Anime update: Yare yare daze...

I am now twelve episodes away from the finale of Victory Gundam, and I plan to simply follow that through to the end before revisiting From the New World. While Victory Gundam does present some strikingly aged storytelling devices and animation aspects, I feel it holds up overall better than most old Gundam series. So far there has only been one major moment where I rolled my eyes at a particular character’s behavior, and though there are some cheesy bits here and there from Uso and gang, the fact that this story is centered on what is effectively a group of child soldiers engaging in guerrilla-tactic warfare lends the whole thing to carry a dark and serious air about it. The body count for characters that see some actual development is notably high here, but even with the more adult nature of the themes at play in Victory Gundam, it doesn’t stop the anime from being a fun watch.

I’m also now two episodes into Stardust Crusaders, the second season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Obviously everything presented thus far has been in the interest of setting the stage for what is to come, but season two did not kick off to quite as big a bang as season one. Part of that is due, I think, to the fact that viewers are already familiar with Joseph Joestar and Dio Brando, and even Jotaro Kujo was teased briefly at the end of season one. I’m not particularly hot on the new animation style. It doesn’t look poor by any stretch of the imagination, and technically it probably is a step up in quality from that of season one. But in terms of aesthetics, I much prefer to look of season one. Perhaps I will come to appreciate it more when the Stands start duking it out on a grander scale. If nothing else, it is a nice little nod to the ever-changing art style of the manga (which I intend to read more of after Stardust Crusaders has concluded).

Beyond that, the next major anime viewing I have on the to-do list is the final episode of Unicorn Gundam, which airs next month. The most recent trailer sure highlighted a lot of major plot points – more than I had expected, in fact. But given that this final entry is reported to have an hour-and-a-half runtime, there is a pretty good chance that all the currently revealed info and footage is merely the tip of the iceberg. Unicorn Gundam has had an incredible run, and is one of the few recent anime I’ve followed from start to finish as it was airing – that used to be a habit of mine back in the days of Toonami, obviously, but these days I find it generally more convenient to simply wait until an anime has finished airing to start my viewing of it. With Stardust Crusaders, however, I intend to keep up with new episodes as they are released.

The Wolf Among Us journal - entry three

Similar in length to the second installment, episode three, titled ‘A Crooked Mile’, effectively plays a dual role. The first half is a direct continuation of the events of episode two, picking up with Crane’s sudden absence and Bigby furiously trying to figure out just how involved the acting mayor is in the string of dark events which have fallen upon Fabletown. ‘A Crooked Mile’ is less about exploring the fantasy nature and history of the fables themselves, opting instead to hone in on a few key characters to progress the story. Toad is absent from this episode entirely, while Grendel, the Woodsman, and Georgie all take side seats to grant Bigby, Snow White, Bluebeard, and a couple new characters more time in the spotlight.

There is also a sense throughout the first half of episode three that Telltale wants to wrap up a couple plot lines that ran through the previous episodes. This is welcome, as the plotlines in question were really only ever present to set the stage for larger things to come, something very much evidenced by the way episode three concludes. New faces and tense situations seem to imply much is in store from episode four, and the fact that episode three ends with such a bang should place plenty of pressure on Telltale to make the fourth entry just as good.

Anime review: MS Igloo 2: The Gravity of the Battlefront

Intended to be a follow-up to the original MS Igloo stories, MS Igloo 2: The Gravity of the Battlefront (or the more simply stated, The Gravity Front, depending on your interpretation) opts to focus on the everyman within the Federation soldiers on Earth. This leads to a distinctly different storytelling method than the original MS Igloo’s focus on experimental technologies that the Zeon forces dabbled in over the course of the One Year War. In fact, MS Igloo 2 seems to teeter back and forth between weaving a tale of individuals wrapped up in ragtag units ala 08th Ms Team and adopting a sort of military journal format.

