SynthwaveCrusade

JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 4: Diamond wa Kudakenai, the 4th part of Hirohiko Araki's iconic manga series. After the most iconic manga series of all-time, stardust crusaders, what can you do? Well, you make the greatest bit of media to even scrape the heavens. [story-10/10] Jojo part 4 takes us to the sleepy town of Morioh Japan, we follow part 3's protagonist Jotaro Kujo, Jotaro is looking for Josuke Higashikata, son of Joseph Joestar, of course Jotaro is here to talk about splitting the cash when Joseph dies, and also here on official business about a murder and the stand arrows, Jotaro meets Josuke andthus our journey starts. Now to be fair part 4 starts slow, really slow, the first 15 so episodes are dedicated to exploring Morioh and expanding the cast of characters while building up to the main event with episode 17, Rohan Kishibe's Adventure and the introduction to Kira Yoshikage and Sugimoto Reimi, everything after episode 17 is what I consider the greatest piece of television, I absolutely love this part of the story and especially the Bites The Dust arc, JoJo part 4 has the hands down best story of any Jojo part. [Art-7-10] Why a seven? Well in the manga, Araki's art is flawless and is some of the greatest in the series to date, part 4 also marks a shift in Araki's manly art style of parts 1-3 to the more effeminate designs of part 5 and onwards, However, part 4's anime has some of the sloppiest animation and many character don't stay on model, this can be seen in the infamous Shinobu Kawajiri and Kosaku (Kira Yoshikage) Kawajiri scene, also Kira's model is often times off, there are also many issues with the animation, but this is made up for in the anime with the amazing still character shots that look absolutely beautiful, although there are many flaws they can be overlooked, also sometimes the animation has moments of sakuga, albeit the animation can also be very janky. [sound-8/10] The Ost is AMAZING. The best JoJo Ost to date, it has some of my favourite sound tracks, such as the incredible theme of Kira Yoshikage, which blended with the visuals is thematically fitting for kira and also a greatly composed piece, The openings are incredible, "Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town", "Chase" and "Great Days" are some of the best anime openings to date, there packed with subtle foreshadowing, metaphors and references, the ending "I want you" by savage garden, classic Australian pop/rock band and one of my favourite songs of all time. The VA work was incredible, the Voices of Jotaro Kujo (Daisuke Ona) and Josuke Higahsikata (Yuuki Ona) were phenomenal, of course I loved the voices of Kira (Morikawa Toshiyuki) and Kishibe Rohan (Takahiro Sakurai) as well as others. [Characters-10/10] easily my favourite in the entire series, seeing fresh faces such as Josuke, Okuyasu and Koichi was nice while also adding onto our veteran cast such as Jotaro and Joseph, seeing Josephs transition from street smart punk, to battle hardened veteran and eventually to loving caring grandfather and father, its bittersweet seeing his progression as a character, Jotaro turns from a brash and rude teenager, to a mentor and father figure. The new characters are great Josuke is the love child to Joseph and Tomoko, he's brash, quick witted, but passionate and kind hearted, he is one of the best Jojo's in the series, Second best JoBro Okuyasu Nijimura, is fun, loveable and dumb as shit, like Josuke, he acts more on Passion then Witt, and its also fun seeing him solve problems using brawn over intellect, of course the rest of the supporting cast is great, characters such as Rohan Kishibe, Koichi Hirose and especially Kira Yoshikage, Kira's desire to live his peaceful life is a breathe of fresh air compared to the world changing ideologies of Dio and Kars, Kira wants to live life doing what he loves as he pleases, his ideology of "why be first when you could be second?" is so contradictory to humans and is so interesting to me, everything about him is normal, until you count in the fact that he's a vicious serial killer who kills women for there hands using his stand "KILLER QUEEN", and during his time as Kosuku, I even sympathised with him, as Araki humanises him. Characters were fantastic. [Stand Powers-10/10] part 4 has some great stands "Killer Queen Bites The Dust" made one of the greatest arcs in Shonen anime history, 'Crazy Diamonds" is simple yet brilliant, I could list all of the phenomenal stands from this part (Echoes, Enigma, The hand, Star Platinum, Heavens Door etc), but if there's one thing unique about the stands of part 4, its the shift from tarot cards to the new way of naming stands, iconic 80's rock bands, albums and songs. Some of the best stands and some fo the most creative ideas in JoJo. [Enjoyment-10/10] Part 4 is fun as fuck! It's funny, action packed and most of all, engaging, I was never bored once, it keeps on the edge of your seat from start to finish. [overall-10/10] an essential viewing for any JoJo fan and a great introduction for new comers, it has mainstream ideas that anyone can enjoy while having enough to provide high end anime enthusiasts or Elitists with enough to dig their teeth into.

