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duhragonball · 11 months ago

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JoJolion Ch. 109-110

Maybe the real JoJo Lion was the GUARDRAIL FROM 1941.

So, this is the "Radio Gaga Incident" a two-part arc that closes out Part 8. Like the mad lad he is, Hirohiko Araki ends the longest Jojo part ever by flashing back seventy years before the story's setting. What can we possibly gain from this? Well, it pissed off a lot of fans, and it kind of annoyed me too at the time, but I've made peace with it. Let's see if we can find the meaning together.

So it's 1941, and Lucy Steel from Part 7 has just arrived in Morioh. She was 14 in Steel Ball Run, which would make her 65 here. She's looking good, but not too good. Araki keeps introducing these older women in his stories and forgetting to make them look old, like Holly Kira and Caato Higashikata. That might be because Araki himself is getting up there in years, so maybe he's developed a blind spot with this sort of thing. But with Lucy, he seemed to get it right. She's got that Angela Lansbury face going on. She doesn't turn as many heads these days, but that guy at the train station who's here to pick her up? Yeah, he's checking her out. He won't carry her luggage to the car, so he's not that interested, but he's checking her out.

Some guy offers to carry her stuff, but he actually steals it instead, and no one will help. But the thief bumps into a young man as he runs, and then...

Coming through, coming through, coming through now

Coming through, coming through, coming through

Shake it like it's heat, Overdrive!

Yeah, it's Joseph Joestar. This doesn't quite get revealed until Chapter 110, but come on. It's 1941, and we all saw his name on the family tree. From the beginning of Part 8, I wondered if we'd get a flashback to other Joestars besides Johnny, and since Holly's already in the story and George was seen in Johnny's dead scene, that just leaves the one option. So as soon as a young man appeared in this flashback, I was wondering if it could be Joseph, and this bit where he foils a thief with his shoe basically clinched it.

And you know, Part 2's my favorite, so I can't get too mad at Part 8 for ending on a flashback to some Part Two-y goodness. Just the setting it nice. Battle Tendency never went anywhere near Japan, but the late 30's/early 40's aesthetic is still there.

Joseph carries her luggage to the car too, because he's such a nice young man, but he balks when Lucy offers him a part time job assisting her with her research. She wants to check out this orchard because she learned about some weird new fruit and she thinks people are bringing it to Japan. But Joseph is here to pick up his date from the train station, and besides, that place is the site of the "Radio Gaga incident". He doesn't think she needs to be snooping around there, regardless of whether he helps her or not.

But when he goes to meet his date, he suddenly realizes his wallet is missing. That thief grabbed it when he bumped into Joseph earlier, and Joseph was so focused on saving Lucy's stuff that he didn't bother to stop the thief from getting away. So now he wants the job. I'm not sure if his date canceled on him or if he's still got time to make enough money to make it up to her, but he's all in on Lucy's offer now. What confuses him, though, is that she's not with the police or any other authorities. She's with the Speedwagon Foundation, and she's here to study the land the orchard is growing on. Joseph is amazed that she didn't come here to investigate a crime, since the Radio Gaga incident might as well be a crime.

I like this bit here, where she explains that as you get older, you find a purpose for yourself in life. Not a job, but something chosen for you by heaven, or the universe, or fate, or whatever you want to call it. "Something you do for the world at large or for the sake of one particular person". That captures the spirit of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure pretty well, and Part 8 in particular.

So what was the Radio Gaga Incident? On the way to the site in the photograph, Joseph explains that there was a young couple on this road, near that guardrail, and the woman thought she heard someone calling out to her. Then she approached the guardrail, apparently took off all her clothes, and vanished. I don't think Lucy particularly cares much about this story, since she only came her to investigate the land, and this just happens to offer a great view of the orchard for photography, but as she starts setting up her equipment, the chauffeur starts hearing things and he approaches the guardrail, just like the woman in the story.

Then he loses his clothes, and vanishes. A truck drove by, so they couldn't see what happened to him, but it just doesn't make sense.

