Throw Together a JoJo’s Art Exhibit

Let’s go on a Naver harvest. I went digging and found a few JoJo galleries. This picture is from JoJomenon I believe and is grouped into a GUCCI/SPUR gallery. I like the detail because, if you look at the dolls laying around, you can see ones based on stands from throughout the series. You can see Star Platinum lovingly nestling into Caeser’s ear, and Stone Free trying to get away from her father’s embarrassing behavior in the upper right corner.

I like this picture mostly because of Kira’s face. He looks so matter of fact, being Kira and all, so he looks like he’s trying to represent this world where all the stands are messing around for a business venture. This would be a good place to open a shop, after all.

This comes from the Part 2 gallery and is where things get really interesting. The early Part sets each contain a few character drawings done in modern Araki style in line with that some of these were pulled form art exhibits and art books. The modern style Pillar Men are the draw. It makes them look so much more stoic.

The hub for all those galleries is here.

If you’d like something less focused, there’s also this big collection gallery of Araki throughout the years including the art outside of JoJo’s. Some of them are repeats from the other gallery set, like this above one of Jotaro in an outfit that was used for an ASB costume, but there are a lot of clean versions of covers that are very cool. Also, it contains the best picture of Cars.

At least until I find a .gif of the anime version.

You can see that gallery here.

Find Who You Have Something to Say to and Group Up! Every ASB Special Dialogue!

All right. This isn’t the end, but this is probably the biggest thing. That video the first of three exhibition videos of every special fight dialogue throughout all of ASB. The second part is through this link, the third part is through this link. This is story pairs, unique pairs, and mirror matches. These videos themselves do not have subs, but ambitious fan mayoday has translated every piece of dialogue from Johnathan vs. Zeppeli all the way to Fugo vs. Diavolo. I’m not going to quote everything like I would normally because the list is tremendous, but follow the links and read away. There’s a lot of creativity that went into both who can have special dialogue and what people say. For instance:

Hol Horse vs Hermes

Hol Horse: I’m the world’s nicest man to women

Hermes: Oh my god!

Hol Horse: I respect women

Hermes: Shut up, you booger!

Rohan vs Kira

Rohan: Damn serial killer. I’ll take your “reality” for myself.

Kira: The mangaka…. Kishibe Rohan…?

Rohan win: You’re too abnormal, I can’t use you as material for my manga…

Kira win: Looks like I won’t be able to read any new series of yours again

Narancia vs Diavolo

Narancia: I…I’ll do it! I’ll blow you away even if you are the boss!

Diavolo: His radar is a nuisance… I’ll have to definitely get rid of him…

Narancia win: I didn’t really get what the boss’s ability was but… I won so there’s no problem!

As I am secretly five, there’s something that really amuses me about Hermes calling Hol Horse a booger, and I would have never thought of Kira as being a manga person. It’s also cute to see Narancia understanding King Crimson the way I knkow a lot of people have over the years. It’s a fun thing to read, so watch the videos and read along. Also, keep in mind that Diavolo always becomes Doppio at the end of a fight, so that’s why there’s no winning dialogue for him.

I Want You to Get Back to the Rainbow in the Roundabout! ASB Manga Comparisons for PVs 2, 3, and 6

Not much longer now. In commemoration, JoJo’s fandom is going crazy. One crazy is that someone dug up and brought together all the manga comparisons videos for the PVs we’ve missed. I’ve posted the videos for PVs 4 and 5 before, so now we get PVs 2, 3 and 6.

They’re Nico, so I need to link them. Each of the pictures links to the video.

PV 2

This video has comparisons for Wham, Giorno, Mista, and Joseph, and most Joseph. He takes up most of the end of the video with his unique track. Each of these videos contains different music than normal. The ones from before I remember only having “Roundabout.” Some of these use them, but also other tracks. Wham, Giorno and Mista are all played over “Get Back” by The Beatles, but Joseph is played over “Eat It” by Weird Al.

I’m impressed with working in the soda shot. Giorno’s poses are taken a lot from volume covers. Wham and Mista have some interesting ones, but we’ve seen Mista before. It makes me happy to see the very smiley Pistols, though. They are so happy riding those bullets. You also get to see a few comparisons beyond the manga with Joseph’s sprite from the Part 3 game and some models from the Part 5 game.

PV 3

This is when you really get to see that the comparisons aren’t just to the original manga. It says “OVA Version Respect?” so it’s not confirmed, but the comparison is easy. It’ll more obvious when you see it in motion in the video.

