It’s finally time. Let’s send the series that’s brought us so much joy off with a bang.
Episode 26 is an episode of moments.
A moment of despair
A moment of true JoJo power
A moment in space
A moment of love
A moment to say goodbye to old friends
And a moment of hope for the future
You can see the rest of the pictures at Yaraon. Hope to see everyone again for our trip to Egypt!
It’s been a long road. Across the Earth, across generations, and it all climaxes here on a little volcanic island off the west coast of Sicily. Joseph’s suicide combo attack with Stroheim successfully airplane body slams Cars into the smoldering volcanic crater, but the Ultimate Lifeform is not so easily killed. He comes out of the lava with not so much as a scratch and goes back on the offensive. With half a cyborg, a red rock, and no anti-god ripple overdrives, what will Joseph do to overcome the perfect being?
Trimming down the crew as we head for the end. Storyboard and direction are being handled by Toshiyuki Kato, Screenplay once again done by Yasuko Kobayashi, and animation direction taken care of by series chief animation director Takako Shimizu. She’s also the one who handled general character design and some key animation on the ending sequence. It nice to see her sending off JoJo’s with a little personal touch.
Can you sense it in the air? That feeling of joy that we’re going to see the final climax, but the feeling of dread that this Friday will be the last JoJo’s until at least fall season and may be the last JoJo’s episode ever? I’ve seen a few people say how they both can wait for it and hope it never comes. I sympathize.
There’s my boy. Or can you say that Cars is a boy at this point. I’m still disappointed that the SEX USELESS doesn’t shoot out of his crotch as a sound effect, but seeing it down there in all caps as part of this scene pulled directly from the manga makes me pretty happy.
I’m not doing tons of preview images here because we’re busy with the con, but you can always check out all of them at Yaraon.
Ahem, if I may. FUCKING PIRANHAS! FUCKING PIRANHAS! FUCKING PIRANHAS!
For the honor of all JoJo and also GeJo!
So yeah. That’s all right? Yeah, I’m wondering about the special announcement too. I haven’t seen anything on Yaraon, forums, JoJo Twitter, or the anime official site other than that the Vol. 4 Blu-rays are now up on Amazon and a wild comment on Yaraon mentioning wondering about Part 3. We may have to wait until the subs come out because it’s inline or something that wouldn’t show up in screenshots. Don’t worry. It’ll come.
And Cars, who fell to Earth as a nearly invincible superman, has become a truly invincible living god to whom certain human or even pillar men things may now be useless. Joseph employs the Commandeered Nazi Airplane variant on Joestar Ultimate Secret Technique to buy enough time to figure out how to beat the unbeatable. Cars is in hot pursuit. What is Joseph going to do?!
I think the animation is important in this episode. One Director and Storyboarder, Kenichi Suzuki, and one screenwriter, tokusatsu lady Yasuko Kobayashi. The normal amounts for those jobs, but not one, not two, but a whopping five animation directors! Tatsuya Shirashi, Manabu Akita, Shinichi Machida, Kyoko Kotani, and Ryo Kobayashi. Every single one is a previous staff on the show working with animation direction. I guess when it’s Piranha o’Clock, you have to bring in the cavalry.
Smokey, look out! There’s a tiny Lisa Lisa swinging right towards you!
We’re almost at the end. The next episode is supposed to be the last one. To that end, this preview set contains a pretty big reveal. If you check out the rest at Yaraon, make sure you’re ready.
Hey, Joseph. You seem to have ignited. Yo- You ok?
“Pfft. Ridiculous humans and your being flammable.”
“Yeah! Being human must really suck!”
“Wait! I can still explode! This is way worse than being on fire!”
And there is the family history we have to hear.
Even Nazi’s can appreciate the love between an estranged mother and son.
We’re gearing up. The crazy to top all crazy is coming soon.
Betrayal! Cars’s devious tricks have left Lisa Lisa on the verge of death. Now she literally hangs in the balance depending on what Joseph does, and Cars is using it to wear him down physically and mentally. As the battle reaches it’s climax, Speedwagon reveals the secret past ties between Joseph and Lisa Lisa because of the desperation of the moment. Oh, and Stroheim’s around with UV spotlights plugged into some of his ports, so he’s probably helping out.