Each episode focuses on a different protagonist, but the routine is the same – there is always a character who has some bad reputation for carrying death in their wake, and by the end of each episode, there will be plenty of death and destruction. The problem with this approach is that by the end of the first episode, you already know how the other two will play out. The beginning, middle, and end of these stories are practically identical, despite the fact that they zoom in on pilots of different Federation vehicles.

The greatest offense MS Igloo 2 commits, however, is that it incorporates a literal ghost, a female phantom who is the physical manifestation and/or cause of all these characters’ bad luck. In the end, you more or less come to forget about what battles the characters were involved in because the heavy reliance on this hokey horror element is so out-of-place within the Gundam franchise. Sure, Sanders was rumored to be cursed in episodes of 08th MS Team, but that resulted in a presentation that was purely his own stress and self-doubt. There was never a spook following him around, and that is because spirits and specters don’t work well at all within the mecha genre, let alone one with such longstanding traditions as Gundam.

If there is one Gundam series that feels the result of a blatantly half-assed effort, it is MS Igloo 2. There is barely any reason to care about the characters or story, and the ‘creative elements' are just plain stupid. The quality of the CGI may be notably higher than the previous entries in the MS Igloo OVA series, and the motions of both humans and mobile suits are more fluid and lifelike. You can polish a turd all you want, but it doesn’t make it any less of a turd.

My rating: 4.75 (out of 10)

Anime review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Prior to my viewing of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I had heard it described as offering to the magical girl genre what Neon Genesis Evangelion offered to mecha anime. I went in almost completely blind, knowing only a few bits of what was to come along with the plot of the show. At twelve episodes, Madoka does surprisingly well with its pacing, and covers all the necessary information within its allotted runtime. It also maintains an air of intrigue about it by consistently layering the complexity of what it means to become a magical girl. In the end, this anime does remind me of Neon Genesis Evangelion to a degree – the two deal with notably different themes, but both tackle genres that viewers have become some familiar with, so comfortable with the classic character themes and plot points therein, and opts to turn all of that on its head.

The initial premise of the first episode is quite consistent with most magical girl anime. The opening is impactful and provides a small taste of what is to come, but the routine of Madoka and her good friend Sayaka going to school, talking to their friends, and predicting when their teacher’s latest romantic breakup will be is exceptionally normal. It is the point when Madoka and Sayaka meet the new transfer student, Homura, that the story is truly set in motion. Madoka is warned in private by Homura that she should not abandon her friends, her family, the comfortable mundane life she currently has. While Homura does not come right out and say it during their first encounter, it soon becomes apparent that she wants to prevent Madoka from becoming a magical girl at any cost, despite the attempts of a cat-like creature named Kyubey to sway Madoka and Sayaka to making a contract with him. While Homura’s story is the last of the main characters to be fully realized, it is abundantly clear early on in the series that she is privy to information the rest of the characters are not.

There are five major magical girls who, alongside Kyubey, make up the main cast. Madoka is the central figure, and it is through her eyes that we, the viewers, are seeing the events that unfold. She believes herself very normal, very unexciting, and this sense of being exceptionally unexceptional is what leads her to question her own motives and character traits multiple times over the course of the series. Sayaka is more of a go-getter, and as Madoka’s close friend, she constant tries to perform helpful deeds to friends and loved ones. She is possibly more innocent than Madoka even, and her good nature goes at odds with Kyoko, an aggressive and somewhat selfish magical girl who is introduced around the halfway point of the series. Mami sees the least development of the lot, but is the means through which Madoka and Sayaka are directly exposed to the realm of magical girls and accompanies them on their first few witch hunts. Homura, being an enigma until late in the story, is largely an accessory to the other magical girls, intervening in their work and offering key information when necessary.