Joseph wants to leave immediately, but Lucy is fascinated. She came here looking for the Locacaca plant, but finding something else weird in this place is familiar to her. But as she ponders this mystery, she hears a strange voice calling to her, and it leads her closer to the guardrail. At first she thinks it's Joseph, but he's calling her to the car, so they can leave. Also, there seems to be some sort of siren song aspect to the voice, where Lucy can't resist its call.

Turns out, the guardrail itself is the culprit behind all this. It lures its victims toward it, then it sucks them into the thin gap where one section of rail is bolded to another. The victims lose their clothes first because this suction is powerful enough to rip the clothes right off a person. Then they get pulled in themselves, as we see in this page with the interior view of the driver's mangled body inside the guardrail.

So yeah, it's another bullshit Rock Animal. Well, this one's probably a Rock Insect, like the ones Toru used against Josuke. I mean, there's nothing insect-like about this thing, but that goes for the other Rock Insects as well. They just seem to disguise themselves as other objects and completely fuck up their prey with mind powers and other crazy powers.

Joseph pulls Lucy to safety before it's too late, but then something comes out of the guardrail to try to pull her back in. To their horror, they realize it's the driver.

Somehow, against all reason, the Guardrail creature is keeping the driver's body alive, and even using him as a proxy to recapture Lucy. That seems pretty far-fetched, even for Rock Insects, but then again, I'm still trying to figure out if Josuke ever pulled out a big wad of asbestos from his butt.

Somehow, Lucy gets clear, but Joseph is getting pulled in, and as his clothes are shredded, she notices a star-shaped birthmark on him. That gives her a clue, so she tells Joseph to use the car to save himself. She doesn't know how he can start the car from so far away, but she's sure he can do it, and she knows he knows it too.

So he flings his shoe at the car's trunk, which causes a bunch of stuff to spill out of it, and then...

HERMIT PURPLE FUCK YEAH!

Lucy can't even see it, but she's still making out for this. As far as I can tell, Part 8 Joseph needs a physical cable to make Hermit Purple work. Part 3 Joseph would have just sent the thorny vines to the car, but here it's like he had to pop the trunk first, get that power cord and channel Hermit Purple through it in order to reach the car with it. Maybe this is just how Hermit Purple works when you're just starting out. Part 3 Joseph might have had the same issues with it until he learned how to extend his range without a rope.

The end result is classic Joseph, though. Guardrail monster got you down? Just hit it with an entire car! That's how we do things in Part Two, you silicon-based motherfucker!

But Joseph's not done yet. It's called "Overdrive" not "A regular amount of drive". We achieved that with the car, of course, but Joseph needs to put an exclamation point on this. He briefly spots a pair of balls on a string? Like, this is supposed to be a reference to his Clacker Volley technique from Part 2, and that's awesome, but I have no idea what that would be here in Lucy's luggage. Joseph doesn't know either so he tosses 'em away and attacks the guardrail with some Part 2 beef. Also, Hermit Purple has a face in Part 8. Well good for him. I'm glad Hermit Purple is trying new things.

But we're still not done, because there's one more technique Joseph needs to employ...

Nigerundayo! Lucy!

As they flee, Lucy asks Joseph his name again, since he introduced himself as "Fumi-kun" earlier, but the birthmark identifies him as a relative of Johnny Joestar. Joseph explains that he's Johnny's grandson, and his grandmother Rina named him "Joseph", which in Japanese is "Josefu", and so people call him "Fumi-kun".

Lucy gets wistful over this, since the last time she saw Johnny was when she followed him here in 1901 to retrieve the Saint Corpse, and he was already dead by that point.