The video contains the comparisons for Polnareff, Kakyoin, Josuke, Okuyasu, Abdul, Hol Horse, and Dio. The other characters get “Roundabout,” as per normal, bu Dio gets his own in “Lock Up the Wolves” by, who else, DIO. You start getting a lot more of the sprites in this one since we have so many people in the Part 3 game here. Also, watching Okuyasu getting hit in the face by a flowerpot is still funny.

PV 6

That picture doesn’t work as well if it isn’t a .gif. It says, “Is the motion respect for the Part 3 game?” So, again, there’s no definite confirmation, but man does it look similar. One other detail that’s nice is that the texture on Dio’s eyes does that flowery splitting before shooting the beam. Very nice detail.

This video contains the comparisons for Phantom Blood Dio, Rohan, Kira and Kosaku Kira, Koichi, Otoshi, and Enrico. On top of possibly pulling from the Part 3 game, we also see a lot of other pulls from places like the between chapter doodles, an album that Killer Queen posed on once apparently, and Otoshi’s jumps being based on general guitarist jumps including one used specifically by Eddie Van Halen. Very cool.

Oh, and if you’re looking for a little more Rohan, there is also this other comparison video made by someone else in a different style. It compares a few of the other same points, but also goes into the referenced dialogue as well as poses. It uses a few songs. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan, some Boyz II Men song I don’t know, and “Dream Police” by Cheap Trick. It’s a cool video.

Three days. Just a little more push, and we’re good to fight!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle Opening Video!

So this is what everyone was praising so much. Yeah, it’s pretty good. I’m always up for jazzy music like this. The visual in the very beginning part with all the protagonists is fantastic. It is as though they watched the anime OPs and said, “We can do that. We already have the models anyway!” The style is emulated pretty well and looks very good. I do love the little detail that Tusk opens the way to the next part of the intro by prying open the walls just like in Johnny’s fight with Valentine. Joseph twirling the JoJo Crackers is always fun. Giorno gets a little glossed over. He’s there with his pose, and then suddenly Jolyne. The intro of the main villains is pretty nice. Seven over all, meaning that Dio gets to go twice, and the darker colors spilling in was a really nice aesthetic touch. And then it’s just everyone kicking some ass. Not a bad way to do it.

I know this isn’t the highest quality version just yet. I’ll replace it if another one comes along or if this one gets taken down. Ten more days, and a lot of you may just have the ability to watch it whenever you want. I take it anticipation is high right now.

(Thanks for mentioning the video in the comments, SStefania)

I Come from Another World Bearing Another Kira! The Valentine and Kosaku Spread!

You can click the picture to see a larger, higher res picture generously provided by Giorno down in the comments.

Yay. Ever since Pucci was brought out, I’ve been waiting for Valentine. Since this is an ultimate JoJo’s super cross dimensional crossover fight, he makes the most sense to me as the ultimate boss. If there was a game story mode rather than a story mode based on the manga, I figure he would be the final boss considering his power. And look who he brought. From since he was announced, Kira as a DLC character was a point of contention, but now we’ve got a Kira packed in. You can see to the left that he’s got Stray Cat in Killer Queen’s stomach, so he’s shifted to a more projectile based character. That may not bode well for his usefulness in this game, but it’s good to see the full Kira power set in this game.

This announcement’s coming up pretty close to the beginning of August. I would say that we’re too close to the game’s launch to be getting any more new characters, but who knows? There’s still time for a few extras.

When the translated version of the page comes out, I’ll let you know.

ASB League Groups C and D Full Fights

Watching the full fights for this one is making me think and notice a few more things. I didn’t realize until this time that the stage hazard has a zone on the floor where you have to stand to make it start. It takes a little bit of being there too. That’s good because it means that if you’re careful enough, you can probably go the whole match without triggering them. I’m still hoping for an option to just turn them off, but this is something.

I’m also really hoping for an option where you can turn the damage up or the health down and also to make the special gauges rise slower. I’m sure that there will be, I remember it being in other fighting games I’ve played, but these matches are a little long and dry. I think the real problem is that stand characters are overly stand reliant, Echoes looks like an impassable wall and Rohan can pull off his supers way the hell too easily, and I’m not sure if that’s an aspect of the AI players or if the game is geared towards that. I’d like to see if human players would rely on the same tactics of throwing out stand attacks over and over in the hopes that the opponent will fall into them. The worst offender of that is the fight between Jolyne and Koichi that ends in a time up. By contrast, Will and Wham’s fight is more interesting overall because they have to be in each other’s faces, times where Will decides to do ripper cutter spam not withstanding.

To that end, I think this game would benefit if they took further cues from the Capcom JoJo’s game and brought back the stand meter and stand breaks. I’m not saying it has to go full on P4 Arena where stands are only used for special attacks and can’t just generally be out, but cutting down on how much the characters can use them might help bring the fighters closer together instead of that back and forth stand shoot stuff.

