of it no longer being a shonen manga, this allows Araki to have a more complex and subtle way of writing. However, a lot of the reader still kinda treat it as the old fashion shonens where the protag and antag lay out their goals and ideology, make Jojolion's finale feel like an "ass pull" and "shallow antagonist".
I disagree because the last part gave up the shonen brand and still told a concise and clear story while JoJolands as of the moment has a clearer goal and intent with the writing
JoJolion is written vaguely and indirect which was its biggest strength early on because of the mystery where it lead to one of the best arcs in the entire series but over time, when the mysteries started to be demystified, araki still chose to write that way and it led to strangeness that is the 2nd part of JoJolion wherein things like Yasuho splitting up and Flash Forward should've been told much more clearer and more direct with their intentions
My thoughts for JoJolion themes completely changed after this video where it went from Dreams vs Experiences to Realism vs Idealism where Realism is bound by logic of this world while Idealism is beyond logic and is what helps us move forward. I'm sad that these two videos have lower views so I'm doing my part by commenting. Favorte part even though it has massive issues
It's interesting because Tooru is driven by goals of a hierarchy that there's supposed to be a logic in this world that everyone should follow disregarding how other peoples feel (reflecting the Rock Human mindset) while Josuke disproves that notion by being a man outside of logic, a man born out of a miracle which couldn't be explained at all which is what led to Calamity being triumped as it's putting down logic on something that exists outside of logic
I always took a lot of the weirdness of Tsurugi's Rock Disease to just be a callback to Chariot Requium, turning the stand against the user in really fucked up ways. Justifying it via Calamity feels like a cop-out, unless Tooru targeted Tsurugi first but we don't see it, but it's by far the only reason i can see it working like that when fucking every other depiction is a more of a straightforward petrification event.
Man, what a video. This is the gold standard for Jojo video essays at this point going forward. Xforts really went beyond on this one ❤
1:15:57
Wasn't the whole point of that misdirection?
If they made the flashforward more apparent, it would cease to be much of a misdirection
But I'd argue it's surprising how we didn't think about this in hindsight because literally the same chapter shows Tsurugi's curse manifesting and we already have seen what that curse does
Though I do actually mostly agree with you on this one
It really was kind of puzzling why it was included
Instead of the final reveal of Tooru being the main villian being flawed, wouldn't the the big reveal be that what was thought to be the main villian, the head doctor, was actually just a stand?
1:14:47 why did Araki give Hato so much MOTION in that panel, god damn 😩
Can you explain all the stands ftom that one series i cant remember the name of? It's the one with Soft & Wet.
I've been awaiting for the second part to this video for a while and it was all worth the wait. I think that what I can appreciate the most, is that through this analysis nothing seems to invalidate anyone's opinions and feelings on aspects of part 8, even when all is contextualized. As an example, while this video certainly is helping me understand the beauty behind the themes behind Tooru and Wonder of U, I don't think I'll ever be able to shake the distaste I have for them.
The analysis is likely spot on, and I find a lot of what has been attempted and conceptualized truly commendable. But I found their execution so catastrophic that I grew resentement towards everything they represented. I don't think I'd ever wished so much that I could rewrite parts of a piece of fiction just to set things right. It truly felt like Wonder of U was rewriting its own rules as Josuke progressively found ways to circumvent them, which I interpreted as a form of power up that the stand never earned, since neither the stand or Tooru were evolving in any significant way shape or form. It simply felt like the stand was cheating, in a way. As for Go Beyond, I really could have gotten behind the idea of "To defeat something that cheats reality, you have to go beyond reality" since I find that when Araki is going profoundly abstract, his ideas are often very stimulating. But here it felt like nothing was any different from usual as far as josuke was concerned.
There was neither an attempt at explaining the unexplainable, nor was there an attempt at showing what can't be shown. It simply happened, as it could have had at any other point. Even if the power behind Tusk Act 4 in itself makes very little sense, it at least does a great job at showing and explaining how the idea germinated inside the mind of the author. Go Beyond in comparison, makes little to no attempt to show how any of it is different from a regular stand attack. It's as if the author had suddenly decided "the hero will now be able to shoot the villain" and thus spoke Araki.
Go Beyond is a miracle, that's the point of it, one that is supposed to oppose Tooru's cold and materialistic logic, it has to be abstract and without a "logical" explanation.
It's like complaining that in the Bible you can't wrap your head around how a guy could turn water into wine, the hole point is that you can't wrap your head around it, it wouldn't be a miracle otherwise.
