Even in such moments, Kishibe Rohan retains the straight-faced absurdity of its parent show. The second episode, in particular, conjures up incredibly memorable imagery around a corpse that won’t stop bleeding the head wound exploding in bloody viscera as the (inadvertent) culprit desperately tries to fix the hole in her ex-boyfriend’s head, going to depraved measures to cover up the accident. | Netflixįor all its silliness, it’s easy to forget the JoJo series’ capacity for gruesome imagery, which Kishibe Rohan leans into. And while JoJo’s animation has steadily moved beyond the stiffness of its earlier seasons, it helps Kishibe Rohan that it mimics the creative and off-kilter color schemes of its parent show, any wonky movements simply offset by fun and vivid layouts. Still, it’s fascinating to see the series’ visual and narrative sensibilities cast upon contemporary attitudes. This is admittedly somewhat ironic subject matter for JoJo-with its various protagonists all being 16- and 17-year-olds that average around two meters tall with Herculean muscle definition. There are exceptions: commentaries on anxieties around economic status and male body-image, its final episode “The Run” playing off of fitness obsession, and how acting pushes people toward the unreasonable expectation of a superhuman body. Through demons, ghosts, angry gods of the forest, the characters of these one-shots are mostly powerless to stop what’s happening to them.īeyond its love of the gothic, Kishibe Rohan isn’t a particularly contemplative show, focused on thrills and the joy of storytelling in itself. Those tales essentially play as the main series’ traditional blend of the macabre with the absurd, but instead as experienced by everyday people who aren’t as empowered to cut through supernatural misfortune the way the Jojo's of the main show do. Araki's love of gothic horror is now embodied in the structure rather than just the subject matter, each episode told as a story within a story told by Rohan, creating a fun meta angle to every episode.
The first of these stories, confusingly titled "Episode 16," takes place shortly after the events of Diamond is Unbreakable, but that’s just the framing device for the rest of the episode. Romero and Stephen King’s Creepshow, only with Rohan as our impeccably-dressed guide through each spooky story. Its variety of grim tales about people at the whims of fate or undone by their vices feels like a gothic anime spin on George A. This time, the show is interested in digging more into the kind of gothic horror stories that influenced the original series, mostly leaving behind its mythology of magic superpowers known as Stands (which I will not attempt to explain here). He is mostly a bystander and orator, but in one or two instances does get to intrude with the same hilarious stubbornness that made him a standout in the past JoJo season. (Curiously, while Kishibe Rohan is a Netflix exclusive, Diamond is Unbreakable itself is not available on the service.)Įach vignette is adapted from one-shot mangas under the same title, written by Araki between 19, all featuring Kishibe Rohan, a supporting character from Diamond is Unbreakable. Kishibe Rohan carries this further by dividing itself into four distinct and unconnected tales of horror and suspense, with the eponymous character serving as the only link between them. Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan is a spinoff from the main series-specifically Part 4: Diamond Is Unbreakable, which differentiated itself from the other main JoJo seasons by way of its small-town setting and focus on murder mystery and fun takes on urban legends. The show’s straight-faced absurdism and heightened performances ( and distinct poses) gave it a firm footing in internet culture-chances are if you’ve been online anytime since 2012, you will have come across one of the many, many, many memes spawned from it.
30 facts about me series#
The protagonists themselves appear as though cut out of marble, the cast of each series looking close to Greek gods in their own right, if the pantheon dressed like contemporary models. From there, each subsequent part takes place in a new time and place starring a different descendant of Jonathan’s, all nicknamed ‘JoJo’ in increasingly tenuous fashion (the latest in the anime is named Giorno Giovanna). The manga itself starts in 19th century England, with protagonist Jonathan Joestar (abbreviated to “JoJo”) squaring off with adopted brother-turned-malevolent vampire Dio Brando. For the uninitiated: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a sort of anthology fantasy series, based on a long-running, still ongoing manga by Hirohiko Araki, beginning in 1987. It may not be in the form that fans expect, but JoJo is back.
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