The animation throughout is incredible, and the show appears to have a higher production quality than most anime in this day and age. One of the real standout elements of this series comes in the form of the witch labyrinths the girls must traverse. These twisted fairy-tale-esque areas appear out of ripples in perceived reality, and each is represented as a collage of magazine photos pasted together. The jerky motions of the witches’ minions and the obscure yet highly creative designs of the witches themselves creates a series of unsettling environments that I simply couldn’t help but look forward to the next iteration of, due to the unique overarching motif each labyrinth exhibits. The soundtrack is decidedly melancholy on the whole, opting for a number of softer string instruments and piano parts, while the tense mood of battle themes do well to complement the dangerous and crazy environments where the witches are encountered, many of which appear as something of a classical European culture fever dream.

In truth, Madoka reminds me a lot of the Watchmen graphic novel, in the sense that it provides a more brutally honest and in-depth look at what ramifications taking up the mantle of being a magical would have on an individual – not only the tradeoffs and sacrifices they must make to gain such immense mystical powers, but also the psychological and emotional trauma they will experience as a result of becoming gradually more detached from friends, family, and society as a whole. For some magical girls, these personal challenges will weigh more heavily than others. When a candidate makes a contract with Kyubey, they are granted one wish. Some magical girls use this single wish on themselves, others grant a miracle to someone they know, but rarely do the girls understand the full gravity of what their new role in the world means. There are also certain side-effects to their powers based on what they used their wish on. Sayaka, for example, has the ability to heal faster than usual because her wish was used on healing someone else’s wounds.

While the other four see processes of character progression that prove consistently interesting and feel intelligently scripted from start to finish, Madoka’s suffers from a lack of believability at a few points. Some of her reactions to the hardships she and her friends must face fail to come across as genuine, though her development and role in the grand scheme of this story is handled far better in the late episodes. There is also a lack of cohesion between the magic themes, which are present from the first episode to the last, and the science fiction elements, which, while present from an early point, do not take on as large a role until after the halfway point. There are a few bits of information that are revealed that are intended to be hugely important to the overall plot, but come across as clunky and half-baked. There are a few ways that they could have incorporated these points into the magic routine and they would have worked just fine, but for some odd reason the show tries to push these late in the game, and with everything else that is going on in building toward the endgame, it doesn’t play out in as smooth a manner as I think the writers had hoped.

Madoka does not opt for the Neon Genesis Evangelion route of starting the show off as deceptively normal in tone, then eventually heading down a dark, dismal path. The serious, sometimes sinister nature of fighting witches is made quite clear from the outset, though it isn’t until the third episode concludes that the real danger these magical girls place themselves in on a regular basis is made strikingly apparent. There are some very heavy themes at play here, including suicide and the loss of one’s own identity or reason to be. While it may not display gore or utilize any real vulgar language, the story of Madoka Magica is not for the faint of heart, and I pity anyone who may have gone into viewing this series thinking that the happy-go-lucky intro sequence was an accurate depiction of what the series was all about.

My rating: 8.75 (out of 10)

Anime update: Make a contract with me and become magical girls!

So I really meant to finish watching that final episode of MS Igloo 2 last Fall… and then I simply forgot. I’ll do my best to get around to it soon, and then I’ll probably prioritize Victory Gundam and From the New World as my next anime to see to conclusion. Sword Art Online will likely be finished later this year, but I’m not in any real rush to start the second story arc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent enough anime, just not one that kept me as deeply invested as some of my other recent viewings.

Speaking of which, 2014 has kicked off to a couple of pleasant surprises with regards to my anime viewing experiences. The first season of the 2012 adaptation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was a riot, and easily the most fun I’ve had watching a more pure action anime in quite some time. Meanwhile, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of its atmosphere, Madoka Magica is proving it can hold its own among other similar series that turned genre standards on their heads (like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain) while also retaining a unique identity. There was hardly anything that I knew about Madoka Magica going into it, and this largely-blind viewing has led my impressions of it to be overwhelmingly positive. Seriously, I’ve cranked through nine episodes in less than three days (normally, I take my time to let an anime sink in, but I can’t seem to put this one down). While I doubt Madoka Magica will end up ranking among my all-time favorite anime series, it is currently poised to rank among my top five anime of 2014.