Actually, now that I think of it, this starts to add up. I thought it was Lucy who chased after Johnny in 1901, but the scanlation I read at the time left me thinking she was working for the government. But now we know she was with Speedwagon, and that makes more sense. At the end of Part 7, there was this big vault that the Saint Corpse was supposed to be hidden in, but Lucy stopped Dio from using it, and it was unclear what happened to it afterward. But maybe in the aftermath, Lucy searched for someone to help her decide how to deal with the Saint Corpse, and ended up getting to know the Speedwagon Foundation. It makes more sense for them to be the ones keeping the Saint Corpse, since leaving it in the hands of the U.S. government was Funny Valentine's plan from the beginning.

Anyway, as Lucy rides Joseph to safety, she catches a glimpse of Toru planting Locacaca plants in the orchard. Well, sure, it makes sense that he was around back then, but if he was bringing Locacaca fruit into Japan for seventy years straight...

I mean, the smuggling ring seemed like a recent operation. They needed Jobin to launder their profits, and that didn't happen until 2009 or so. And the research at TGU Hospital probably didn't start until 2001, when Toru began posing as Dr. Akefu.

I guess what confuses me is that he was at this for decades, but why did it take so long for him to execute this plan? Maybe he got sidetracked with some other project? Anyway, it's possible that Toru put the Radio Gaga creature out there on the highway to keep people away from his work, but it also might have been living their naturally. And Lucy does start bleeding from the mouth after she sees Toru, but she already had a lung disease leading into this story, so I'm not sure if she experienced a calamity.

Joseph leaves his sandals behind, and he was so worried about Holly that he accompanied her back home to New York. Then World War II happened, so they couldn't return to Japan. Holly died in 1944, and Joseph got a job in America and eventually became a naturalized citizen. Years later, Joseph would marry Suzie Q and have a daughter, Holly, who would become a doctor in Morioh, etc. etc.

Then we return to the present. Josuke and Yasuho are leaving the hospital after visiting Holly. Now that Kei is dead, Josuke is the only family she has left. Yasuho asks Josuke if there's any hope for Holly now that the Locacaca branch is gone. Josuke doesn't think so. Maybe someone could find a Locacaca plant in New Guinea, but there's no one left who would know where to look.

And this bothered me a lot, because it seemed like the whole point of JoJolion was Josuke's mission to save Holly, and it looks like he's failed. I think fans held out some hope that this would get picked up in Part 9, except JoJoLands is set about a decade later, and there's no way Holly could have survived that long in her 2011 condition.

I think it might have been easier to take if Holly simply died in this story. That would have provided some closure, but instead she's still in a coma. And maybe the hospital will have to move her to palliative care, like they tried to do after Kira's payments stopped, but her only chance was the Locacaca and that's gone now. Part 8 ends with her no better off than when she started, and it's implied that she'll just continue to deteriorate until she finally dies.

In the parking lot, they notice Josefumi Kujo's mother, and Yasuho points her own. Josuke knows her name and face by now, because he learned about her from Karera. But he no longer cares about connecting with her, or anyone else Kira or Josefumi may have known. He's spent this whole story trying to recover their memories, but there are none. That's because he's not Kira or Josefumi, no matter how badly he might wish it were otherwise.

And this is the true conclusion of Josuke's character arc. He only took up the quest to save Holly because he wanted to continue the mission Kira and Josefumi had begun before they got merged together. If he couldn't have their memories, he could at least take up their cause. It's like Lucy said earlier, as you live, you find a mission for yourself, something you do for a person or the whole world. The other JoJo's each found their own cause, and had to give up parts of their former lives to take up those causes. But Josuke had no former life. For him, the cause was all he had. He used it to try to define his identity.

And now that quest is over. Yes, he failed to save Holly, but he still saw it through. The truth is that the Locacaca fruit never would have saved Holly. It was the cause of her illness, not the cure, so I think that's one reason Josuke isn't sorry that it's lost forever. Maybe he would have sacrificed himself to save Holly with the New Locacaca's power, but I don't think Holly would have wanted that. In the end, all Josuke could do was avenge Holly, and Yoshikage, and Josefumi, and everyone else who died in opposition to the Rock Humans. That'll have to be enough.

