jojo’s bizarre adventure 1
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Yet another happy-go-lucky dime-a-dozen coming-of-age slice-of-life series with harem elements. Except this one has a dog.
No. And the dog dies. I don’t know much about JoJo series outside of their Capcom game, but I can say this: It’s the cure for all the K-On! clones and whiny teenager with superpowers permeating the past few seasons (and this one). It’s manly man doing fisticuffs.
Il buono: There can be no better staff for this show short of having Ah-naud voice Dio for the English dub. This show is David Production’s second full show, and there’s probably no better way to follow up a Bento brawl than with a show about brawling for no reason. Okay, maybe there is some reason for Dio, but, let’s face it, the show just boils down to manly man doing manly man things.
Il brutto: The pacing. Ugh. If I become Anime Czar, my first goal would be to fix episode 1’s. The pacing for most of the initial episodes are crap and poop and shit. Do we really need to shoehorn every chapter 1 into episode 1 when obviously there’s too much stuff going on to do so? More shows need to follow Fate/Zero and go with a double episode approach. But a lot happens this one episode, and I needed time to digest it: Mom dies, dude dies, evil bro moves in, dog dies, young romance, light music club formed– these things take time. Let it breath. Unless we’re trying to cram 107 volumes of manga into 13 episodes, which is entirely possible in this day and age.
Il cattivo: From what I understand, the scene between Erina and Dio was more brutal in the manga. That’s okay as this 2012 anime version already gave me flashbacks to Rob Roy, which preceded Taken by 15 years yet has a similar plot, except much more extreme than just a daughter being taken hostage. “Liam Neeson already played an action hero in search for revenge in Rob Roy!!!” People have short memory. Anyway, there’s only fractionally less men on women violence in this show than in To Love Ru Darkness.
So basically Dio was treated terribly, hence why he treats everyone terribly now. But, then again, after thinking about it more, does he troll Jojo any differently than how Mariya trolls Kanako? I mean, okay, there’s slightly less hostile intent from Mariya, but, otherwise, they both inflict as much physical and emotional pain on their victim. Just that in Maria Holic, the torture is more paced and spaced out and done for hilarity rather than impetus for fisticuffs.
Let’s just say that violence, manga sound effects, and emo facial distortions are abundant.
The animation looks really bad at times. I understand the show is going for a more manga-ish feel, but sometimes it just looks like cardboard cutouts moving around. David Productions need to step up their game for this show as, unlike Bento, they cannot hide poor animation behind Orthos thigh meat. At the very least, I am expecting Bento-levels of animation for said fisticuffs.
I am interested in seeing where this series is going, but I hope it’s not just a formula of Dio coming up with new ways to torment Jojo and Jojo overcoming it. Basically, the Pokemon plot treadmill.
4 Responses to “jojo’s bizarre adventure 1”
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Speaking of short memories: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Production
aka not David Pro’s second full show.
Jason, FYI they crammed a whole FIVE chapters in the first episode.
But I understand why they did so. In the beginning, Jojo is Candy Candy with fisticuffs. They probably didn’t want to alienate the non-manga readers with thinking that this is a period drama.
I expect the pace to be slower for the next episode.
It’s going to be 26 episodes. They are trying to cover the two first generations of JoJo if I recall right. And if we are lucky, there is the possibility that they uses the voice cast from the upcoming game. This may mean, Tomokazu Sugita, aka Kyon, as the second JoJo. Possibly.
I remember watching the OVAs back in the 90’s. Needless to say, I was shocked when I heard this was coming out. Overall, I found the show rather mediocre. In fact, I almost crossed it off my watch list until I heard the ending. That, I really wasn’t expecting.