English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind:“Notorious Chase”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

After their most recent near-death experience in Venice, Bruno’s group heads to the “Marco Polo Airport” and manages to secure an airplane, with Abbacchio using his “Moody Jazz” Stand to fly the plane by replaying its pilot for their flight to Sardinia. During the preparations, a hostile Stand User with a grotesque appearance confronts them but Guido seemingly makes short work of him, only leaving him enough time to summon his Stand and strangely, nothing else. Afterward, Giorno briefly touches him and confirms his death.

Once the plane takes flight, Trish and Bruno discuss their situation and Trish mentions their first lead which is a location called “Cala di Volpe” where her mother met Passione’s elusive Boss, who at one point was a local at the time. Meanwhile, Giorno and Guido discover something disturbing which somehow got into the fridge of the plane without explanation. However it doesn’t go into full-creepy Silent Hill territory until Giorno discovers that his right arm is being absorbed by an enemy Stand, that through some unusual graffiti written on the plane, the final words describe it “Notorious Chase” which in a nutshell is a flesh-eating blob creature similar to the Yellow Temperance Stand from Stardust Crusaders but with extra steps…

And if that isn’t unsettling enough, this semi-formless monstrosity is attracted to the fastest object within its vicinity. Before Giorno can get it out of the plane, Chase instantly injures Guido and Naranciah and Giorno loses both arms in the process. With half of the team gravely injured with no healers available. Bruno goes to the cockpit to inform Abbacchio about the situation. With Trish being alone, Notorious Chase returns which was chasing the quickest-moving object nearby, that being the plane itself. At first, Chase doesn’t pursue her when she remains still but instead approaches an Object Giorno was smart enough to leave behind in advance which is in the process of transforming into one of Giorno’s new replacement hands. And the episode ends on a suspenseful cliffhanger when Trish realizes that it’s now a race against time for Trish to get this object away from the Chase before all hope is lost.

Our Take

Upon research, Notorious Chase’s original name in Japan was “Notorious B.I.G.” but it’s easy to assume that this was heavily edited for copyright reasons. I also had to see if the Japanese subbed version was edited or Photo-shopped because there’s a particular scene involving graffiti writing that only spells out the Stand’s name in English which left me curious enough to see if anything else was changed in some way, but I’m guessing the “David Production” animation team anticipated this and kept “Chase” name for both versions rather than edit or Photoshop anything later on.

I also noticed the complete lack of subs within the Graffiti scene which kinda annoyed me a bit. It was written in Italian dialect but not subbed in English in both versions. I don’t know if this was done on purpose but it could’ve helped if we, the English speaking audience also knew what was actually written before they were under attack. Granted, I also hope this will be Trish’s moment to shine in the next episode, she’s been a silent character for too long and it’s been hinted in previous episodes that she’ll have Stand Powers at some point.

Aside from the minor gripe about not everything is written in English, the rest of this episode excelled with giving a proper sense of urgency during its proceedings and I can’t wait to see how they’ll survive this one given that half of Bruno’s gang are currently out of commission while Trish is on her own against this putrid Stand creature.