AKA: JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Ōgon no Kaze, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険黄金の風

Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Supernatural

Studio: David Production

Episodes: 39

Seasons: 1

We’re almost there! It’s the home stretch or whatever they say during sports. The fifth season of JJBA and according to my social media mutuals, a fan favorite. After watching, I understand. I had to rearrange my list of JJBA because of this season. Diamond is Unbreakable is still my number one but Golden Wind is a close second. Mixing mafia with stands is a genius idea and we got a lot more unique abilities as well.

Production

Production hasn’t changed. We are still getting that top-quality animation as we did with Stardust Crusaders and Diamond is Unbreakable. They are responsible for some of my favorite shows; Fire Force (season 2), Inu x Boku SS, and Cells at Work! One key feature of them is having the ability to create good animation with great storytelling and characters and they are actually a very small studio with less than 100 workers (as of 2021).

Summary

Now, if you have noticed, I tend to put a summary of the plot and everything in my own words. I do this so spoilers aren’t all over the place. Yes, I know the series isn’t brand spanking new but I know a lot of people haven’t watched it yet. Spoilers are a fuzzy area. Anyway, this season we are in Italy. The events take place two years after Diamond is Unbreakable.

This season follows Giorno Giovanna who is technically Dio Brando and Jonathan Joestar’s son. Yes, I typed that correctly. To explain, Dio had possessed Joestar’s body and basically conceived a child. We find Giorno wanting to join the Mafia and climb the ranks in order to improve life in Italy. We get to see some familiar faces in Koichi Hirose and Jotaro Cujoh. The latter has sent the former to find Giorno (because if you remember they’re still trying to track down the origins of that arrow that gives people stand abilities).

Giorno is soon joined by a colorful cast of characters; Bruno Bucciriati, Guido Mista, Narancia Ghirga, and Leone Abbacchio.

Characters

First of all, I adore these characters because of how unique they are. When certain characters were [redacted] I got genuinely upset! To me, Araki has always done a good job of making me not only care about the story but characters as well.

Giorno GiovannA

Giorno Giovanna is the main star of this show. We follow him on his journey of becoming a Gang-Star to help the people out. In essence, he’s like….robin hood. The first thing you’ll notice, which seems to be a common pattern with these new Joestar descendants, his hair. I just want to insert my fingers in it. That sounded weird. Anyway, his stand ability is called Gold Experience and has the ability to create and manipulate life. Originally, I thought his stand was very OP but turns out, there’s technically one even crazier.

Bruno Bucciarati

Next, we have Bruno Bucciarati and spoiler alert, I did NOT enjoy his ending at all. He’s somewhat of the second protagonist or deuteragonist and is very much essential to the story. When we first see him, he’s seen as an enemy and really causes Giorno to discover his stand ability. Bucciarati is the leader of his own squad within the gang called Passione.

His stand ability is called Sticky Fingers where he can create zippers on any solid object or surface. Another cool ability is he can detect if someone is lying by looking at them since he’s able to see the sweat on their skin when they do lie. That ability gave us this golden moment:

He’s one of the first people that Giorno comes to trust and respects. Bucciarati formed his team by And let’s not forget his iconic bob!

Leone Abbacchio

Within the squad, we meet Leone Abbacchio. He is my favorite member (and not just because of his seiyuu) but I loved his stand ability and his character design. My guy had a somewhat sad background since he used to be a former cop. His partner ended up getting killed because of him and it affected him greatly. He’s got a very brash personality and generally doesn’t trust people. Giorno is one person he hated at the beginning. The two of them clashed on their first meeting. His stand ability is Moody Blues which has the ability to chronologically rebroadcast events. In other words, it cane take the form of someone and replay their actions.

Narancia Ghirga

My second favorite is Narancia Ghirga. The youngest of the group (and the cutest uwu), I also was not very happy with his outcome. Personally, I wanted to see more out of him. He was just a teenager after all. I would’ve liked him to have gotten out of the gang and went to school. In any case, he was somewhat the comical relief during all the drama since he had about .5 of a braincell. Then, there’s also the infamous Torture Dance scene that I can’t even describe.

His stand ability is called Aeorosmith and gives him the ability to use a toy fighter plane to shoot its victims and drop bombs (name should’ve been a giveaway). It can also detect carbon monoxide on its radar.

Panacotta Fugo

Now, this character is one that I honestly think the ball was dropped on. Panacotta Fugo was actually the most OP in the squad due to his stand’s ability. Personality wise he was sort of boring and not even one of my favorite characters. His situation was unique since his stand ability was truly powerful, he sort of hit a ceiling. Understandably, there wasn’t much to do with him so his character was really “written off” and didn’t have much screen time as the series went on.

His stand ability is called Purple Haze which releases a deadly flesh eating virus and kills any lifeform within 30 seconds. You can see how that would definitely be a problem. It’s also very violent and needs therapy.

Guido Mista

Next, is one of my favorite characters, Guido Mista. He also has .5 braincells and has a unique stand ability. Even though he’s ready to fight at any given moment he has a crippling fear of the number four, or tetraphobia. So much so that his stand ability, Sex Pistols, which allows him to shoot 6 bullets and direct them any way he likes, he numbers them 1-7 leaving out the number 4. This can also be tied to Japanese culture where the number 4 can be seen as bad luck since it’s pronounced as “shi” which means death.

Trish Una

And last but not least is the only female character, Trish Una. A few episodes in, she is revealed to be the daughter of the boss of Passione. Bucciarati and friends are instructed to protect and deliver her to her father without being killed in the process, thus their crazy journey begins. I really enjoyed Trish, even if she did start out as a helpless character. She does eventually become stronger and unlocks her own stand ability called Spice Girl. I will say the ability, which is to soften any object, it sounds pretty pointless but comes in hand sometimes.

Pros

That OST
JJBA successfully intertwined the mafia world and anime
Jodeci’s Freek’n You and no I won’t elaborate

Cons

Ending felt a bit quick and confusing

Conclusion

This was a very pleasant season to watch. I appreciated all the changes and nods to pop culture. Unfortunately, I can’t say I was 100% satisfied with the ending. Typically, I don’t favor shows that like to ‘get rid’ of characters if it doesn’t make sense to me. Now, I understand if the plot was set up for them to die all along but I’m just saying a lot of characters could’ve been saved.

Other than that, I think the season did what it needed to do and progressed the story to another level. There’s not many complaints on the show and it was entertaining all the way through. My favorite part would have to be the death dance, that was just so random yet so Jo Jo. While I’m not the biggest fan of the ending, I do appreciate that there was one in the literal and figurative sense.

All in all, I enjoyed this season and give it

🍙🍙🍙🍙

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