Anyway, now you can actually see why Giorno lost his match with Gyro. It looks like a bad move on the AI’s part because he jumped back and did the tree thing instead of just hitting him. The more I watch these, the more I wish we were watching human players play. Maybe after this tournament thing is all over.

The final groups, E and F, will stream next week on Wednesday.

ASB League Groups C and D Highlights Reel

The Nico recording highlights are up, and I’m starting to sense a trend in these fights.

Group C

Group C was another grouping of stand vs. non-stand. Rohan was  of particular interest to me because when this game was being announced, Rohan was someone I was sure wouldn’t make it into the roster. Heaven’s Door is cool and all, but it didn’t seem like it would be suited to a fighting game.

As before, if you’re waiting for the full stream to see who won, be aware I’m posting the results table below the link to the fight.

Turns out I was totally wrong because Rohan is the taker of today’s first blowout victory. His ability to seal away parts of or all of your attack just destroyed the opposition. Part of that is probably that the CPU doesn’t take into account that they can’t do any moves, so after getting hit with the seal, they’d just sit there twitching while Rohan hits them in the face. That let him get strong rallies where he might have otherwise lost.

Kira vs. Wham was a pretty nice fight because the technique is very key. Kira is suited to keeping his enemies away and picking at them with bombs where Wham is a close range brawler. Once Kira was able to get him away and use Sheer Heart Attack to deal with Wham rushing towards him, he had a better command of the fight, but when Wham was in his guard, there wasn’t much he could do.

Will was fine. His moves are pretty good, and I like that he has a good agility. It just didn’t serve him too well in this fight. Rohan and Kira move on to the Top 16.

Group D

Stand users abound and also a horse, which I think is a fair balance. Based on how well Johnny was able to do with Slow Dancer, seeing Gyro fight on horseback was going to be interesting. Giorno was also important because him having GE Requiem was a cause for concern with how ridiculously powerful it is.

Not that it mattered at all. Not even with that he is invincible while transforming could Giorno get away from being the one shut out in this group. That’s the trend I’m noticing. It’s confusing, though, because his fight with Gyro ends with him getting a counter that knocks Gyro off Valkyrie, but then he loses. I don’t get it.

Koichi is this group’s star. His ability to keep his opponents at a distance is what allowed him to completely control every match. The only person who really had a good beat on him was Jolyne, who is suited to barricading herself while hitting the opponent with her longer than normal range stand shoot. She also combos very well into the baseball move. Koichi’s, I guess, zoning is what makes him able to wreck everyone.

Gyro is somewhat lopsided. He does fantastic while on horseback, completely wrecking Giorno’s shit in the first half of their fight, but the moment he fall off, he doesn’t seem to be able to handle himself as well. This is why Jolyne and Koichi were able to handle him so well, and may be why Giorno lost if he did which I’m not sure about. With their longer range moves, they were able to knock him off very effectively which kept his stronger mode largely held down. Koichi and Jolyne move to the Top 16.

Look forward to the full stream video sometime this weekend and the Groups E and F fights next week.

(Thanks to JoJo F2C for posting this. You can also watch the videos there if you prefer them to Polsy.)

Edit:

As a bonus, remember the punchable Friend Frog?

Yeah…

Someone Get that Phone, I’m Trying to Do My Kiai! All Star Battle PV 5 HD Video!

In glorious 1080 HD just for us. This is only the first half of the presentation from back on Sunday. The presentation of the new characters, modes, costumes and what have you all presented by a gloriously yelling Yuji Ueda.

Seeing this in HD is great because there’s a lot of details I didn’t pick up from the camcorder one. There’s obviously the voices. Sheer Heart Attack yelling at you to look at him right as it blows you up is a great touch. Hiroshi Kamiya sounds younger that I would have expected for Rohan. Romi Park was a fantastic Koichi pick. Yuuko Sanpei as Narancia, Noriaki Sugiyama as Bruno, and Toshiyuki Morikawa (Kyosuke Nanbu oh my god) as Diavolo are all doing excellent work with their characters too. I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one thinking teleporting for how to use King Crimson in a fighting game. And as much as I liked the transition from Doppio to Diavolo before, seeing now that he was using the frog phone makes it so much better.

I never thought I’d be so excited over Diavolo. I mean, pulling people into the Zipper Dimension is going to be totally awesome, and any time I play Cars will be 10% becoming Ultimate Cars and 10000% squirrel shoot, but I’ve got to see the look on some of the new fans who’re coming in from the anime when the Boss lets me know he wants on this fight from his special hot frog line. I wonder if it’ll change and not always be the frog. Maybe we’ll also get the ice cream!

