Merchandising is at its best when it makes as little sense as possible. When thinking of a product of yours to make, consider the functions it could have. You could have a figurine, but what happens when your primary market needs to make sure that dust doesn’t get in the jack for their headphones? What if they want to go around pretending their phone has the ability to summon ghost muscle man that can stop time or pull others into a void of nothingness?
Some people do manage to think of those possibilities, though, and thus we now have Stardust Crusaders themed headphone jack covers. They come in packs of 12 with a gold and silver version each of Star Platinum, The World, Silver Chariot, Iggy, and Cream with two hidden types. It’s likely that the hidden types will be consistent and they just want to leave it as an added bonus, but it may also be possible for them to be different per package. Maybe want to keep those trading lines open.
You know, it’d honestly slipped my mind that it was getting to be time for these two to be coming around. I think we’re starting to settle down with all the DLC characters almost all the way out, and I’m taking the new campaigns for chances to get extra costumes while taking breaks to listen to those voice clips of yelling for as long as the voice actor’s lungs held out. Still, I was interested in Vanilla Ice, so let’s check this shit out courtesy of Vish.
Anasui seems pretty straight forward, but that makes sense when you think about it. Picking him for the game seems kind of strange to me because I don’t remember him having many significant fights that were really visceral. There was Yo-Yo Ma and he was part of Bohemian Rhapsody, but those weren’t really as much about just beating the shit out of someone. Because of that, he has what kind of looks like what Fugo had in just hitting guys with a few throwbacks to Diver Down’s ability outside the HHA and GHA, though without accidentally poisoning yourself so better. I was expecting him to be more based around what Abdul can do with Crossfire Hurricane Variation but more versatile since DD can move around more freely through things. I do like the placing Diver Down through the floor so it can ORAORA someone in the back, though, so maybe this just needs a different playstyle to really shine.
Vanilla Ice does look interesting. The red glow for the void area makes sense since fighting an invisible character would suck just as much for the opponent as the one using them. He also seems geared towards basic aggression, having Ice’s kicks from when he was kicking Iggy to death was a nice aesthetic touch, but maybe with a bit more movement planning. Some of the moves I’m not sure what do like when Cream makes a hole in the floor because it seems to take just long enough for the opponent to come up and kick your face off. I’m also interested in that going Stand mode makes it so you are inside Cream but not the void, so you become somewhat intangible to move around. Seems abusable on the surface, but it’s not that different from most teleports. There’s also sending Cream all over the place, and Ice does get blood sucking and a cute Light Shoryuken like punch, so I think he can go places.
By the way, Vanilla Ice is voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino (Solf J. Kimblee in Full Metal Alchemist to cover the psycho murderer part, and Brief from Panty and Stocking to cover the creepily idolizing someone part,) and Anasui is still voiced by Yuichi Nakamura. See you guys in a little while for a little bit of LASER CANNON.
Someone started a very cool Tumblr. JoJo’s is rife with musical references, and I know more than a few fans have been turned onto new bands just because of that. How many times have you plumbed your way through search results and YouTube trying to find the song someone or their stand is named after? Well, now you may not have to go looking so hard. JOJO.FM, a repository for and guide to all the JoJo’s musical reference songs you could want. Six songs a page and a nice archive, each character portrait has the song they’re named after streaming. In the case the character/stand is named after an album, like Gold Experience, or a band, like Red Hot Chili Pepper, the song will be one from that album or just any song by the band.
You can check the reference list for character/band, album and song tags on their ETC page and make requests on their Ask page. They’ll be filled in a week. Kick back and listen to some good music.
It’s weird to post like this, but I haven’t seen the scan in any other way. Pucci has a good theme, so whatever.
Vanilla Ice and Anasui. Slowly stepping our way through the rest of the DLC as we work off our whole new batch of costumes from Lisa Lisa and Old Joseph and hope that anyone who didn’t get a new one will this time. These spreads always bring out interested design elements I’d never considered. I always pictured Diver Down being a pinkish color instead of an aqua green, and never considered that the sectioning off of its hips were supposed to be a speedo. Cream, on the other hand, looks exactly how I always pictured it, though designs back then were less nuts.
