[Skit]
I haven’t had a mission like this in a while, and was reluctant on doing this.
It was a cold night in December…
1938.
I was looking through the results of my last mission in that part.
The waitress handed me a cup of tea, I was told that this café was one of the best in
the city.
The café was called Gas Stación, everyone told me they got their fuel there.
I found that to be a lie because the tea tasted liquor and fish juice.
I then realized it was 1938, so it was probably actually that and I should get out of this
time as soon as possible before I get mistaken for target practice.
Back on to my last mission, a lot of positive reviews came from the people, but the society
within the part was an uproar.
I had realized I was in the wrong territory when they told me that Italy was boring, Japan
was bland, and the original American was possibly one of the worst parts.
They were ready to write off the rest of the parts to defend their one star…
They said their star was one of the best ones…
He wasn’t.
I usually let people defend their stars without doing anything because they aren’t doing
any harm…
But when you come for my stars, then I must be the one to stop you all.
I have a tendency to battle with people like this…
But now it’s time, I’m coming for you…
Part 2.
[Introduction] Battle Tendency.
The short comical intermission between Phantom Blood and Stardust Crusaders.
As much as I kid, I like the part.
I wouldn’t have done so many videos on it if I didn’t.
Well that’s more circulated on things in the part instead of the part itself.
While I like the part would I say it’s one of the best written parts?
If I was supposed to have a top 5 best parts, it wouldn’t be there.
This is with my own personal bias out of the way, because I couldn’t even include Phantom
Blood in that 5 either.
Well, why would I think this way?
I’m going to go over all of the data compiled on this part, and some of the arguments with
it.
But let’s kick it off with the man of the hour, Joseph Joestar.
Joseph is a witty, clever, jack of all trades (show Gintoki)…
Oooh, wait my bad, wrong character.
Joseph was originally just a Joestar living the life with his Grandma Erina.
It wasn’t until Speedwagon in danger that ended up being the catalyst of something that
was larger than part 1, and almost as large as part 3.
[Plot] The Pillar Men, ancient vampiric superhuman
beings, returning for the Red Stone of Aja, the key to achieving the Ultimate form of
evolution.
Now, these beings had been around for a large amount of time.
They’re also the same beings who had taken out a Hamon clan.
Hamon being one of the two answers to defeat these said Pillar Men.
They couldn’t get the Red Stone of Aja around that time, so they hibernated until they could.
In their time of hibernation, Hamon was brought back by those preparing for the return of
Pillar Men.
So now, the Hamon warriors are here to defend our world from devastation.
Now here’s my problem with that.
If it wasn’t for Speedwagon involving Joseph, our line of defense would have been 4 people
that we know of.
Three of those four being Hamon Trainers that should be significantly stronger than the
students they train, but they all end up getting demolished by each Pillar Men.
Is it possible for the student surpass the teacher?
Yes, of course.
Is it possible for a student surpass all their teachers?
Yeah, I can see it happening.
Now, is it possible that four hamon users have a chance against 3 Pillar Men and an
army of vampiric zombies.
From what we had seen, they aren’t getting past the Pillar Men.
If you put a whole army of these zombies against them, I doubt they’d even have the energy
to get to the Pillar Men.
But, in the plot of it all we don’t worry about that because the Hamon warriors had
the help of (shows Nazi’s).
Oh…
Oh so that’s how that works…
Oh, oh no…
How did we get here?
How did we win so many fights, even though the odds and plot were set against us?
Joseph Joestar.
Joseph is the reason for everything that benefits the world in Battle Tendency, and that’s
somewhat of a problem.
Jojo has shown us that when the spotlight is put on other characters occasionally, it
benefits the part as a whole.
When it comes to liking characters, in Battle Tendency you have room to choose a specific
few.
That few being Lisa Lisa, Kars, Wamuu, and Stroheim.
You can obviously include Joseph in that, since the part is made to be fully his, but
Caesar who was meant to be a counter-part?
Not really.
Taking apart each character for who they are.
[Characters] Lisa Lisa: A woman whose parents were killed
by the zombies of Dio Brando when she was only a baby.
Being raised in the art of Hamon and was entrusted with the Red Stone of Aja, knowing of the
power it holds and those coming for it.
She married a Joestar who was also killed by a zombie of Dio Brando that for some reason
was a military official, so when she killed him, her entire identity had to have been
wiped to avoid a large amount of conflict that would’ve come with her revenge.
Leaving her original life, and leaving the son that she had near and dear.
Kars: A genius born among his people of his nocturnal Pillar Men.
He believed that his people were strong enough to own the world and that they deserved to
be on top, the only thing that was in the way was their weakness to the sun.
He sought to create something that would have them evolve past their weakness, and take
over the world, and he did so with the Stone Masks, but he needed one last thing to for
these stone masks that would end up creating gods among humanity.
Though his people couldn’t see what he saw, so they had tried their hand at Kars.
Kars wanted his people to prosper, but then realized it could only be him and his group
of four that can stand on top.
We see how that goes, and those that he had come with had perished in the fight for evolution.
Including Wamuu, someone who he had raised with ACDC.