@@doublel1503 it is a miracle in the same sense that Josuke's fusion is a miracle. But in the case of the fusion, you have clear visual indications of said miracle, an actor for said miracle (the ground they were buried under.) as well as a rough idea of what the process may have looked like. You could somewhat see the miracle of their fusion like grafting a branch. But Go Beyond has none of that. It lacks in style, effect, and execution. Some could say it's all balls but no cock.
@@SinderSoyl But, the miracle that gave birth to Josuke is the same one that gave birth to Go Beyond, Go Beyond has been there since the beginning as we can see in the first chapter, Josuke just wasn't aware of it's existence. They are both part of the cure that was brought into the world by fate to stop calamity. They are not to separate events, they are parts of the same process, that's why we get a flashback of Josefumi and Kira about to fuse during the reveal of Go Beyond.
Personally if I were to add more about Tooru, I would have probably added something regarding the nature of Rock Humans. Not the ones we've encountered, but rather Rock humans that are living normal lives. As the nature of Rock Humans is to take over an identity of a person, but what if those Rock Humans were actually dedicated on the people they were replacing. In a way where they grew to love the lives they now had and effectively accepted their new lives, but perhaps Tooru could have viewed it as 'giving up' or 'accepting mediocraty. Thus morivating Tooru wanting to do the opposite and recruit like minded Rock Humams to achieve power rather than comfort.
We got a little bit of that with Aisho and Dolomite, that they cared about their human partner before getting fuckced by circunstances wich made them go back into the regular behaviour of their species.
It would have been cool if it was revealed that Tooru was somehow responsable for those situations (maybe using a mind controling rock-insect for Aisho's girl and WoU for Dolomite's) in order to keep them in line.
Thank you for all of your hard work in putting together this awesome retrospective!
Like a lot of western JoJo fans, JoJolion was my first time reading a part as it was ongoing. I actually caught up right around the start of Urban Guerilla, aka when a lot of the big criticisms started popping up within the community. I think the resulting discourse we saw in the part's final years is just an inherent aspect of any fandom's relationship with a work that's incomplete; you aren't sure where things are going, you make theories and have hopes and ideas, and it can be hard to avoid unfairly putting those expectations on the work/the author. My point being, I think a lot of us got swept up in the negatives and the inconsistencies, the could-have-beens, that the overall thematic beauty of the part got a little lost in it all.
My opinion on Wonder of U as an arc has become more positive over time and with new rereads, but initially the ending of that fight left me unsatisfied. And a lot of those criticisms I still stand by, but when I read that final chapter it hit me like a ton of bricks and I bawled my eyes out. All of the gripes left my mind in the face of such a great thematic conclusion. And this retrospective series really helped me, as I hope it does for others, remember JoJolion for all of its positives, because they greatly outway the negatives imo
Time for calamity!
1:39:06
I see it as the same thing that was in the Rohan Louvre story / Mochizuku family moonviewing TSRK chapter (also that was mentioned in the Yasuho's monologue during 1st chapter)
There's no such a thing as rock "disease", it's simply a bad karma that was craved into each current and future member of the family by their ancestors
"Tooru is the villain of all time" Lmao
FINALLY! Been looking forward to this one for a while. Late Part 8 was such a love hate relationship for me, can’t wait to see what you think of it
26:56 WHAT?!?
46:52- this is JoJo's long standing trope of the villain of the week style of enemies always needing to attack during their time to shine works against the narrative for this half of the story.
Rather than play the long game and retrieve it to get the mental upper hand on the heroes to have the advantage for the arc to make more satisfying when the tables are turned, they essentially brute force into getting results and predictably fail when the heroes do their usual miraculous turnaround, forcing the main bad having to clean up for them to get their results nearly completed. Esidisi partially averts this in Part 2, but only after losing his body, forcing him to be crafty in getting the larger objective achieved, only to foiled by Kars' incompetence.
It's never a problem in the previous parts that are usually the big bad throwing killers to just kill the heroes and it looks like Part 9 is returning to form.
i hope this video serves as a baseline for future jojolion discussions
Couldn't agree more. People regularly are looking at specific boxes that need to be checked in order to enjoy something instead of viewing the art on its own merits. Not to say that they shouldn't criticize but they should atleast acknowledge where the artist is coming from and not immediately reject everything about it.
Just to make sure I understand you. Are you saying that Toru & wonder of u aren't 'true' to the core of surrealism and act more as attempts to be surreal.
