English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind: “Mirror Man and Purple Smoke”

(Possible Spoilers Below)

As the struggling battle against Illuso, and his “Mirror Man” Stand continues, Abbacchio attempts to complete their mission and to retrieve the key regardless of worrying about Fugo’s safety or well-being, but Illuso uses a nearby piece of a mirror to draw him into the mirror world, which thankfully spares Fugo’s life in the process. Abbacchio then sees Illuso inside of a mirror as well and it’s here he for once he understands what Fugo was warning him about in the last episode.

Tricking Illuso into forcing Abbacchio’s disguised Moody Jazz Stand to enter the mirror world and gaining the upper hand, Illuso nonetheless uses a piece of glass to trap both the Stand and User half inside of the mirror, disabling both. Out of sheer desperation, Abbacchio does the unthinkable to permit his Moody Jazz Stand on the other side of the mirror-world to deliver the key to Giorno which consequently results in Illuso setting his sight’s on him. However, rather than flee with the key, Giorno allows himself to be dragged into the mirror world by Illuso. However, Giorno reveals he had infected himself with Purple Smoke’s virus, exposing Illuso who must flee to the real world. Nonetheless, Giorno puts his Golden Wind Stand powers into full effect which involved transforming a Brick from the scenery into a snake to turn the tides in battle, allowing Fugo to guess Illuso’s position thanks to the use of Giorno’s Stand powers.

Purple Smoke then takes Illuso out once and for all. For his part, Giorno also manages to cure his own infection also by further using the clever use of his Stand powers, before tasking Fugo with treating Abbacchio’s wounds which greatly impresses both teammates or at least one of them since Abbachio begrudgingly lets Giorno’s actions slide despite their current predicament as they’ve now accomplished their mission and acquired the key. And if you think that isn’t enough, the episode ends on a cryptic post-credits scene with a guy in striped pants standing over a corpse at a train station holding a burned piece of paper.

Our Take

Holy fuck this episode was amazing! Full of well-animated action, mind games, tension, drama, cool manly-moments in combination with the use of quick-thinking on Giorno’s part which involved his Stand powers turning a brick into a snake which sounds even weirder when you type it our or say it out loud, but It’s hard to believe this is the son of Dio Brando, one of the greatest and most vile supervillains of Jojo’s lore. Even if the three didn’t exactly work as a team, the Individual ideas of Fugo, Abbacchio, and Giorno relying on assumptions all worked together in the end.

The deaths have also been quite gruesome so far, and after seeing what Purple’s Smoke Virus can actually do, I am surprised none of it got passed Adult Swim’s censors. I’m also happy that the animation team “David Production” delivered in spades in terms of fluid animation, pacing, and sound. Overall, this was quite a cool two-parter and it reminded us why we love the Jojo franchise as a whole, though I’m still curious who the hell that guy was in the post-credits scene and what role he could possibly play in the main story later on.