[Introduction] Echoes was JoJo’s first instance of Stand
evolution and it would always beg the question, well what if this took a step further.
Some of you know a series I had similar to this, and well…
I just apply this over to this because you know how much I like changing stuff.
Echoes has been one of the stands I get questioned for a lot, and I say it’s around the potential
of the Stand but regardless the video was going to be done sooner or later.
So, to show my interpretation of Echoes Act 4 I’m going to show all the steps I went
through to get here.
[Ability Explanation] You have Echoes Act 1, with the ability of
Sound Generation, or well how Koichi explains it to be, “pasting sounds onto others.”
There many factors into how Araki created this ability.
Koichi mentions Cicada voice by Basho Matsuo, and Araki in his Author’s note for Echoes,
the volume, was about how he’d get music stuck in his head and be unable to focus on
anything.
Then there’s Act 2 to where the sounds became real.
You could say these are Sound Effects in its full sense because these sounds come with
their effect with Act 2.
There weren’t any notes on Act 2, but how it came to be with the situation with Yukako,
you can make some assumptions off that.
My take is using the saying “words won’t reach everyone”, with Yukako, that was exactly
the case, and it took the actions of Act 2 happening to knock sense into her, sort of.
So, it’s a combination of “words won’t reach everyone” and “actions speak louder
than words”.
Or at least that’s what I got from the narrative here.
With Act 3, I’m not exactly sure what we have going here.
We could say that 3 Freeze in specific is the weight of words, but it’s just a rhyming
scheme.
The deepest thing we got directly is that it’s just rhyming three and freeze.
There’s a disconnect going on here.
But from that I knew what direction I wanted to take this into.
So, I’ll set the scenario to where I got the idea all done for.
[Scenario] The best area where we would see Act 4 would
be when Okuyasu had got hit by the explosive air bubble.
Okuyasu just got hit and Josuke screams in reaction to what just happened.
Koichi, Jotaro, and Rohan can hear this, but instead Koichi runs in the direction of the
sound instead of staying with Jotaro and Rohan.
While he’s on his way Josuke is fighting the air bubbles as he did before.
By the time he gets there he sees Josuke being blown up from the bubble that had seeped through
the wall.
Koichi screams in reaction to seeing this, but then he also sees Okuyasu on the gate
looking dead.
Kira sees Koichi and remembers what Koichi had said to him in their last interaction.
He gets a bit tensed up, but he’s still fairly confident.
Josuke yells out to Koichi telling him how this newly faced man is Yoshikage Kira, but
Koichi could already see Killer Queen so he has just been standing there frozen in reaction
to all of this.
Then he remembers all that had happened and what’s led up to this.
Shigechi, Reimi, and all of those that have died by the hands of Kira.
Koichi getting gutted and Jotaro after Sheer Heart Attack.
And now from what he sees, Okuyasu had died, and Josuke, a person he sees as one of the
strongest people he knows is on the ground bleeding.
Koichi has thought about all the times everyone had spoke about catching Kira and all of the
times they’ve done research.
All of this planning and speaking for us to end up on the losing side, and he’s overwhelmed
by all of these feelings.
That’s when he’s tired of all of it and he finally adapts over.
He wants all his words to follow through with their actions, to finally stop Yoshikage Kira.
The push from this all takes Koichi into his next stage, Echoes Act 4.
[New Act: Reasoning] Now this the area with his new ability.
I couldn’t find the direct words to piece what this ability is like, but I guess Voice
Activation in a sense?
The new ability is to turn whatever Echoes says into an action against the enemy.
But not as literal as that, and I also had a variation given to me by my friend.
The phrase itself or possibly the poetry itself is what gives the action.
My friend was the one to tell me that Echoes adapting into this new form that gives out
haiku’s on what it does would be cool.
[Examples] So, let me give you an example.
It doesn’t work in the way that Echoes just says, Kill Kira and Kira dies, nor does it
work like, Stop Time, and time stops.
Let’s say that Koichi wanted an adaptation of three freeze.
Against Kira, Echoes says something along the lines of “Act 4, you will hold my burden.”
Then this massive weight heavier than Three Freeze is applied to Kira.
I also didn’t mention that I want to make the ability have more strength when there’s
a lot of emotion backing it.