If so I was considering the same thing, it's strange how WoU has connections to surrealism which is described as overcoming logic despite its general ability is to utilize logic; this could add to the relationship between Josuke and WoU as WoU, despite appearing to surreal i.e. overcoming logic still has its ability be based in logic (manipulating the flow of calamity) while josuke has completely overcome logic with his go beyond
Genuinely I feel like, when the stand like energy is shown is the panels when Josuke is staring downward at the head doctor in the stairwell that thats Wonder of U’s ability activating to directly mark Josuke in the flow of calamity at that moment
The connection to Wonder of U and surrealism is my favourite analysis of this stand that I've seen so far! I think it really show's Araki's progression and experimentation as an author/artist (and auteur overall!) He's always trying something new and you gotta respect that from someone who's been working on Jojo since the 80s 👏👏
I literally just rewatched the first part for like the fifth time and was like "damn i can't WAIT for pt2" thank youuu for reading my mind
Absolute masterpiece of a retrospective so I'm leaving more comments as I watch 🤣 I love how you pointed out the parallel between SBR's fatherhood themes and motherhood in jojolion!!! I've always found the themes of family and lineage to be such a unique aspect of jjba and I'm excited to see how jojolands expands on this with the siblings dynamic 🥰
i hope in the anime adaptation tooru is added to a lot of these scenes that dont make sense or maybe the wonder of u, maybe as damo is fighting the higasikatas he notices wou standing outside the house, or perhaps tooru walks by the window, when they're interrogating dolomite the wonder of you is barely visible between the trees, etc etc. not only would it be incredibly funny but it would also work to make the rock docs feel like there was a reason they knew.
40:50
Obviously because yasuho is such a reliable gal.
Rejoice the 8 jojolion fans
hell yeah give me 20 minutes of talking about surrealism lesgooooo
I will pay you outside of donating you do this fir part 7. Thank you for putting so much effort into these.
Whoever did the opening animation is incredible too
1:08:48 actually in the bible beside the tree of knowledge of good and evil there is also mentions of tree of life in the garden of eden, and it's says that if one would eat of this fruit he would live forever, and there are discussions among scholars if both trees are actually the same tree
Bro more than 2h rétrospective on jojolion ? You made my day man. Works gonna be easy today ! Thanks fot the hard work you put in these video !
I realize that not all the parts are as long or substantive as part 8, but I'd love for you to give your in-depth thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of the other parts as well. JoJolion is definitely much more divisive and ofc newer than all of the other parts, so there's less of a common consensus as to what value it brings to the table, thus feeling more fitting for this sort of thing, but you always pose such nuanced and insightful takes regarding this series and I'd love to hear your more or less comprehensive thoughts on everything at some point or another. Even if we never get that though, this retrospective has been a treat and has even opened my eyes to certain aspects of the part which i hadn't previously considered. Wonderful work !
Loved this
I have a lot of issues with JoJolion but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and this video was a wonderful watch. I particularly enjoyed your discussion about WOU's ties to surrealist art
My personal theory with Jojolion's writing is that I feel that COVID was a personal calamity to Araki and made him change the arc due to how he felt with the events of the time. Especially with how Araki lamented about COVID disrupting his life in his author's notes and through Rohan in Hot Summer Martha. So it probably has had an effect on the writing.
As for the video itself, I really like the discussion of surrealism with Wonder of U and it is really interesting. Though while Wonder of U is a cool stand with a lot of meaning with it, the arc still was not that good to me with the plot points that went nowhere, Tooru being not the most compelling villain, and how various characters were handled like Caato and Kei.
This video does a really excellent job showing the best and worst of the second half of Jojolion. Where there were concepts that were either executed in an interesting way, missed the landing, or was just wasted potential.
Maybe Jobin/Kaato should have been the main villain. I love Wonder of U but Tooru doesn't really feel like the main villain unlike those two
I think, ultimately, Araki just didn't know what he wanted to do with JoJolion, even all the way up to the end.
