#can't believe my art blog turned into amy looks at manga chapters and screams

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Thinking about what the Jojolion ending could look like

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS DO NOT PROCEED UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED FOR EVENTS OF JOJO'S BIZARRE ADVENTURE PART 8 JOJOLION (AND I GUESS ALL OTHER PARTS TOO)

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So uh, the newest Jojolion chapter (chapter 99) dropped a lot of new lore and raised the stakes even more and I love it, but it threw me a bit back into previous arcs of Jojolion and got me thinking. I guess it's pretty obvious that Gappy will have to defeat Tooru and Wonder Of U at some point within this current arc and that the 'finale' of Jojolion will have the harvest of the Rokakaka fruit (or maybe it's destruction who knows) tied in with this fight, but unlike previous parts of Jojo, I have really no clue what's precisely going to happen.

Like with Part 1 and Part 2 it always seemed fairly obvious: defeat Dio, defeat Kars (albeit Jonathan's death was a bit unexpected for me). With Part 3 it's the same: DIO has to be defeated for the world (haha) to return to 'normal' and save Holly, which Jotaro succeeds in. Then Part 4 was a bit more ambiguous about what the protagonists' goal is (I think the collecting of the Stand Arrow was the first goal, but Josuke wasn't tied in that much with that), but halfway through with the reveal of Kira it became obvious that Josuke's plot is to defeat/stop Kira from his shenanigans. Part 5 also was a bit vague at the beginning with Giorno's goal being 'fulfilling his dream', but then quickly shifted to at first 'finding out who The Boss is' and then to defeating him so Giorno can take his place. Part 6 had a fairly clear-cut villain from the beginning, with Pucci being directly affiliated with Dio, and so I guess no one was surprised that it's Jolyne's goal to defeat/stop him in the end (albeit the entire original Joestar universe ending was more than just a gut punch like wtf Araki thanks for the tears). Part 7 actually surprised me a lot because to me it was an ongoing escalation of goals: at first I thought it was all about Johnny learning to walk again, then about him and Gyro winning the race to a) fulfill Gyro's goal of stopping the execution of the little boy and b) help Johnny regain his pride, and then there was a whole lot of corpse searching and racing to find the parts, but in the end, Valentine stood as the clear villain to be defeated in front of Johnny (yes yes I know Diego was still there afterwards, but Diego was more of an occasional foil in my opinion, and not as directly 'evil' as Valentine). I was actually glad that Part 7 didn't just stop after Johnny defeated the main foe, but went on till the end of the race and told what happened to the corpse afterwards, and only ended when Johnny sorta fulfilled his arc of 'don't be selfish give something to others lose the only man you ever considered a real friend to understand the vastness of the universe'. Still, Valentine defeated, the corpse safely stored away, Johnny on his way to a new life. Great ending, 9/10, points lost for killing off Gyro.

And then there's Part 8: the entire first half of Jojolion is dedicated to Gappy asking "who am I? Why can't I remember anything?" and his sort of search for his memories. Cue in me: "aaaah, so the whole journey will be about him finding his memories and discovering who he is in the end, great". Sike! It's about the Rokakaka fruit and stopping the Higashikata family curse. "ok, well, but it'll still be connected with the search for who Gappy is". Double Sike! Here's the entire story of how Gappy came to be: he's the fusion of Kira and Josefumi and thus only has parts of their memory and not really a past life he can discover. Wait what. Tooru wants the Rokakaka fruit, Higashikata family shenanigans, Head Doctor, upcoming harvest of the fruit, Gappy sits at the hospital and waits for the Stand to come to... Yeah, yeah, I get that, Tooru and Wonder Of U have to be stopped from getting the fruit and pursuing (haha) the Higashikata family and then the child has to be saved and all, but...

What will happen then? Like Steelball Run, I think Jojolion won't just end with the defeat of the main foe up to now (Tooru and Wonder Of U) and will surely go on after that fight (all connected to when exactly the fruit will be harvested), but what is Gappy's role in this?

Surely he wants the Higashikata family to be well since he's also a part of it and very caught up in their weird history, but personally for him, what will be his future? Even with Johnny at the end of Part 7 it was sorta clear that he will now go on to try and live his life as normal as he possibly could, which is why it's not surprising that we learn of his wife and son in Part 8. But with Gappy, what is there for him to become? I know it's early to say this, but what will Gappy's ending be?

Will he just stay with the Higashikata family? Happy to have found a home but still with the looming knowledge of being a mere fusion of two other people? Will he go to the sea or maybe to another country to sort of search for his destiny after the events of Jojolion? Will he ever be able to lead a normal life without really having a past?

Or will the completely unexpected happen (aka I want this to happen) and some weird Stand or Rokakaka shenanigans lead to the defusion of Gappy? I know this isn't Steven Universe, but consider: Gappy gets hit by something Stand or Rokakaka related and disappears behind a bolder or something else obstructing the view and Yasuho calls for him and runs over and discovers Kira and Josefumi laying there the way they died/fused to form Gappy. Maybe they're both dead and she cries because she doesn't understand and then it's like, what can we do to get Gappy back? Do we even want him back? Or do we want to bury Kira and Josefumi and give them the final rest they deserve? Maybe Josefumi is alive again and he doesn't understand what's going on and wants to bring Kira back. What if the Rokakaka isn't there to do that? What if it can't do it? What if Yasuho explains to Josefumi that he and Kira were fused after Kira's death and became an entire new person called Josuke, and Josefumi is horrified of that? Or what if he begs the Higashikata family to help him make it so he and Kira become one person again, because it's the only way Kira is still alive in some way?

I know this is very unlikely to happen, but it's Jojo, so really it's not. And if something in that direction occurs, with Gappy 'disappearing', then how will the Jojo story go on? Will Part 8 be the final part? I mean, Araki is not the youngest anymore and maybe stopping the series after 8 parts is the best for him and his health. If there were to be a Part 9, how will it be connected to Part 8? Whose story will it tell? I think it'd be a bit bland if it was just Gappy's son or grandson, and we don't really know enough about the rest of the Higashikata family for someone from their lineage to become the next Jojo. Even Part 8's protagonist, Gappy, is still very much connected with Johnny Joestar and the Joestar lineage, so for the theoretical next Jojo to be someone completely detached from that, would be very un-Araki-like in my opinion.

But hey, I'm just spit balling here. Chapter 99 is filled with lore and references and explanations and still manages to raise more questions than answer them, very much in Jojo fashion, it's impossible to know for sure which direction the rest of Jojolion will take, or even how long it will go. I just wanted to throw some opinions and theories out there and maybe someone else has a better idea of what could be going on.

For now, the defeat of Tooru and Wonder Of U is the main focus of Gappy and Rei, and I hope that within the next chapters, Yasuho can finally stop dying in front of the Higashikata house.