apoc9

The story continues with Jotaro Kujo grandson of the grandson, Joseph Joestar protagonist from the second arc of the first season. Dio is back with the body of the original Johnatan Joestar. I don’t like Dio as a character. He isn’t that interesting villain, because he is almost one-dimensional evil for the sake of evil. However, he doesn’t make much appearance. Yet again time limit is introduced and goal isn’t to just stop Dio, but save Jotaro’s mother. The story of this season is this long journey, where various servants of Dio try to prevent the group to reach Dio in Egypt. It has monster of the week template, which is step down in storytelling from the first season. However, I have to say most of the battles are enjoyable few boring exceptions aside.

The series almost completely overhauls battle system from the first season by switching from hamon techniques to stands for which is Jojo series well known. Initially it felt like switch from ki based system to pokemons. I wasn’t big fan in the beginning. Hamon wasn’t entirely forgotten. Joseph does use it occasionally. I understand stands give author more flexibility to have different concepts for fighting. Power levels for each stand shown through episodes seem pointless to me. Another change is the parodic elements felt overall rather toned down for more shounen content and comedy. Still the series manages to be very creative with fights and techniques.

I really liked Joseph Joestar in the first season and he is back as an older gentleman. However, in this season, he is more comical figure [1] except few moments. I like Jotaro is smart and can notice stuff I as viewer could notice most of the time myself. The characters aren’t entirely dumb. The least interesting character would be Avdol [2].

Audio-visually the series is still quite wild like the first season. I had no issues in that regard.

Overall, it feels the series shifted more towards straightforward shounen. It still has some very creative over-the-top elements including comedy. I had a good time watching this season, but the story is just the first half. Personally, I think the first season was slightly better, especially the second part.

Spoilers

[1] Joseph making instant coffee using tea ceremony utensils was hilarious.

[2] He gets off screen after he is seriously injured to reunite with the group towards the end.