English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable “Highway Go Go, Part 1”

Oh, it’s a killing machine. It’s got everything.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rohan becomes increasingly suspicious of Josuke’s dice, which are secretly an alien named Mikitaka disguised as them to help Josuke cheat Rohan out of some cash. To find him out, Rohan goes to drastic measures by chopping off his left pinky finger, betting 2 million that he’ll figure out how Josuke is cheating in the next round, but if he CAN, then Josuke has to chop off his own pinky. He also invited Tamami (remember him?) to use his Lock stand to detect Josuke’s guilt as extra insurance. But they’re all so transfixed on the game that they don’t noticed Rohan’s house is on fire. Plus, the fire sirens are impacting Mikitaka’s shapeshifting since he’s allergic to them. Josuke manages to flee with him in the confusion, though he does heal Rohan’s pinky just in case.

The next day, while Hayato Kawajiri starts monitoring his mother and father’s odd behavior, Josuke runs into Rohan on the bus and the mood is…awkward, to say the least. But no time for that, as Rohan also notices an odd doorway in one of the tunnels and goes to investigate on his own. Josuke, in an act of sheer idiotic defiance, follows him just as Rohan is nabbed by the maker of the doorway, a Stand named Highway Go Go that goes after anyone who enters it to suck out their nutrients and can chase them at up to 60 kilometers per hour. Despite their previous animosity, Rohan saves Josuke from being attacked, but he’s still being chased, so the only way to stop it is by stopping the Stand’s user.

OUR TAKE

The downtime-during-the-hunt-for-a-serial-killer arc continues this week with…two halves of different episodes that make one mishmash of weird that also somehow involves developing the relationship between Josuke and Rohan. For all the problems with Josuke scamming him with Mikitaka presents, the game within the game of Josuke trying to hide his cheating was certainly interesting to watch on its own. Their rapport basically seems to be that Rohan is so eccentric and intelligent that he hates anyone who’s an idiot, but is also defiant of authority, while Josuke is definitely an idiot but also a clever trickster like his father before him and ALSO defiant of authority. So moments like when Rohan is held hostage by Highway Go Go and has every reason to give up Josuke by pretending to ask for help but then DOESN’T just to stick it to the Stand instead of any actual concern for his acquaintance or pretty funny in their own way.

I’ve said pretty much all I can about Mikitaka, aside from the odd ambiguity that he may or may not be an alien or a human who is convinced he is one, so let’s talk about the title enemy of the episode. Highway Go Go, who I guess we’ll be getting two episodes with since this plot wasn’t resolved here, is definitely more of the right type of crazy that a quintessential Jojo villain should have, as opposed to Boys Man Man who seemed really half-assed. Highway has his own odd conditions for getting people caught in his trap, sucks the life out of you like a vampire, has a unique way of chasing you that looks like it came out of a horror movie, and a pretty neat design in my opinion. Plus it looks like next week will have a high speed chase across town in search of his user, which will certainly set it apart from previous fights.

But despite all these potentially neat things, I still can’t help but feel like a lot of this feels pointless. Like, c’mon guys, we’re supposed to be looking for Kira, so why are we goofing around like this? The most we get in terms of check-ins for him this time is the son of the guy whose identity he stole is finally starting to notice something is up, but who knows where that’s going to go. I just wish we could get a move on already and return to the main plot, but we still have a ways to go before that happens and my patience is bound to run thin.