That said, there’s a whole nine months left in the year, and a lot could change between now and then. Still, it’s nice that I started the year off with two pretty big bangs on the anime front, and the second season of Jojo’s, Stardust Crusaders, looks just as appetizing as the first. I’ll probably also follow up Madoka with the third film, as I’d prefer to watch the sequel/capping-off film while the series is still fresh in my mind. There’s a few other series and films out there that I wouldn’t mind giving a shot – I have yet to view the Steins;Gate movie, and I have not yet popped my copy of Tekkon Kinkreet into my DVD player (despite the fact that it’s been sitting on my shelf for about a year now).

I’d be damned surprised is Unicorn Gundam doesn’t end up as my number one pick for favorite anime of 2014, but it would be interesting to see the typical genres and series that make that list be ousted by some newcomers. It doesn’t hurt to mix things up and keep it fresh once in a while, you know?

3DS review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Departing from the more 3D-oriented DS Zelda titles, A Link Between Worlds opts to travel back to the era of top-down 2D adventure games. Link and the rest of Hyrule may be rendered with full 3D models, and there is certainly a greater degree of freedom in how the Hylian hero can go about exploring the realm, but there is no mistaking the nods to the Super Nintendo classic that this 3DS game is meant to act as both sequel and spiritual successor to. Set many years after the conclusion of A Link to the Past, this latest Zelda title features a new Link, a new princess Zelda, but a very familiar premise of the sages being captured by resident villain Yuga. As the sages are all trapped in paintings, it is up to Link to traverse the multiple dungeons of Lorule, effectively an inverse version of Hyrule and this new iteration’s spin on the Dark World from ALttP.

One of the big gimmicks with A Link Between Worlds that leads it to stand out from the other entries in Nintendo’s long-running series is the fact that the core dungeons can be tackled in any order players see fit. This is because all of the major items are acquired from a merchant named Ravio, who will initially allow Link to rent the likes of the boomerang, hookshot, ice rod, and so on. All these items are found in this singular location, but upon Link fainting, they will be retrieved by Ravio and will need to be rented again with Rupees – that is, of course, unless you opt to fork over some major cash and buy these items so that they are permanently in Link’s possession. Thankfully, most dungeons hold a wealth of Rupees, so there is something to be said about taking on a more adventurous attitude with each plunge into the dangerous depths.

That is, if the dungeons were particularly difficult. The tradeoff for allowing players to go about the dungeons in whichever order they prefer is that the difficulty factor plateaus incredibly early in the game. The layouts of some dungeons are rather single-minded and less interesting throughout, such as one that sees Link embark on what is effectively one big escort mission through a trap-riddled fortress. Another, which has Link sliding around ice platforms, certainly has more variety in terms of its puzzles and combat offerings, but is so slow-paced and forces a routine of repetition that leads it to become uninteresting after a short while. A few of the dungeons do stand out as decently-solid entries in the greater offerings of the franchise, however, such as a lava-filled turtle island and a shadowy palace housing puzzles that play off the level of light illuminating each room.

Each dungeon emphasizes one of Ravio’s items heavily, and on the whole, use of each item is quite consistent. It is never the case that the hookshot or bombs suddenly overshadow the boomerang or fire rod, though some of the more practical items will see more widespread use in the overworld’s sidequests. And on the topic of sidequests, there certainly are a large number of them – nearly as many as in Majora’s Mask, a Zelda title which was almost entirely dependent on sidequests for its own formula of game design. It’s quite surprising just how much time can be spent playing minigames in hopes of boosting your Rupee count or rescuing the octopus-like baby Maiamai in order to power up Link’s arsenal. Alongside the creative and moderately-challenging boss encounters, the sidequests prove one of the highest points of A Link Between Worlds.