But in pursuing that quest, even if Josuke didn't accomplish what he set out to do, he discovered himself. He has a past now, even if its only a few weeks' worth. He has friends and family, and dead to mourn. That's what this is really all about. Instead of trying to learn more about the men he used to be, he can focus on the man he is today, and live that life with people like Yasuho.

Speaking of Yasuho, she uses her power to go through Josefumi's mother's phone, and finds old baby photos of Josefumi. So even though it seems like she never cared about her son, it looks like she did have some feelings for him, and that must mean something, right?

Also, Yasuho discovers that Josefumi was named for a sandal his grandfather found by the side of the road, and it had "Josefu" carved into the wood. I know what Araki's going for here, but it sounds really awkward for Yasuho to bring this up to Josuke when even she doesn't know what it means.

Finally, Josuke and Yasuho arrive at the Higashikata Fruit Parlor, where the surviving Higashikata family are trying to pick out a cake for when Norisuke gets out of the hospital. He's going to be okay, although you have to imagine he'll never be quite the same after this. I mean, Jobin attacked him, and that's bad enough, but Jobin and Caato are dead now, and that has to be tough on him.

Anyway, there's plenty of cakes to choose from, but they're all too emotional to decide, so Tsurugi asks Josuke to choose. I'm not sure why Tsurugi is still dressing up like a girl if the curse is broken, but maybe Araki didn't feel like redesigning the character so late in the final chapter.

Josuke is surprised that they want him to make the decision, but they all agree, even Joshuu, who usually would be licking every person in the room and talking about his mom's boobs. I guess losing that arm did him some good after all. So Josuke goes to join them, and Yasuho sheds a tear as she leaves him with his family.

And that's the end. I was disappointed with this scene in 2021, mainly because I've resented the Higashikata family all along. They're all dipshits, and it just so happens that some of them are creepier and dipshittier than others. The idea of Josuke hanging out with them instead of Yasuho irked me. I think it irked a lot of people.

But the Higashikata Family was a throughline for this Part, and again, Josuke's character arc was about him finding a new identity for himself. Part of that is his integration into the Higashikata family. At first, it seemed like they only took him in as a means to an end, but then they became allies, and then friends. Now, after all they've been through, they begin to see one another as family.

The thought occurred to me that Josuke might just have taken Jobin's place in the family. Think about it. Jobin was set to inherit the Fruit Parlor, and now he's dead. Tsurugi can still take over one day. Notice how he was the one who asked Josuke to choose the cake. The little guy is already exerting a certain authority over his aunts and uncle.

But Norisuke's 59, and he's probably not going to be quite as exuberant after this whole ordeal. He'll need someone like Jobin to run things, and he can't wait for Tsurugi to grow up. And as I keep pointing out, Joshuu, Hato, and Daiya are completely unqualified to handle such responsibility. Josuke's the only option.

Early on, Tsurugi told Yasuho about the curse, and how the Higashikata family would sometimes adopt people to continue the family line. I think that's what Norisuke just did with Josuke, although he didn't realize it at the time. Josuke can become Norisuke Higashikata V, run the fruit parlor for a few decades, and then pass it on to Tsurugi once he's ready to become Norisuke VI.

That's why Yasuho left the parlor on the final page. She's Josuke's girlfriend, no doubt, and she's definitely part of his life, but she's not part of Josuke, and that's what this final scene is about. At long last, he has a place to belong, and a life to live, and a home of his own, just like Yasuho has. Going forward, they can have a relationship on equal footing. That's what this is all about.

So yeah... that's it. Part 8 is done. I gotta say, I'm pleased to finally wrap up a complete liveblog of this one, but I didn't expect to have this much fun with it. Maybe I should do another Part one of these days...

Not Part 4, though, because I am sick of typing out "Higashikata".

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #jo2uke higashikata #yasuho hirose #lucy steel #jo2eph joestar #toru #joshuu higashikata #daiya higashikata #hato higashikata #mitsuba higashikata #tsurugi higashikata

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duhragonball · 11 months ago

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JoJolion Ch. 95-98

Yep, we're still in the "Wonder of You" arc.