It's extremely telling that the Part's issues begin to multiply and intersect after the Damo climax, which resolved Josuke's singular motivation. The number of dropped ideas, disruptive character shifts and messy writing is too much to ignore and unfortunately significantly more prevalent here than in any other Part, despite its early promise of being even more well-considered and dense than Steel Ball Run. The fact that Araki couldn't commit to the flash-forward, which happened just before the final arcs of the story, is the smoking gun. Even that far in, he was still changing his mind about *critical story beats.*
For me personally, I remember always thinking that the New Locacaca struggle was leading to something else, I never once considered it to be the end goal of the Part. Its value was never properly communicated in the way the Corpse Parts were (especially not any possible religious theming), and the Rock Humans' goals for the New Locacaca never explicitly stated except in a hypothetical sense by unrelated characters. Much of the symbolism and the Part's broader themes are obscured and referenced only briefly and sparsely, which makes it extremely easy to overlook or forget, especially during JoJolion's decade-long publication. So this years-long back-and-forth about this damn fruit just felt like the Part was spinning its wheels. The Wonder of U was the worst of this, taking up nearly an entire quarter of the part for what was essentially just a very long chase sequence.
So fitting that I finished this on 3/11
This is cinema! Appreciate all you do
I think the one thing that bothers me about Go Beyond is not that it doesn't make sense because I'm simply "not reading the deeper meaning" but that narratively and within the guidelines set up by the story, it isnt made clear at all how it can both exist and not exist, when the bubble is an existing property just like the spin as it is a naturally described force. It feels like cheating to just go "oh yeah it goes through anything even the unstoppable existence of WoU." At least there was some kind of suspension of disbelief that Johnny could generate through some perfected movement of nature a "perfect attack" that could not be blocked by anything, even an impenetrable shield like valentine's, because they both existed within the same material plain, whereas WoU argues that it is outside of the realm of reason and therefore can't be harmed, yet is harmed by an invisible bubble because it just can
I would say this is better explained when we understand how spin manifests
Understand that every rendition of spin we have seen has been mediated by a pHYsical object
We have seen everything from corks, balls, finger and toe nails, etc spin
The commonality here is that objects are being infused with the property of spin, rotation given form
What we see with Josuke is taking the limit of that medium
By having his strings which spin be infinetesimally thin, the spin is still bounded yet unbounded
It's bounded to an object but the tangible reality of that object is limiting to intangibility
This essentially delocalizes the spin, stripping it from the object
All that's left then is spin, pure and unadulterated spin
We have sorta seen what this reason driven to its breakpoint looks like
The bubble can pass through objects without hurting them but also erode them at the same time
It's like an attack unbound from the logic of reality, with the only thing felt in this reality being spin
Just like Johnny'z act 4 pushes the limit of the spin on an object, Josuke's bubbles pushes the limit of the object which spins, a perfect mirror
Infinite spin
Infinitesimal object
On a personal note, I think that Johnny's spin makes somewhat less sense
Because Act 3 was already supposed to be infinite, so I'm not sure what the horse could possibly provide
But even then, I think it's too easy?
I mean, is throwing a ball using the stirrups of a horse for resonance effect really that difficult for people that have supposedly honed this skill for generations?
Surely multiple people would've learnt this right? But GYRo treats this as an untested HYpotHetical
I think the super spin of act 4 creates more lore/world building problems than Go Beyond
@@it6647 Idk I'm more inclined to believe the super spin and the way its described. I always perceived the necessity the horse provides as as secondary "generator" of sorts for the spin as it strides in the perfect golden ratio, to then power up Johnny's shot even more. Thinking of it like a toy soldier, the horse is the crank on the back that winds it up. Except instead of just letting go and it going until it fizzles out, the spin, well, spins, in the perfect way to keep it spinning, kind of like if you could apply self sustaining energy through its own force. That way it is truly an infinite spin, one that has no end because there's too much force behind it to allow it to naturally stop, and because nothing it comes into contact with it has the friction needed to actually stop it.
As for Josuke, it just still doesn't make any sense how it can exist and not exist. If it's invisible, it still exists. If it doesn't exist, then logically it cannot harm you. And if it exists outside of logic, well that just doesn't make sense, and thus is the definition of an asspull. Not to mention at least from a character standpoint, Johnny had to earn his way up to that point by mastering the spin over the entire part. Josuke just remembers he popped a bubble out of his shoulder after unconsciously using spin the whole part, and then suddenly knows how to use it to the degree of mastery over it despite not being aware of it at all. You can explain why a fight happens a certain way for the sake of narrative purposes, but you still need an actual in universe reasoning for it to make any sense at all
I would LOVE a video series like this for steel ball run
Steel ball run has plenty of videos like this bru, plus it’s the most popular jojo part
Goddamn. Let JoJolion shine for once
Heck, for all the parts of JoJo's
I have to rewatch the first part it has been so long since I reas and watched it.
