Adding a spoiler alert before all this because I realized I’d need to, 3:22 am.
At the time that I’m writing this, it’s June 21st, 2019 at 3:18.
I’m currently starting the third Season of Sherlock Holmes after finishing up the
second season while finalizing my last videos script, you won’t know which one that is.
Now, I originally wanted to just jump straight into this episode because I think this show
has a phenomenal portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the new age and I’ve been a huge fan
of Sherlock Holmes ever since 7th grade, but I never made the connection until now.
Now for those that had read the Sherlock Holmes novels, watched the movie with Robert Downey
Jr.
or had seen the series as I am right now, you know about the whole Moriarty Vs.
Sherlock Holmes final battle.
That’s specifically referring to “The Final Problem” scene and then “The Return
of Sherlock Holmes” which is what the creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had created after trying
to kill his character.
Emphasis on trying, which means that Sherlock Holmes didn’t die.
Sherlock Holmes didn’t die after plunging to his death like all of friends had thought,
and not only that, he had shown up to his own funeral.
And that’s when it hit me, you know who else had done exactly that?
Joseph Joestar.
Now, here’s a problem.
The version of Sherlock Holmes that shows up to his own funeral was the one in the show,
and that episode came out in 2012.
When Joseph had showed up to his own funeral, it was 1989.
Now while it seems like it would be a thing that Sherlock Holmes would do, Araki was the
first to do that here.
Not the first to do the trope, but the first to do it out of him and the many writers of
Sherlock Holmes adaptations.
Because when Sherlock Holmes did come back from the dead, he had traveled the world before
coming back home, and that was in “The Adventure of the Empty House”, the first novel after
the “The Final Problem”.
While there’s more to connect Battle Tendency and Sherlock Holmes, I think its extremely
interesting that Araki had done something that was so Sherlock Holmes that it ended
up being a thing in a later adaptation.
Either that, or the writers of the Sherlock Holmes series enjoy JoJo.
You know who else had extremely well observation
skills that let him take apart every enemy he’s every come across?
Joseph Joestar.
AND I WAS LIKE WOOOOAHH.
Wait, that can’t be true.
Unless, you know the Sherlock Holmes novels were a huge influence on almost all of hiss
works or at least his early ones.
Well, I just took that to google.
Googling Sherlock Holmes and Joseph Joestar.
Low and behold, by the greatness that is fate itself, I found a comicbook article going
about Hirohiko Araki’s most recent interview with Kotoba.
And guess what?
According to the artist, (I’m reading directly off this article now), Sherlock Holmes taught
Araki how to craft a very compelling story with narrative structure and charismatic leads.
Doyle’s series also showed Araki that heroes can be enjoyable even if they are sometimes
bad people.
Because it’s completely true that Sherlock Holmes is a jerk, that’s even going off
of what Araki had said, and with that knowledge we make the final connection on who is also
an observant jerk that get’s around doing what he wants at any given time.
Joseph Joestar.
But that gets me onto something, if Joseph Joestar is supposed to be Sherlock Holmes,
what does that say about everyone else in Battle Tendency?
Well, Caesar specifically is still Caesar meaning he’s that Dio and Zeppeli fusion
that Araki had wanted, I’m not stating that as clearly as I would want to, but you can
just refer to Meti’s video on that.
Is Lisa Lisa supposed to be Irene Adler?
I mean well, first of all that’d be fucking weird because that’s his mom obviously,
but Joseph did have a strong interest in her because of her skill, tact, and other reasons
I shouldn’t get into because I’m sure he didn’t feel the same way after he found
out that she was his mom.
She was the only woman to beat Sherlock, and Lisa Lisa was the only woman to put Joseph
into his place if we’re talking about Battle Tendency.
Irene Adler also had a career in opera, and golly gash darn what’s the mask that we
first see her with.
A mask with tears on one side and none on the other, most likely a little reference
to the opera??
Irene Adler was also one to disguise herself as a man at times to “take advantage of
the freedom which it gives”, I feel that, but that’s digressing if we want to have
that talk.
Lisa Lisa’s introduction also featured her disgusing herself as a man, or at least that’s
what she looks like if we’re going off how Caesar and Joseph thought she was a man.
But what does that say about the Pillar Men, who are they supposed to be?
I’m not sure on Wamuu and ACDC, but what I am sure of is that Kars is Professor Moriarty.
Holmes refers to Moriarty as “A man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by
nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty.
” And we all know about how Kars was an ultimate prodigy from the day he was born,
he was an extreme genius among his people.
Moriarty was also one to be behind curtains orchestrating his events.
Makes sense especially since Kars was the one leading ACDC and Wamuu to do what they
did, except when it came to their own stuff, but all that mattered was pushing Kars’
goal.
Adding onto the Kars and Moriarty stuff, a vow from him to Sherlock was “if you are
clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.
” That also makes sense.
You kill his ACDC, Wamuu kills your Caesar, you kill his Wamuu, he goes for your mom.
While Kars obviously came out in the negative, you get what I’m getting at.
Also, in Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty had commissioned gun from a blind German mechanic named von
Herder.
While the relationship is obviously not the same, potential Stroheim connections?
Most likely, I mean he did lose an eye.
[Conclusion] Now I am so happy that I was able to get these
references now because I believe that JoJo is this enormous universe that is still be
explored on the surface and there’s probably a lot more stuff that we aren’t immediately
getting.
Now, do I believe that Joseph Joestar is Sherlock Holmes?
Well, not exactly.
See, with Sherlock Holmes you can completely understand as to how he’s this observant.
Instead of spending any of his time on information that won’t be useful to him, he stockpiles
his brain with everything else necessary.
And there’s a lot he really doesn’t care about that’s basic stuff to the normal person
like knowing that our Earth orbits around the sun, that’s genuinely useless information
to him.
And there’s a lot of that.
He sacrifices social skills and basic information for anything that benefits his observation
ability and the stuff he can do with it.
He also developed this type of stuff overtime, having time in university and all that.
Joseph uses street smarts…
For just about everything.
And I’m not going to lie to you, the streets will not teach you all that Joseph does.
A lot of the early stuff he does, sure, and how he had basically made Wamuu into a Molotov
cocktail could also potentially point in that direction, but not everything.
I’m fine with chalking it up to Hamon makes you smarter basically because of that whole
Hermit Purple theory from way back, and I’m sure if Araki was to be asked about it now
a lot of that would make sense then, but that’s basically it.
Joseph Joestar is anime street version of Sherlock Holmes, not exactly
to the t, but it’s there.