So the last Rock Human, the mastermind of the whole Locacaca business, is currently fighting on two fronts. His Stand ability basically punishes anyone who tries to pursue him with bad luck. If you chase him, try to look at him, or even think about approaching him, a bunch of improbable things will happen that will hurt you, badly. I think the "calamities" get more and more severe over time, but it might also be random chance.

On one front, Josuke, Rai and Yasuho were trying to find the Head Doctor of TG University Hospital, Satoru Akefu, and the Stand sent so many calamities their way that they had to split up. Josuke wound up in the hospital, Rai's in jail, and Yasuho went to the Higashikata estate to see if she could find the Locacaca Branch there.

But this put Yasuho in the middle of the second front, where the Enemy Stand just keeps lurking around the mansion, and every time Mitsuba sees it, she recognizes it as the Head Doctor and some sort of calamity happens. Then Jobin captured Paisley Park snooping around and trapped her in a smartphone in a toilet. Finally, the next calamity made Mitsuba's stand backfire, which attracted the attention of Norisuke.

Norisuke confronts Jobin for apparently attempting to murder Yasuho, and also about the Locacaca Branch, which has now been revealed from its hiding place. Jobin insists that what he's doing is the "Right Path", and he explains that his plan is to use the New Locacaca fruit to cure Tsurugi and end the curse. But the fruit has to remain a family secret, which is why Yasuho must die.

Norisuke removes the phone containing PP from the toilet, but before he puts it near an outlet for PP to escape, he seems to assent to Jobin's way of doing things. But before he does, he uses his own Stand, King Nothing, to check on an unusual odor he's detected from the Locacaca's pot. Remember, King Nothing can reconstruct objects based on their odors, so when it locks onto the scent, it forms the image of a man who once held the pot: Ojiro Sasame, who was reported dead along with his girlfriend. Since Jobin had the pot before and after Ojiro's death, it's pretty clear to everyone that Jobin killed them both with his Stand.

This would seem to prove that Jobin's "Right Path" is anything but right. That still don't dissuade Jobin, though, and he uses Speed King again, this time to incapacitate his own father. Everyone freaks out because they think Jobin killed him, but he assures them that he only knocked him out. I'm not sure why his right hand comes off during this, though.

Everyone's upset, but Jobin keeps insisting that this is all necessary for the good of the family, and that they just have to wait three more hours for the fruit to be ripe enough for Tsurugi and they'll be home free. He keeps saying they're winning, but then he finally notices that Norisuke dropped the phone containing Paisley Park.

And he dropped it close enough to an electrical socket that Paisley Park can escape the house now. I'm not sure if Norisuke planned this or if it was another calamity produced by the enemy, or maybe it was just dumb luck. The point is that it makes Jobin look really incompetent, since he's the one who was adamant about preventing Yasuho from escaping.

Meanwhile, Rai is in prison, and while his powers would allow him to escape whenever he wants, he doesn't dare risk it because of the calamity that would hit him if he tried to link up with Josuke at the hospital. Instead, he explains the plot to his cellmate, then uses a phone he swiped from the evidence locker to try to get a photo of the Enemy Stand, which occasionally floats around outside the cell window. He also took a knife from evidence, and when he explains that they both belonged to his cellmate, the guy gets enraged and tries to attack Rai with the knife, only to injure himself instead, becuase it was his phone that took the picture.

This was Rai's plan from the beginning, as his cellmate was a mass murderer, apparently, and he knew it wouldn't take much provocation to get this to happen. Now that he's injured, the police will take the guy to the hospital, and Rai uses his abiliity to unravel his body to hide inside his cellmate's clothes.

Back at the Higashikata estate, Yasuho is reunited with her Stand, so she's out of immediate danger, but she's still badly wounded, and she can't reach Josuke, so she calls Toru instead. He... does head her way, though he doesn't seem too fussed about her predicament.