I always default to it, but if anyone was going to have trap moves, Anasui has to be that person. It was one of Diver Down’s key abilities. His GHA will certainly involve him using Dive Down on the opponent and doing a bunch of damage by messing with their insides. He might also have warping and be based around attack voiding, kind of like what Valentine does with his flag, since DD can also pull that. For Vanilla Ice, I mostly wonder if he can be in the void generally or if that’s only for special moves. His GHA will probably be the attack that killed Abdul, though I could see them using kicked up sand, like with Polnareff, for visual effect. There’s probably going to be a secret mission where you have to stab him in the face, so if he can be in the void, his face will probably be exposed when not attacking. Seems reasonable if you can hit him, though I don’t know if they’ll make him be knocked out of it by that. We’ll see.
10/10 Campaign 4 “Inheritable purpose”: Lisa Lisa, Old Joseph (both same seiyuu as before of course)
The block for the 19th to the 26th is says “Tokyo Game Show 2013.”
So, a question that might be on your mind is, “Is this real?” It’s a image-less block of text from a Twitter that we don’t know much about, or at least I don’t. I can tell you that this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this block. The JoJo’s F2C cataloged a post with the same information, also including the DLC campaign “Armed Phenomenon” on October 24th that will have Ikuro/Baoh as voiced by Kyousei Tsukui. I didn’t post that because, as someone in that cataloged thread pointed out, there was no source. However, assuming this Twitter didn’t get it from the same conversation, this is the second time that it’s come up. That does add a little weight to it, and I’d be all over Old Joseph and Vanilla Kasshu. If we get something more visual or I somehow find out where this info came from, I’ll let you know immediately.
(Thanks to Twitter and the same Tumblr that gave us the translation for the image itself)
A massive compilation cap to everything about the 25th Anniversary of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Artwork, documentaries, interviews, the works. It’s all here.
The Artbook
The JOJOveller Artbook focuses mainly on Parts 6 through 8. It contains some stunning artwork in the same vein as the artwork in JOJOmenon. Also, it blows up because Kira got into the production line.
The Stand Book
You know how there were little readouts on the Stands in between chapters that gave a brief overview of a Stand’s ability, powers, and whatnot? This is going to be that, but so much more comprehensive. Power ratings, ability comprehension, various artworks, and all for every single Stand that has appeared since Part 3.
The History Book
The History “Book” is actually a book and video interview with Araki. Go back in time and look at everything JoJo including Araki himself stepping back and looking at his whole 25 year magnum opus where he will apparently be revealing classified JoJo information that we’ve never heard before. Maybe he’ll explain how Gold Experience Requiem works.
The Documentaries
There are two documentaries in this collection. The first one is the JOJOmenon video that was part of an Ultra Jump release a little bit ago. They put up a new, more robust preview video.
The second one is a little sitdown with Araki at his desk walking us through his creative process in “The Making of JoJo.”
The amount of artistic media that he goes through to make his artwork. I never would have guessed he uses airbrushes.
Special
This isn’t as much part of the book itself as the PV I embedded up at the top. The big deal for this page, though, is the bonus images. All these pictures that I’ve been using are on the page, but what they are is the physical JOJOveller book being affected by different stand powers. You can probably guess what most of them are. The site will release all these pictures on a schedule as wallpapers for desktops. Currently, the only available ones are Echoes Act 3 and Cream. They’re all available in two sizes. The next one, the exploding one, will be available on the 26th.
It’s time for JoJo’s Part 3: Stardust Crusaders. We’re covering the manga, with all the poop eating babies and orangutangs with super boats. Would you believe those are some of the more normal enemies?
Merchandising is at its best when it makes as little sense as possible. When thinking of a product of yours to make, consider the functions it could have. You could have a figurine, but what happens when your primary market needs to make sure that dust doesn’t get in the jack for their headphones? What if they want to go around pretending their phone has the ability to summon ghost muscle man that can stop time or pull others into a void of nothingness?
One Pixel Jump 