There are a number of incorporations from other Zelda games exhibited in A Link Between Worlds that go a long way – some for the better, others not so much. Much like in Majora’s Mask and Skyward Sword, bird statues are used to save the game. Link can also utilize these as fast-travel locations, courtesy of a local witch and her flying broomstick. Often, Link will be greeted with a message from these bird statues that inform him as to how long he’s been at his adventures, and that you, the player, ought to consider taking a break. These messages cannot be skipped or sped up, and the frequency of them proves infinitely more obnoxious than the warnings or bits of advice provided by any of Link’s companions in previous iterations of The Legend of Zelda. As the game is a direct sequel to A Link to the Past, this 3DS title relies on the SNES classic for practically all of its successes. The overworld is nearly identical, the soundtrack borrows heavily from the stylings of ALttP, and the art style is nearly identical, despite its featuring 3D models instead of 16-bit sprites. For anyone hoping Nintendo would birth something magical and revolutionary out of this latest Zelda title, it is unfortunately A Link to the Past part two in the most literal sense.

When compared to many of its successors, A Link to the Past may not have boasted as in-depth or as complex a story. But it certainly exuded a darker atmosphere and more grueling challenge factor than most of its contemporaries Alongside Ocarina of Time, it acted as both a means to redefine the series and solidify its place as one of the greats in the genre of adventure gaming. The story of A Link Between Worlds, by comparison, feels lazy and uninspired. The simple premise of Link needing to rescue the sages from the grasp of one very simplistic and one-dimensional villain worked fine for Four Swords Adventures because that was a multiplayer entry focused more on gameplay and level design than any semblance of a gripping plot. Here, it’s not only an insult to the idea of having a proper follow-up to ALttP, but also a major step backwards for the handheld Zelda titles. There are no shocking moments, no surprises, no clever twists along the way. Sure, Link’s Awakening might not have been a perfect creation, but it was certainly original, and any of its shortcomings were far more excusable, given the limited staff members. I never expected A Link Between Worlds to stand up to the legacy of the Oracle games or The Minish Cap, but its formula lends even Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks to appear a quality that is leaps and bounds better by comparison.

Going into A Link Between Worlds, my greatest concern was that the ability to transform Link into a painting and have him shuffle about the walls would either make the experience too easy, or break the gameplay altogether. In fact, limiting the time span Link has to use this newfound ability via a magic meter is a brilliant move, and there are some neat ways that Link latches onto surfaces, slips through cracks in walls, and rides platforms to new heights. The aforementioned magic meter is also used to limit the number of uses Link has for any of the other items in his arsenal. As it gradually refills, there is no need to collect more bombs or even keep count of them. Yet, for every major aspect such as this that A Link to the Past gets right and could have easily incorporated more heavily into the gameplay, there are three or four other factors that are backwards in design or just plain poor in execution. I will admit, I did not have the highest of hopes for A Link Between Worlds prior to its release, but I expected more out of it – or at least, more elements that weren’t so lazy and boring.

My rating: 6.5 (out of 10)

Anime review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (season one)

Adapted from the long-running manga of the same name, the 2012 anime version of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is effectively the first season of something much larger. Two protagonists are covered in-depth, as are their respective allies and enemies. Clocking in at twenty-six episodes, these first two chapters do well to tie into one another and set the stage for everything that is to come, while simultaneously bringing their individual stories full circle and providing a satisfying conclusion.

The first chapter is set in the late 1800s, and focuses on Jonathan Joestar, son of a rich father who has raised the boy on his own since the passing of his wife. The relatively mellow and predictable life Jonathan leads is upset with the arrival of Dio Brando, son of a man who Jonathan’s father mistakenly believes saved his life – in truth, Dio’s father Dario Brando was attempting to rob Jonathan’s parents on the night Jonathan’s mother died. Dio soon becomes the golden child in the eyes of Jonathan’s father, but Dio’s ultimate goal is to take over every role Jonathan ever had within the Joestar family and household, and eventually claim the family’s inheritance.