Kars was someone who had lost those he wanted to help progress, and those that had nearly
became a family to him, all of this because of pursuit of evolution.
Wamuu: Raised to believe that he should only look out for his own people, respect things
that have what you don’t, and try to achieve the full potential of his being.
Yet, he still believes that there are honorable beings out there, and there’s more potential
to people.
He believes in honor and respect when it comes to fighting.
The respect being the ending of him, but even when only being a head, he will not let others
interfere and disrespect the outcome of a fight he fought.
Stroheim: He’s a cyborg.
Characters aren’t the only thing to an anime or manga, but they are a good part of it,
along with setting, and story.
We already know about the theme of Jojo, so now it would only be about execution on what
characters we’re going to have come along on the journey.
It’s just that when we’re talking about characters that had their time and were portrayed
to their full potential, we won’t exactly have that in Battle Tendency.
Especially when you have a character like Lisa Lisa or Kars that get undercut and aren’t
recognized on how much they had to them.
Then you have people focus on a character like Caesar whose one moment had account for
his whole character.
More people will try to think about the best moments of Caesar, but those moments only
go on part with being connected to Joseph.
To Araki, supporting characters are meant to fulfill a goal of their own, and while
everything finishes well enough for the rest of the cast, it didn’t go so well for Caesar
whose history accounted for who he was and couldn’t distance himself from it.
He was a Zeppeli, living for a Joestar, even when he didn’t want to in the first place,
it’s what it came out to be.
Off results and effect on the part, you can’t even say that Caesar is sharing a spot next
to William or Lord Gyro.
[Joseph] Since we’re on the topic of comparing now,
let’s talk about where Joseph stands.
Nearing the end, I’m going to be talking about what Joseph had went for versus what
he came out to be.
In terms of need towards the future endeavors of the Joestar lineage, aside from the Pillar
Men issue at hand, Joseph did more for everyone when he was older.
Young Joseph did well with what was needed for the world, but it wasn’t done for the
world.
It was done for himself, but did benefit the world.
In terms of his character, where does he stand?
No one has any reason to believe that he is the best.
Being a favorite is totally fine since no one can take that away from you, but on topic
of being the best Joestar, it’s just not him.
In the aspect of strength, it’s not him.
In the aspect of abilities and how unique he is with his power, it’s not him.
On the topic of being the best written, it’s not him.
In character design, that’s somewhat subjective, but speaking on a general term it’s not
him.
And you can easily look at a lot of the fights you get in future parts and you know he doesn’t
take the best fight category either.
The only thing you can get with Joseph is being a character where he’s the most comical
out of all of them.
Which is cool for him, but the future Joestars don’t have to focus to much on comical moments
when the supporting characters do extremely well with them.
Along with that, it’s done with a more relatable approach.
“Now you might think, Kaleb, I might kill you.
Joseph is the funniest character there is in Jojo, so that makes him the best.
Jotaro is a bland character.
I like Josuke and he’s probably better than Joseph, but I won’t tell you.
Giorno is boring, or well at least so I’ve heard, I haven’t read the manga.
Stone Ocean is bad.
Johnny is a big baby.
I don’t know about Josuke, but he’s a sailor so he’s cool.
Battle Tendency best part.
There’s the posing, Stroheim, Joseph memes, what’s there not to like.”
Look, there’s more out there.
I’m not going to be the one to tell you to watch influential movies and read important
book, so you can understand writing, characters, development, and plot.
I’m sure everyone has gone to school.
All I need to say on this specific topic, if you challenge your personal interest on
something that’s already been massively accepted as being great, then you might have
to do a double take.
For example, take all the parts after 2.
When you have widely accepted parts with characters that have massive development and depth to
them, the only thing that’s in question is your ability to follow what’s happening.
A lot franchises have a specific part of the story or a character that appeals to a specific
demographic, and it just happens that when Battle Tendency is that part, a large amount
of those that take in the part happen to discredit the other parts.
And as being as honest as possible, it never looks good when the attempt is tried.
The craziest thing about those arguments is that the best parts of Joseph aren’t even
mentioned by those that support him.
And yes, Joseph has great moments.
Battle Tendency itself has its moments too where what Jojo is shown to be on the outside
is enhanced massively, but even when that’s done, it’s still extremely enjoyable.
For example, when a dramatic moment is done, and you can see the art and power that’s
in that scene alone.
The color shift and the addition of certain abstract patterns is something that just made
both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency pop.
Now, what made Joseph great.
There’s a moment in Battle Tendency where the part speaks for itself, and Joseph’s
role in it.
That moment is when Joseph and Caesar first meet the Pillar men.
Caesar, holding anger and resolve approaching a situation not made for him, and Joseph making
light of the situation, but coming out of it with him on the winning side.
Look at how this is all put together.
Caesar’s background and beliefs is what leads up to his anger and passion of wanting
to defeat the Pillar Men.
On the side, you have Joseph who has his history intertwined with the Stone Masks, but doesn’t
even care about the Pillar Men that way.
He’s more focused on how they compose themselves against Caesar and everyone else in the room.
This is where I hold massive respect of Joseph.