Inside, the image of the Head Doctor continues to haunt Mitsuba, and now she's seeing it inside the house. Jobin's already adopted a siege mentality, because now that Yasuho's Stand has escaped, he believes that word of the New Locacaca in his possession will get out to the outside world, and so they have to fend off anyone who might try to come get it. But he's mainly worried about Yasuho and Josuke. I don't think the Head Doctor is even on his radar.

Mitsuba explains to him that they're under attack, but she can't quite explain it. All she knows for sure is that approaching or attacking the Head Doctor is a bad idea, but it's kind of the only tactic Jobin seems to use these days.

They think they see him on the nightstand, so Jobin attacks the bed with his Stand, but it turns out all he hit was an aerosol can of hair spray. The can springs a leak and starts flying around the room as the pressure bleeds off.

Jobin gives another bullshit speech about how he has the matter well in hand, and he's not worried about this new enemy at all, and then he goes out to search the rest of the house for the guy. He catches a glimpse of Toru in the security camera feed, and then suddenly he notices he's bleeding from the mouth. Somehow, the dip tube from the can of hairspray came loose while it was flying around and it launched itself straight into Jobin's chest. How did he not notice this until now? Chalk it up to the calamity, I suppose.

Then he stumbles through the hallway and the pot presses up against the dip tube, driving it further into his body and making his injury even worse. He finally collapses, dropping the pot and calling out for his wife and son as he dies.

You know, it's weird, but for some reason I totally misremembered this part of the story. I knew Jobin died around here, but somehow I convinced myself that he put up more of a fight than this. It's like when a supporting character has a pretty clever way to beat the main villain, and it allllmost works but then the villain prevails and kills the guy. I thought Jobin had a scenario kind of like that, but no. He brazenly attacked the Head Doctor and continued to pursue him, despite Mitsuba's explicit warnings, and then he died without accomplishing a damned thing.

And this takes me back to Jobin's strategy during that beetle contest with Josuke. He had that one beetle with the hole in the back of its head, and he put wax in the hole which could then be melted in order to make it more aggressive or something. The hole would eventually prove fatal for the beetle, but it would still live for at least twenty minutes, and Jobin only needed the beetle to survive for two or three minutes to finish the battle.

And that's Jobin in a nutshell. For all his high talk, he's too shortsighted and too sloppy to be a leader. He wants the power and the prestige that his father has, and he wants even more power and prestige on top of that, but in the end he's just like those beetles he collects, which only have 45 seconds' worth of useful memory. Also, he died a lot like that beetle with the hole in its head. Jobin got a fatal injury, and he was so aggro that he didn't even notice it for a few minutes and then dropped dead.

Meanwhile, remember that package Josuke sent? Well, it finally reaches its receipient, which is... some reporter. He's got pimples and little girl pigtails. It's a bold choice.

Not long after, the reporter finds Dr. Akefu and confronts him with the contents of the package: A sample of Locacaca fruit, and video records of Holly's present condition. The reporter concludes that Akefu and his colleagues must have created Locacaca 6251 from the fruit, and they tested it on Holly, resulting in her illness. Akefu is bemused at first, but once he establishes that the reporter intends to expose him with this evidence, he asks him if he opened the jar with the fruit in it.

Akefu reasons that the reporter probably examined the jar, and would have gotten some of the fruit juice on his fingers, which he probably inadvertantly got in his mouth. This leads to an equivalent exchange, but since the calamity effect in is play, the results are disastrous. The reporter's acne clears up, but the middle of his neck turns to stone and breaks apart, killing him instantly.

Still, Dr. Akefu is unnerved, and heads for the Locacaca lab.

Back at the Higashikata Estate, Toru has arrived, but he's not helping Yasuho or doing anything else, really. He just rocks out to Elvis songs until he suddenly realizes that Josuke has stopped "pursuing" and he's now "inviting". That's right, if you didn't already know, Toru is the Rock Human final boss of JoJolion, and the Head Doctor, Satoru Afeku, is his Stand.