Another example is if Echoes wanted Kira to burn, but not die from it or have any actual
signs of burning.
He only feels it, but there’s no actual signs of fire.
It says something like, “Act 4, burn with the flames of my hatred”, and Kira would
feel the most intense burning pain but there would be nothing noticeable.
On the phrases, I wanted one-liners, but I believe if Araki was to write it, he’d be
able to come up with full on haiku’s on what Koichi wants to do against whoever he’s
facing.
But on the actions of the ability, I only wanted Act 4 to work a manipulation of perception
or feeling.
With the burning example, Act 4 would be able to burn Kira because that’s an Act 2 accessible
thing and it would be easy to incorporate it into 4.
But with that, you have a chance of Kira dying from the damages alone, that’s why I wanted
it to mess with his feelings more than anything.
If he feels the pain of burning or the weight without actual damage being done, it won’t
matter because it feels all the same.
He could adapt this into a wide array of other things because at that point it’s just up
to what Koichi could think of in that moment.
So, going back into the scenario.
Act 4 is out and Koichi is pissed.
Kira’s amazed, but he doesn’t care about a new form, he tries his hand at another Air
Bubble, but in that instance of creating another one, Echoes Act 4 blitzes Kira and shows up
underneath him and Killer Queen.
Koichi says a cool one liner about how Kira should feel what it’s like to be one of
his victims and with a strike to the chest Kira begins to feel this breaking sensation.
It feels like rapid burning and beating torn apart, but what Act 4 put onto Kira is the
feeling of being blown up multiple times over.
Kira is flailing on the ground here and with this, Josuke goes on with Hayato to repair
Okuyasu while Koichi is walking up to Kira on the ground.
He sees Josuke crying in reaction to Okuyasu not waking up and Koichi burns with more anger
than he ever has here.
He’s done with Kira so he finishes it off in the only JoJo way possible, by Ora Oraing
him beyond belief.
Okuyasu comes to life later on and this all wraps up pretty easily.
[Stand Stats] So, with this, obviously I’m going to have
to prepare some stand stats because that’s something people love seeing for some reason.
Act 4 comes here with an A in destructive power.
The A here is the strongest Echoes has ever been and I’d honestly put it’s strength
on part with Crazy Diamond for it.
I was thinking about comparing to Prime Star Platinum, but I have no reason to since that’s
not where it’s power lays.
It has an A in speed because there was a constant escalation in Speed for Echoes, but for some
reason it was always still slower than scarier stands we had.
With Act 4 I’d put it ahead of all that stands we had ever seen except for those that
made it their ability to focus on Speed, so basically around Star Platinum levels of fast.
It’s range I’m giving it back to B, but range in the ability is inescapable.
So, if you were to ever escape Act 4, if you already have a feeling or something set onto
you, it can’t be removed, only Koichi can willingly remove it.
It has an A in Durability because since stands represent our personality, I want to say that
Act 4 is the strongest that Koichi’s mental fortitude has ever been.
Which is why I gave it an A. I gave the precision a C because it had never
grown, and I see no reason as to why I would need to make it a focus when Act 4’s fists
and power is enough.
And to finish it all off, I gave potential an E since this is where Koichi had capped
out on what Echoes is capable of, and along with that, I see that as Koichi’s final
step in growth.
This in no way effects my interpretation of the Koichi we had already been with in DiU,
you could just see this as an alternate universe Koichi where his narrative doesn’t affect
anyone else’s besides him.
With that, I’m finished.
[Outro] Thank you all for watching.
Thank you Kuma so much for the art and everything.
And thanks Ishraq for the Haiku idea, didn’t really fully incorporate it but it’s the
thought that counts.
I’m so happy to get back into this type of thing because creating these character
concepts was always a cool thing to me and I can’t wait to do more.
If any of you have an idea on what you want to see conceptualized, feel free to comment.
It doesn’t even have to be purely JoJo, or JoJo-related.
I was thinking about some Hunter stuff the other day and I might just adapt that over
sooner or later.
Thank you all again, make sure to comment, like and subscribe if you enjoyed and want
to see more and I’ll see you all in the next one.
Hopefully.
Until then, peace out, and God Speed.