English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable “July 15th (Thurs), Part 3”

“Ain’t That a Shame” that it’s “The Way of the World”?

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Josuke continues fighting Misterioso’s user, Terunosuke Miyamoto, who keeps trying to push Josuke to bite his lip and trigger the ability to trap him. To do this, he reveals his Stand’s power to fold things into paper, as well as that ripping the paper,  destroys whatever’s sealed inside. He then throws a piece of paper supposedly throwing Koichi into traffic, which makes Josuke scared enough to bite his lip and seal him away. But before he is completely swallowed, he tells Terunosuke that he should rip up the paper now because if he gets out, Josuke will kill him.

Yuya watches this and initially decides not to fight, but then realizes that he couldn’t live with himself if he let someone like Terunosuke get away. His pursuit leads him to follow a cap Terunosuke takes off in, only to find it empty with just a scrap of folded paper. Opening it unleashes, among other things, the pieces of paper holding Josuke and Koichi, but also a fully functional paper shredder that proceeds to swallow them. Amongst all of this chaos, Yuya also shows his fear, getting himself trapped, but this allows him to use his paper-thin arms to retrieve Josuke and Koichi, saving and releasing them. Josuke then makes good on his promise to kill Terunosuke, but settles for…turning him into a book?

Meanwhile, Rohan finally tricks Masazo into showing him his back, but this causes his back to burst open and kill him. Horrified by this, Rohan then discovers an odd creature attached to his own back now, a Stand called Cheap Trap that manifested from Masazo because of the Arrow but can jump to another user if someone sees the previous user’s back. He then begins trying to manipulate Rohan into burning his investigative photos, though now Rohan has to stop anyone from seeing his back, or else he’ll die and someone else will be cursed.

Also, Hayato tracks down Kira and plans to record him with his camcorder.

OUR TAKE

Another week, another trademark Jojo episode going absolutely nucking futs. Once again I have to commend the complete and utter lunacy this story ends up resorting to really STAND out in its fights, especially considering this was first written back in the late 90’s/early 00’s and still puts shows coming out now to shame. A bad guy who fights by trying to get people to look scared so he can turn them into paper and then stuff a full shredder inside one of those papers…is just too crazy to watch, let alone describe. Though after thirty or so weeks of this level of insanity, I’m not going to be so distracted by it that I don’t notice when it’s attempting to cover up some issues in the plotting, which I haven’t hesitated to point out over the course of this “July 15th” story arc we’ve been going through.

But I will say that this part of the arc definitely had more interesting ideas going for it worth bringing up. Terunosuke is both insane and effective at being frightening since it basically requires people to try not to show how scared they are despite increasing chaos surrounding them. It’s kind of like trying to get someone who was snickering to stop laughing when that only makes them want to laugh more. It also weirdly provided a moment for Yuya to play the hero for once, showing he redeemed himself from his last fight with Josuke. Still, don’t really care for him much as a character, but it was a well deserved shining moment. Although I don’t quite get what happened with Terunosuke. Was he a book that became a man, or…what? He’s also another addition to the list of “Josuke leaving his opponents in a state worse than death”, and since he’s going into a public library, he’s likely to never be found again.

Then there’s Cheap Trap, who I guess will have its own “fight” resolved next episode. This is obviously not the first time this series has dealt with Stands that act independently of their users, as Part 3’s Anubis has shown. Like Anubis, Cheap Trap can jump from host to host, but Cheap Trap kills the hosts it leaves and manipulates the one it attaches to. I think I already mentioned this, but it’s a pretty good match for Rohan’s Heaven’s Door, which would normally seem pretty over-powered with its ability to both read and control minds. We’ll see how that wraps up and leads us into the final phase of the season next week.