I sort of realized this a bit early. I want to say around Chapters 94 or 95, just because it suddenly hit me that the design of Toru's hair kind of reminded me of the shape of Dr. Akefu's hat. Also, if Toru's not the main villain, then his presence this late in the story seems kind of pointless. Mostly, though, it was beginning to seem pretty clear that the "Head Doctor" was appearing in more and more unlikley places, and sometimes in multiple places at once, to the point where it seemed to make more sense for him to be the Stand instead of the user. And if we're looking for a Stand User, hey, here's Toru, a new character with nothing else going on. It all fits.

And yet, what irks me is that I never noticed until this read-through that their names are connected. Dr. Satoru Afeku. You literally can't spell the Head Doctor's name without Toru.

So now, Toru's Stand is heading for the Locacaca lab to confront Josuke, and Rai also shows up at the hospital heading the same direction. To his amazement, he sees the Head Doctor following him instead, and Rai realizes that he has to get to Josuke first or he'll start experiencing calamities again. He makes it to Josuke and he doesn't exactly approve of Josuke just sitting there and waiting for the enemy to come to him. Once the Head Doctor arrives, he'll have all the bad luck in the world bearing down on him, with nothing to help him.

Josuke counters that he has his Stand, and Rai made it here, in spite of everything, and there's still Yasuho too. Josuke is standing firm because he believes there's a way to win. Otherwise, Holly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to help him and give him that advice earlier.

And that's the difference between Jobin and Josuke. Both are driven, perhaps to the point of stubbornness, but Josuke is willing to trust others and take a stand for the right thing. His resolve is born of faith, not overconfidence in his abilities.

Speaking of Yasuho, she's not doing too well, but then she thinks she hears Toru coming to help, but instead it's... Joshuu? And he has the Locacaca branch. He's come here to help her, more out of desperation than anything else.

Back at the hospital, Toru's Stand arrives. I think the idea here is that Toru has been forced to withdraw the Stand from the Higashikata estate in order to go after Josuke. The whole pursuit-brings-calamity effect seemed to have an unlimited range, but now Josuke has flipped the script, so maybe Toru can't attack on two fronts like this. At the very least, Toru seems to have paused his search for the branch. He almost found it, but now Joshuu's outside of the house with it, but Toru's apparently too focused on Josuke to notice.

As for Josuke, he's got a bunch of Soft and Wet's bubbles in the room when the Stand enters, but it's a little too cagey to walk into a trap like this. It introduces itself as Wonder of U, and sticks close to the wall. Instead of attacking Josuke directly, Wonder of U takes out some new Rock Animal, and sics that on Josuke instead.

So this is Do Do Do De Da Da Da, a Rock Insect that looks like it's made of tongue depressors. It lays flat like a placemat, but it can raise itself up like a tower and swing this poison barb around on a string. This is the dumbest looking one yet. I think the only reason it's a credible threat here is because Josuke can't move around too much while he fights it. It stings Josuke, but we still have a ways to go before we can get into its abilities.

Wonder of U tries to taunt Josuke into fighting more aggressively, but Josuke shoots back by asking why he's still trying to draw him into a fight if he's already got the Locacaca branch. Wonder of U doesn't answer, and Rai concludes that he must not have the branch yet, or otherwise he'd just withdraw, confident that no one can stop him or take the branch away.

So there's more at stake here than just Josuke's trap. Toru wants the new Locacaca fruit, but he also needs this lab of his, and he can't seem to secure both of those things at once. So the longer Josuke can keep him tied up here, the better chance Yasuho has of keeping the branch safe. It's not much, but it's a chance...

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #jo2uke higashikata #yasuho hirose #rai mamezuku #toru #jobin higashikata #norisuke higashikata iv #mitsuba higashikata #tsurugi higashikata #daiya higashikata #joshuu higashikata #hato higashikata

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