★ VHS box scans
★ JJBA game history ft. N'doul
★ cel collection
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 | My Guide to Appreciating the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OVA |
Part II
truthfully, this is where my brain short-circuits.
this mini-arc of the story captivates me to the point of madness. i found it stirring in the manga, and even when it debuted in the TV version in 2015. but even more than either of those, the OVA sells the feeling, the significance, of what this moment in the story means for the story overall. it changes the impression of it, of what can be expected going forward, maybe not immediately, but eventually. it tells you to be on your toes, because this story is and will continue to prove itself capable of things for which you didn't know to prepare.
very few of the enemies in Stardust Crusaders are people, in the sense that they're given humanity worth thinking about. they're antagonists to plough through on the way to their final destination and show off stand abilities and mostly, barring people like Mariah and Hol Horse (/Enya and J Geil i guess) don't deserve much more thought than that. i will also say, for what it's worth, is that both due to its condensed form (cutting some 80% of the fights and incidental characters) and to its art style, the OVA is much kinder to the people in the background than the TV anime (or even the manga) which if not racist outright isn't particularly affectionate. the OVA improves upon this exponentially. back to the stand users, despite the drama or fear of a given battle, they're frequently nuisances or jokes. nothing wrong with that, personally i love jokes as much as i love unbearable sadness. something wanting me to think it's funny but isn't is tantamount to capital punishment.
in the manga/anime canon, right before this small arc, they were fighting a lady named Midler who they never got to see in person while fighting her stand in the red sea, but they can hear her talking and she kept flirting with Jotaro, who had to play along until he could eventually kick her ass. after this (in manga/anime) they fight two brothers named Oingo and Boingo, one who predicts the future with a comic book, and the other impersonates Jotaro while he's AFK.
i don't want to disrupt the flow of appreciating the OVA on its own merit, but i feel it's worth explaining a bit of background in my overall thesis on why this fight has me in a permanent chokehold. it's like tripwire. if Araki characterises the villains of Stardust Crusaders as "people with the personalities of trapdoor spiders," N'doul...
well. is he an exception to this or does he exemplify its plutonic ideal? idk. you'll just have to see the extent of his steeze.
be fucking for real.
when he descends upon the group, they're thrown into chaos. and while that panic is happening back with our homies, because his stand is one of much-longer range, N'doul posts up like a sniper, and is always shrouded in solitary quiet. this will become more relevant shortly, but i'm pretty piqued by sound doing so much for atmospheric storytelling in this OVA. sound vs silence being deployed chillingly. bright and jagged stings, or when music drops out entirely. this is part of the breathing room that i think this filmic adaptation excels at, finding beats/making space in a story that may come across in appearance as continuously cacophonic.
before we proceed, i'd like you to hear his haunting personal theme.
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N'doul's Theme
Marco D'Ambrosio |
he's going to stunt on em! to death!!
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