This game is getting better by the moment. Next stop is should be the new character reveal on the 19th after a slight detour to get a subbed version of this trailer. The blanked picture had the Part 1 background, but I’m really hoping for the Part 6 characters next. Look forward to it!

Edit:

There it is. PV 5 is already subbed in a show of top level fan speed. Oh, Speedwagon, you’re so charismatic. He basically says everything I want to say about the trailer but with that unique energy you only get from him.

The excitement’s rising, and this game can’t be in my hands soon enough!

Dad! Stop Interrupting my Fights with the Local School Children! The Rohan, Cars, and Kira Move Special

It is that time again. Time again to see what the new ASB kids can do. Like last time, there is a translation lovingly done by someone from the Dustloop forums, SoWL. I’ll go ahead and just cross post that, so if you’d like to open up the Famitsu page from this link in a new window so you can read along, by all means. I’ll be posting the pictures for the characters and for their Great Heat attacks, so check out the Famitsu page for the whole set.

Kishibe Rohan (CV: Hiroshi Kamiya)

Battle Style: Stand (Heaven’s Door)

A character featured in part 4. A popular manga artist who lives in the town of Morioh. Selfish and assertive, he does not care about people’s reactions when it concerns his creative thinking, making him look like a weirdo to outsiders. However, as long as he gets material for his work, he’s ready to face any hardships for the sake of being the ultimate artist. By using his Stand, Heaven’s Door, he’s able to turn people into books, read their experiences, and even make his own corrections.

Command move: Safety Lock
While his Stand is turned off, Rohan can perform this move by pressing Weak, Medium, or Strong attack button. If the enemy hits the picture Rohan draws in midair, he can seal off that attack. However, this effect ends after a certain amount of time or when Rohan is knocked down. If the enemy gets another one of his moves sealed, it overrides the old seal.

Command move: I’ll mess your “Ability” real good!
While his Stand is turned off, you can seal off the enemy’s Style button with this command move. This effect ends after a certain amount of time or when Rohan is knocked down.

Normal throw: Rock.
A throw that blows the enemy away by hitting them with “rock” from rock-paper-scissors.

Command move: I’m growing!
The Stand appears and unleashes a flurry of punches and slashes! After hitting the enemy, you can follow up with “Maybe I’ll incapacitate you” or “My body got blown away at the speed of 70 km/h !”.

Command move: Maybe I’ll incapacitate you

Command move: My body got blown away at the speed of 70 km/h !
By writing these words on the enemy, Rohan can send them to the opposite side of the screen at frightening speed

The taunt pose is sure to make the fans smile.

Special taunt
This taunt comes out when Rohan taunts in response to the opponent’s taunt. His Heart Heat Gauge recovers back the amount lost due to the taunt.

Heart Heat Attack: I’ll take your “Reality” for myself!
With this HHA, Rohan rips out a lot of pages out of the opponent. The damage is small, but he seals all their command moves for a set period of time.

Great Heat Attack: Heaven’s Door
Rohan writes down “I cannot attack Kishibe Rohan” on the opponent. This attack seals off every single attack, but only lasts a set period of time.

Yoshikage Kira (CV: Rikiya Koyama)

Battle Style: Stand (Killer Queen) (Sheer Heart Attack’s CV: Kashiwakura Tsutomu)

A character featured in Part 4. A serial killer who tries to live the life of a common salaryman who just “can’t help but kill people”. His Stand, Killer Queen, can turn any object into a “Primary Bomb” with a single touch. He uses a detonator to blow up the touched object at any time he wishes. Moreover, Killer Queen’s left hand has Sheer Heart Attack, a tank-like tracking “Secondary Bomb”. It relentlessly follows the target until they explode.

Command move: Anything it touches is turned into a bomb
Kira tosses a coin projectile at the opponent. In addition to exploding on contact, you can trigger the explosion again with additional inputs. By the way, make sure to stay away from the explosion, since it can hit Kira, too.

Command move: Primary Bomb
The opponent becomes a bomb with a touch. You can follow it up with “I’ll break you apart!” at any time you want.

Command move: I’ll break you apart!
As the name suggests, the opponent is blown up into pieces!

Command move: You bastard!
Killer Queen unleashes a flurry of punches!

Command move: Whack!

Command move: I’ll break you apart!
After hitting the enemy with the coin bomb, you can blow them up at any time you want.