Though it takes Jojo many years to find a way to expose Dio to his father, and lost connections with some of his friends along the way, eventually Dio’s plot to kill Jonathan’s father by slowly poisoning him is revealed and he is kicked out of the household. Prompted to find a cure for his father, Jonathan heads into the city, where he is met by a street gang member named Robert Edward O. Speedwagon. After a brief exchange, Speedwagon and Jonathan make their way back to the Joestar mansion to save Jonathan’s father and finally remove Dio from their company. But things quickly go awry when Dio dons a stone mask that had long been housed within the Joestar mansion. Painting the mask with blood, Dio is transformed into a vampire, his only weaknesses the light of the sun and the mysterious technique known as the ripple. And while all this may seem like a lot of content to explain for a review, I assure you that all of the aforementioned events occur within the first few episodes, and serve to set the stage for the primary conflict of this first chapter: Jonathan Joestar’s fighting spirit and ripple technique vs. Dio Brando’s desire to grow beyond humanity and unleash an army of the undead upon the world.

While the names of the primary protagonist and antagonist of chapter one might not have been as strikingly obvious, Speedwagon and the vast majority of the characters that follow bear names that are direct references to classic rock groups and songs. These include somewhat subtle nods to Led Zeppelin via Will A. Zeppeli, to the more blatant (and arguably more silly) as seen in the duo of monks named Dire and Straits who studied the mystic arts of ripple fighting under their master Tompeti (pronounced ‘Tom Petty’). And that’s the main gimmick of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The series does deal quite a bit with variants of the ripple fighting technique, and to that end it falls somewhere between Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho in the fighting action genre – certainly not the most subtle of series, and definitely more than a little ridiculous, but every character has his or her limitations, and the fights are never drawn out to an excessive degree.

The art style is one of the series’ best points of its overall presentation. Psychedelic color patterns force Jojo and company’s outfits to stand out prominently against darker and highly detailed backgrounds, while dynamic angles give the action a more desperate and intense feel. Occasionally, a still-frame close-up or the inclusion of animated sound effect kanji text will pay homage to the manga source material – a curious touch that further sets this series’ style apart from its contemporaries. The original soundtrack composed for the series does well to perpetuate a sense of adventure, with themes that accompany the major battles striking powerful chords at just the right moments. A few tunes also incorporate samplings from classic rock tunes, such as ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ by Yes, further lending the series’ presentation factor to stand out from the crowd.

Chapter two of the series has a much higher episode count that the first, though a number of the characters return as supporting cast members. Set in 1938, this story follows Joseph Joestar, grandson of Jonathan Joestar, and explores the origins of the Stone Masks like the one Dio used to transform himself into a vampire. As it turns out, there are many more of these masks attached to stone pillars with humanoid beings frozen within, as if they are in a sort of stasis. The first of these Pillar Men is discovered by Speedwagon, who is now in charge of a research foundation, but the findings and Speedwagon himself are ultimately seized by a small group of Nazi scientists who are seeking occult and powerful objects around the world to fuel Germany’s pre-WWII dreams of grandeur. Realizing that Speedwagon’s disappearance must mean something has gone wrong with his expedition, young Joseph Joestar heads to Mexico to find him, arriving by motorcycle just in time to witness the Pillar Man awaken from his two-thousand year slumber. While this Pillar Man is initially slow to react, he is shown to be highly adaptable to his surroundings, and capable of learning at an incredible rate. He is able to absorb individuals into his body to repair it, but the ripple technique handed down through the Joestar line is capable of dealing him damage. After this Pillar Man, dubbed Santana, effectively destroys the entirety of the Nazi facility, Joseph manages to defeat him with the light of the sun, but not before learning that there are more Pillar Men like him that the Nazis have uncovered in Europe.