He’s in a situation where Caesar who had been on the same level of him, had be destroyed
by Wamuu, but he doesn’t care about that and what’s against him.
The only thing that he cares about right now, is humbling this smug ancient being.
“I am…
I am totally serious!!
Seeing Caesar’s friend get killed made me sad and pissed me off!
That’s part of it…
But I’ve always hated arrogant bastards like this!”
Young Joseph is a man who fears no one aside from his grandmother, and mother.
He completely disregards the immense power and skill gap between him and Wamuu, and proceeds
to put the hands on him like it was nothing.
Along with doing that, he did it all in a comical manner where’s disrespecting him
by showing how much he’s playing around with him mentally.
“I’ve destroyed that disrespectful attitude as I wanted!
Now I’ll blast the hamon into your wounds!”
Look, here’s Joseph’s list of priorities.
Breaking the spirit of arrogant people goes first, everything else comes second.
Now that’s what I’d love to see people talking about.
Not the funny moments, not the odd things connected, not the music that’s still pretty
good I cannot even lie, the opening is great.
People need to talk about the massive amount of will and passion that Joseph holds due
to personal interest.
Speaking from experience, silencing an arrogant person is one of the best feelings ever.
Imagine that there’s some prep kid in class and they try to correct the teacher, but then
that kid that always sleeps in class wakes up just to shut the kid up and correct them.
You can’t just prove an arrogant person wrong, you have to do in a manner where you’re
showing that you proving them, wrong was done with massive ease and they’re not as big
as they thought they were.
That’s why the final fight between Joseph and Ultimate Kars was the most important fight
in the part.
Kars was someone who planned and was far more intelligent than Joseph, yet he was still
defeated by sheer luck alone.
The playful, comfortable, and witty character is a type of character that I love when it
comes to one upping the intelligent and arrogant type of characters.
I think everyone can enjoy a confident character, but sometimes arrogant characters can be annoying.
To have a character that is portrayed to be such a joke, but is smarter than the arrogant
character is a feeling that you can’t get tired of.
I feel like that was the direction that Joseph was meant to go, and that would be great if
that was the case.
But, it wasn’t.
While having an amazing driving energy to push though out the part, doesn’t match
up to what it had going for it.
You have Joseph beating arrogant the characters who acted ignorant towards him: Santana, ACDC,
Kars, and Caesar.
But then you have some of the characters mentioned and other characters that weren’t shown
to be what they were and what history they had.
Like Lisa Lisa, Wamuu, Kars, and Caesar.
Plus, Caesar was just done wrong as a whole.
You can say that you like the character, but he became nothing but a stepping stone.
He was a Zeppeli that didn’t have the impact that a Zeppli does.
His father did more, and we had only seen him once.
The only thing I saw as poetry that involved Caesar was when Wamuu hadn’t interfered
with the final bubble created by Caesar.
That same nobility being the reason for the end of Wamuu, which shows that both being
arrogant and honorable gets you killed.
Which means that’s there’s no good way of winning in Battle Tendency unless you’re
Joseph Joestar.
Now, what could’ve been done in Battle Tendency?
Well, in Phantom Blood you get the constant build between both the protagonist and the
antagonist.
In Stardust Crusaders, the group develops with it’s members.
Battle Tendency had seemed more of a part orchestrated to work on one person, but I’d
like to have it circulated around the duo and you can go through Battle Tendency without
it feeling so one sided.
Along with that we could’ve fleshed out Caesar instead of having him just have one
moment of resolve before being it being his final moment.
With the Pillar Men I would’ve loved to see young Wamuu moments, the build up to the
betrayal of Kars, and the eradication of the hamon warriors since we still haven’t seen
bloodshed like that aside from Kars and ACDC Vs. their clan.
I would’ve also loved more moments with Lisa Lisa, since she wasn’t made to be as
impactful on the part as she was supposed to be.
Maybe include that one part in the manga where she had taken the Red Stone of Aja out in
public.
Just, something to where the part doesn’t just seem like a Joseph OVA where it’s a
game of let’s see how many times Joseph can win.
It’s also too late to tweak anything obviously, but it’s nice to think about what potential
Battle Tendency had.
It’s the reason I have such an interest in the lore of the part.
So, where does part two stand?
Well, it's not better than any of the other parts.
Not in terms of writing, characters, fights, or anything really.
The part held a large history and a large amount of potential.
The opening is also great, but I haven’t heard a Jojo opening that I didn’t like.
[Fade back into the bar.]
And that was it.
See, I never wanted to become the man for the job.
My role was to build parts up, but when those tear other parts down to push theirs up, I
had to settle all differences.
Hopefully, they approach everything a different light now.
Possibly going back and watching the classics, or reading the novels that still held their
own against the test of time.
It’s possible that they would even go back and read all of the manga since the animation
had extremely dry coloring, but who knows?
I’m not sure what my next mission will be.
Maybe I’ll search the ocean full of stones, maybe begin a crusader for stardust, or maybe
I’ll even jojo a lion.
I don’t think that’s how that works.
Hopefully I’ll see everyone in the next one.
Until then, thank you to you all.
And god speed to you, part 2.