Good staff this time around. Yasuko Kobayashi the Sentai Lady returns as screen writer, Animation Direction by Kenji Yokoyama and Hotani Yukitoshi, both of whom have done excellent work so far with JoJo’s, and the only newcomer on both Storyboard and Direction: Satoshi Osedo. Osedo’s a weird pick for a show like JoJo’s from what I see in his credits. Kobayashi made a lot of sense to me because she’s a sentai writer and JoJo’s is so flashy, but Osedo’s mostly done cutesy shojou stuff, not really the high style action stuff. Then again, JoJo’s is really pretty, so maybe it makes sense.
Before we start, New Joseph Face:
Lookin’ good as always
All right, now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for the reunion episode. Everyone is here!
Stroheim is back with a reinforced stomach
And he brought Speedwagon along for the ride.
Cars is so excited he let his hair down and kicked the shine into high gear
It may help that he found that free leg lying around
Wham’s a little upset that he clawed his eyes out before getting to see the group again
And Lisa Lisa’s really looking down on herself for not being able to tell him
All in all, though, it’s still fun. A bunch of old comrades and enemies coming together for one last gathering before the gods of old rise up to destroy humanity with their perfect bodies. Good times. Good times.
No extra pictures from the “Next Episode” preview today. That was a lot more Lisa Lisa and Cars focused. This deals more with the episode title since it has Wham and all.
Joseph and Wham’s showdown approaches it’s conclusion with neither warrior giving an inch. Backed into a corner by Joseph’s tactics leading to a devastating blow, Wham gears up for his final, sure kill mode. As the curtain draws, Lisa Lisa and Cars must also prepare for their duel to determine the fate of the Red Stone of Aja. They’ll fight in the Ancient Mountain Temple on Piz Bernina. The fate of the stone, and therefore the fate of humanity, rests on one final battle.
Unlike last time, everyone in this crew has been on JoJo’s before. Kazuyuki Fudeyasu’s on screenplay, Taizo Yoshida’s on storyboard, and Shin Hyung Woo and Tomoaki Kado on Animation Direction all with Director Jiro Fujimoto returning to the director’s chair from waaaay back in Episode 8. It’s going to be his first time in Battle Tendency so let’s see what he can do with the craziness.
(You can listen to the audio version of this promo here.)
LIVE FROM THE SKELETON HEEL STONE ARENA! IT’S GRUDGE MATCH ’39!
Joseph “Wild Card JoJo” Joestar
vs. Wham “The Wizard of Wind”
in a knockdown, drag out, once-in-a-lifetime chariot race to the DEATH
The crowd will be on the edge and going wild!
Calling for destruction
and BLOOD!
You can only shine like Cars by drinking the blood of your enemies, and you can only do that if you call to order your tickets NOW!
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! STAAAAAAAAAAAART!
And the Next Episode preview has all of these, so I can give you bigger ones of them all.
It’s finally time for the grand chariot duel between Wham and Joseph at Skeleton Heel Stone Circuit Arena. Joseph manages to Joseph his way to getting the first weapon, a giant sledgehammer, but Wham is undaunted, calling his opponent’s “cleverness” fleeting. Also, Cars is a huge jerk and cheats to give Wham the advantage. How will Joseph escape this unwinnable situation?!
Crew this time around is almost all new blood. The only returner I see is Shinichi Inotsume on storyboard. He’s being joined by Storyboarder Shin Misawa, a storyboarder and director on shows such as Captain Tsubasa and a ton of other ones I’ve never seen, Animation Directors Yoshifumi Terai, key animator on Case Closed and Persona 4 The Animation, and Shuichi Hara, animation director on a few shows like Solty Rei and key animator for some like Birdy The Mighty Decode: 02 (which is conflicting because that season had way worse drawing quality but generally better motion), and finally Director Naomi Nakayama who looks like she defected from Madhouse having been episode director for shows like the Marvel animes and the Devil May Cry anime. So we have a few people coming in from the key animation departments. I hope that works out because the CG chariots you can see in the Next Episode preview are not pleasant to look at. Hopefully it’s just a quick shot and we get better animation on the key points because if anything deserves it in Battle Tendency, the chariot race is the time to shine.
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