AshitaNoJonas

David Production was hardly a household name in the otaku community a few years ago. However, everything changed when the fire nation attacked...I mean when they released their JoJo's Bizarre Adventure adaptation in 2012! While the budget was pretty low, David Production blew the community away with their attention to detail and loyalty to the source material and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable is no exception to this. JoJo Part 4 tells the story of Josuke Higashikata, Josephs's illegitimate son. In Josuke's home town Morioh someone used a magical bow and arrow to transform normal people into Stand users. This time we getto know a little bit more about the origin of the Stand abilities, which has something to do with these arrows. Of course, Josuke and his friends have to stop them. Most of the time they just encounter random enemies, but later they try to find out the identity of a certain someone with an especially dangerous Stand who is living in Morioh, who is the main focus of the second half of this story arc. This person is committing gruesome murders for several years but was never caught, so it's up to JoJo and his pals to stop him. The reason why this plot works so much better than Part 3's, is because it feels much more natural. In Stardust Crusader, the plot felt very video game-ish, but in Part 4 fighting Stand users is more of a daily routine and not part of a journey to save the world or something. Araki successfully mixed Part 3's semi-episodic structure with some slice-of-life elements. Since they never leave their hometown, there is also a lot of attention to the city Morioh itself, almost like the city is it's own character. I wouldn't go so far as call it "world building", but all these little things about Morioh + the recurring places definitely give this arc its own flavor and identity compared to the rest of JJBA. Most enemies they fight turn into friends later on or are at least somewhat relevant for the plot later. This causes the team of allies to be very large, almost twice the size of Part 3's. However the last third of the show has very similar issues as Stardust Crusaders (TOO obvious monster of the week) and some episodes are obviously more exciting than others, but in the end, Part 4 feels much more tightly written than it's predecessor. The characters are great in Diamond is unbreakable! Almost all of them are interesting and their interactions are super entertaining. Of the 4 JoJos that are introduced at this point, Part 4's main character Josuke is probably the most interesting. He is introduced as a polite delinquent, but he gets series when it comes to his hair: when someone insults it, the person gets his ass kicked! This is pretty much Josuke's thing. Joseph had his predicting thing, Jotaro his "yare yare daze" and Josuke has his hair thing. There is even a little flashback about why he is so sensitive about his hair in the first place. He doesn't use it as much as Joseph and Jotaro though and his tick is pretty much dropped later on and his flashback never received any further explanation, but it was still a nice touch. The main villain of Part 4, Yoshikage Kira, is also great. He is not as "EPIC" as Dio, but he is very memorable in his own way. Unlike Dio, who was more of a cartoon villain (wants to take over the world etc) Kira just wants to commit murders without being disturbed by other people. He doesn't want world domination or anything like that, just a quiet and peaceful life. Unlike Dio or Kars, Kira feels like a person who could actually exist in real life, which makes him legitimately scary. The final battle against him was a little messy and the way he died was pretty anti-climatic, but I guess that made sense in this context and setting, since Kira is a more of a realistic villain. The fight was still exciting nonetheless and the way they used their Stands was pretty creative. As you would expect from JoJo, the fights are awesome. The Stands are much more creative than in the previous story arc and they are used in very creative ways. You can really tell how much Araki improved the fighting mechanic in this arc. This is probably the most bizarre aspect of Part 4: melting bodies together, turning people into books or trapping people in a time loop; these are just a few examples of the crazy abilities. There were even new types of Stands introduced: automatic Stands and Stands that evolve into a more powerful form over time. Sadly DiU is much less "GAR" and manly that the previous parts. The characters are also not nearly as buff anymore. This was around the time when the mangaka started to change up his art style. David Production chose to make the whole arc look more like the second half the DiU manga, instead of having this (admittedly awkward) transition from bulky to skinny. Similar to the earlier seasons of JoJo, the animation looks very low-budget at times. However, David Production makes up for that with a unique art style, great use of color and lots of crazy effects. In the end, it's a very nice-looking anime, despite some derpy faces and low-quality character models here and there (they'll be probably fixing these things until the Bluy-Ray release anyway). The soundtrack however was a bit less memorable than in previous parts, but I guess that's a matter of preference. I like how they remixed Jotaro's theme from Part 3 and the way they mixed up the opening theme in the last couple of episodes was really creative. In conclusion, Part 4 has all the bizarre action, manly tears and likable characters that you would expect from this series and it even improves quite a bit on some of the flaws in Stardust Crusaders. How do I say this...? It's a bit crude, but...hehe...I got a boner! Final rating: Characters: 9/10 Story: 7/10 General production value: 7,5/10 Enjoyment: 10/10 Overall: 9/10