From there, Joeseph travels to Italy to meet with Caesar Zeppeli, grandson of Will A. Zeppeli, and Caesar’s mentor Lisa Lisa. After the three more powerful Pillar Men awaken, Caesar and Joseph attempt to stop them from escaping the excavation site where they were uncovered, but only manage to deal slight damage to the weakest of the three, known as Wham. Intrigued by the strength of these ripple users, as well as the fact that there are any surviving descendants of the ripple users he and his masters/comrades ACDC and Cars attempted to wipe out during the pinnacle of their existence two-thousand years prior, Wham spares the two and encourages them to challenge him again in one month’s time, when their ripple techniques have been better honed and amplified. To ensure Joseph does not fail to show up, Wham and ACDC place rings around his neck vein and heart, informing him that he will have to take the antidote from jewelry on their bodies once he has successfully defeated them.

Similar to the first chapter, the fight against Santana and the awakening of his three superiors is tackled within the first few episodes of this second act. The ultimate goal of these Pillar Men is the Red Stone of Aja, an artifact which will supposedly allow them to master their weakness to sunlight. Still, despite their ties to the stone masks that turned Dio into a vampire, ACDC, Cars, and Wham are all shown to be significantly more powerful than Jonathan Joestar’s adversary ever was. Each of the Pillar Men has his own distinct technique – Wham can spin his arms rapidly and create a violent sandstorm, ACDC can spout a lava-like liquid from tiny tubes that extend from within his body, and Cars has retractable blades inside either arm. Of the three, however, Wham is easily the most well-rounded and respectable antagonist, as his warrior’s pride is what keeps him grounded and offers Joseph a real fighting chance against Cars and ACDC’s greedy desires to obtain the Red Stone of Aja. ACDC and Cars are a bit more one-dimensional as villains, and ultimately come across as being about as well-developed as supporting cast member Stroheim, a Nazi officer who Jojo meets in Mexico and who only appears in a handful of episodes of this second act. It’s a rather strange move, all things considered – it makes sense that Stroheim’s limited inclusion would lead him to come across as more caricature than fully-developed character, but for Cars and ACDC to be so lackluster in the presence of Wham is more than just a little bit disappointing. Even Dio, whose story arc is shorter than that of the Pillar Men, is a more complex and interesting villain.

The Joestars and their allies, however, are, for the most part, quite the likeable and interesting bunch. Jonathan Joestar plays the part of a more chivalrous hero, in stark contrast to Dio’s greed and delusions of grandeur. Speedwagon, while not the bravest soul, sometimes provides tactical advice to his friends, and his foundation is key during the second chapter. Above all else, though, Speedwagon and ripple master Will A. Zeppeli are unwaveringly loyal to Jonathan and his cause of stopping Dio’s conquest. Joseph, on the other hand, is more of an everyman – he is cocky, he ogles pretty women, and he has no qualms about starting an alley fight with a pair of crooked cops. His imperfect human habits are what lend this Joestar to being a more relatable and (ironically) more likeable protagonist. His habit of pulling strategies out of thin air never cease to impress, in large part because of how quick-witted and wacky they tend to be, and his bravery in putting himself in danger’s way to protect his friends is equal parts admirable and crazy.

While both plotlines are handled well, it certainly feels as if chapter one was more or less a means of setting the stage for Joseph Joestar’s story. And that’s probably the best way to go about delivering this story, considering how many characters and plot points carry on to chapter two. Nothing in this first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure feels the slightest bit rushed, which is impressive, considering it follows the story of one family over multiple generations. Some of the characters are a bit less spectacular in presentation than others, however, and that is arguably the greatest misstep of the first season of this series, which is such a character-driven story. Still, this adaptation is a heck of a lot of fun, and the finale does well to tease what is to come in season two with a couple post-credits easter eggs.

My rating: 8.25 (out of 10)