Go Beyond changed fate - therefore changing time
Okay so if you wanna kind of justify it with a stretch, the doctors MAAAAAAAY have found out about Josuke when he came to visit his mother after they thought he was dead if they were connected to Damokan (and I believe they are), isn’t record of visitation usually logged somewhere, especially in a super advanced ward like Holly was in? And Wu was probably administering the “treatments” to Holly so he may have seen records of his visit since the group probably exerts high amounts of control over everything about that particular part of the hospital so they can run their experiments.
If they found out about Josuke because of his hospital visit and started trailing him it COULD POSSIBLY MAYBE KINDA SORTA make sense. Perhaps.
That's the main problem of JoJolion, nothing is told explicitly and clearly and Araki knew this which is why theres a boat load of explanations over certain topics like the Loca and Calamity. This worked for early JJL (Orange scene best scene in the entire series) but this style of writing suffered long term and readers have to justify certain things in order for it to work just like this one
Still my favorite part
what fucking cake did he choose
Im sure Hamon Beat could rationalize every single criticism that it was carefully set up and makes perfect sense in context, as thats usually what he does. His next video on JoJolion is gonna be fun, when people flood his comments with questions raised by this very video
While I do think Hamon Beat has done wonders for the community, and general jojo misinformation he also has a proclivity to sometimes willfully ignore things to defend Araki. For example in his JoJolion Araki Forgot he writes off the flash forward as making perfect sense in context, while pretty much disregarding the harvest timer, faded panels not always being time changes, why Tsurugi went to the roof, why he was using his stand, why the family would send Tsurugi, etc...
@@xForts I do agree. Im definetly interested in his point of view of those critcisms as people are definetly gonna bring them up in his comments. No shade to him, Im genuinely interested as he usually tries to find sense in everything
Throughout reading Jojolion, I could never stop being impressed by how over-the-top Joshu's degeneracy is.
This video misrepresents so many aspects of Jojolion’s writing. Just because you don’t get some of the story beats does not make it bad writing.
Care to give some examples. Not judging you, just want to hear what you mean.
I would love to read a few examples as a JoJoLion fan
didnt realise this released sorry for not watching it earlier
How anyone can say Part 8 is one of the best Jojo arlfter seeing a video like this is honestly baffling to me. Everything that makes up the final arc is a complete mess
Restrospectives are great! Happy holidays! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
Man, I love Jojo but Part 8 really went to shit on the second half. I don’t think any other part has so many loose ends and unsatisfying conclusions and character arcs.
I think it'd be cool if a good Rock Human shows up in JoJoLands
I just wish the Higashikata family did more.
Kudos to the best character in the story - The flashback man.
I still have no idea who he is.
My immediate go to comparison for Tooru and Wonder of U is Diavolo and King Crimson, more specifically with how the stand was the villain’s identity more so than the actual person, if that makes sense
The reason I watch this channel is because you point out the less obvious plots of Jojo. I am simple minded so even tho I agree with your criticism completely I really like the power he exhibited, he was fighting a family of Stand Users all at once and up until Go Beyond, Toruu had the upper hand. He was calm through out 90% of the fight in a way a lot of villains in Jojo haven’t been. It felt like instead of having overconfidence he had faith in calamity. Which makes him stand out to me. Every other villain knew to be aware or careful with other Jojos , Kira hiding from Josuke after his first encounter, Dio fearing Jonathan and Jotaro using techniques that counter them, Pucci being the most cautious antagonist in my opinion, and President Valentine still being careful with how he uses his stand because even tho he is hard to kill it is not impossible and he strategizes. Toruu felt like an impossible obstacle that would require a miracle and unluckily for Toruu that’s exactly was Josuke is
2:19:45
The way it was phrased in that chapter is that Holly built a lab about the fruit(but this was years ago so not even sure whether Yoshikage was aware of his mother's research)
However we know that she failed her research
We don't know how exactly she got her hands on Locacaca to begin with, which makes me wonder whether she had much of it at all
So what I think is likely is that she might've discovered some incident involving a Locacaca and tried to research it without having much of it
Once the rock humans took over, Kira had no other options but to scheme against them and steal a branch(I mean the odds ain't exactly in his favor considering that a single rock human is all that it took to almost kill both of them)
LOVE this! You're amazing man🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤
Here's an idea that might explain how the doctors found out, Blue Hawaii is not exactly subtle, perhaps Urban Gorilla saw him fighting and causing a Compton and was spying on HIM, when Joskae showed up, and he overheard the conversation.