Normal throw: You should try and learn from me

Taunt

Heart Heat Attack: I’ll blow you to smithereens!
Kira strikes a pose with Killer Queen, and then beats up the enemy. Then, after blowing them up into the air, he triggers an explosion, blowing them away

Great Heat Attack: Sheer Heart Attack
Sheer Heart Attack starts following the enemy, shouting “Over here!” and making a great explosion after finally reaching them. By the way, it cannot move if it’s hit by “3FREEZE” of Koichi’s Echoes Act 3.

Cars (CV: Kazuhiko Inoue)

Battle Style: Light Mode

A character featured in part 2. The extremely intelligent leader of the “Pillar Men”. His Light Mode allows him to protrude shining blades out of his limbs, the so-called “Bright Sabers”. To overcome the Sun and become the “Ultimate Being”, he has created the “Stone Masks”. To obtain the “Red Stone of Aja” required to complete the mask, he fights with Joseph with everything on the line.

Command move: Light Mode
By activating this skill, Cars emits a bright light, making some of his attacks unblockable.

Special move: He can pull blades out of his legs too!!

Command move: A sneak attack, cruel and extremely skillful!

Command move: I’ll smash you against the wall!

Command move: That blood-freezing brightness!

Command move: All that counts is to get the final victory!!

Command move: Bright Saber Mode
While in Light Mode, Cars can activate Bright Saber Mode by spending 1 level of Heart Heat Gauge. Not only do his blades become unblockable, but his command moves also gain other additional properties.

Taunt

Heart Heat Attack: Bright Saber
After cutting the opponent, Cars pauses for a moment. Then, after they fall down, he rushes forward for an instant finishing blow!!

Great Heat Attack: This is the birth of Cars, the Ultimate Being!!!
By donning the stone mask with the Red Stone of Aja embedded inside, Cars evolves into Ultimate Being! As Ultimate Being, he gains traits of all sorts of living beings!

Special move: This can’t be…!?
Cars transforms his arm into an octopus tentacle and raises it upwards.

Guard
The attack is blocked with a crab-like armor.

Special movement: Flight
By holding down the button, Cars can move freely in the air. Of course, he can still attack while flying.

Special movement: Air dash

Command move: It’s the Ripple you little piece of shit!!
For the Ultimate Being Cars, even the Ripple breathing is possible! He can focus the energy gained from the unique breathing technique and attack with it!!

Command move: Genetical data transformation
Cars can attack the enemy from afar by transforming his body into a squirrel or a piranha. He can even do it while in midair.

Whew, that was a lot more robust than I was originally expecting. I posted the taunts because I wanted to post Rohan’s, so I figured I should just post them all, and I can’t not post Squirrel Hand, but we’re not done yet. We’ve also got the reveal on the new stage, the Yoshikage Esta, featuring a guest appearance by Kira’s long lost Polaroid. We’ve got a small peak at the editable sound effects that you can customize each character with. A small bit just reconfirming the situation finishes, where you win a fight in such a way to mirror the original manga/anime.

And we now know that we’ll be able to ORAORAORAORA to our hearts content.

And that’s it. Our next stop should be the big trailer on Sunday. Because they’ve only just done these three, that day should be our first chance to see the new Part 5 kids in action. Look forward to it.

(All images from Famitsu as you can tell by their watermark. © Famitsu, Hirohiko Araki, Shueisha, LuckyLand Communications, CyberConnect2, and NamcoBandai)

Arrivederci and Have a Good Flight. Bruno, Narancia, and Diavolo Confirmed for ASB!

Finally! I’ve been waiting on Bruno since this game was announced. The information is a little lacking this time. I can’t really tell what’s going on in those pictures other than the one of Bruno in the dramatic ducking pose, and I’m not solid enough to completely tell what the quotes next to them are, Diavolo is saying something along the lines of “Truth/Certainty will vanish,” Bruno is calling out defiantly and saying something like, “You’ll never understand my heart,” and Narancia is asking for orders.

But whatever. Bruno! Diavolo and Narancia are cool too. I figured Diavolo because of the Protagonist/Villain set up, which means I’m still expecting Enrico and Funny Valentine before the end of summer, but I was shaky on Narancia. He was ultra powerful during the original Part 5 game, so I was worried they might balk on using him, but if Giorno gets an instant kill, why the hell not?

Well, I found my character. I don’t even care if Bruno ends up being the worst character from a fighting game perspective. I’ll still be playing the hell out of him.

As a bonus, HC has released high quality scans of the Kira, Rohan, and Cars pages with a full blown translation. It’s a lot of material, so I’ll just link you over, but it contains info on the characters, a bit about their moves, and also about the new stage, the Yoshikage Home.

I’m on pins and needles for the next special. Look forward to it.