JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind – 19

「White Album」 (White Album)
“White Album”

If you ever wanted to know why manga readers have been clamoring to see the fight scenes of Vento Aureo animated, this episode is a clear-cut, textbook example of why this is the case. The fight that Mista and Giorno have against Ghiaccio is inventive in just how much on-the-fly planning that each person has to undergo to come out on top. It goes to show not only how much Araki had developed in creating such unique fights, but also how the level of quality to Araki’s fights have been consistently awesome since Diamond is Unbreakable.

The fights only get better from here, but for now, we have to show Ghiaccio some love for being one of the most charismatic members of La Squadra to appear. The Prosciutto/Pesci dynamic was admirable and Melone might’ve been memorably creepy, but Ghiaccio had a fun personality in the sense of how bent out of shape he got over everything. The last episode had him freak out over linguistic pet peeves that got under his skin, but this time around, he is constantly taken aback by the actions that Mista and Giorno take to avoid White Album’s deadly abilities. Even in situations where he could easily turn the tides on the two, his expressions are bar none some of the most animated we’ve seen from a Vento Aureo antagonist aside from Pesci. It does feel bad that he has to join the rest of La Squadra in getting killed by Passione, but he absolutely put Giorno and Mista through the wringer before they got him in the right position to be knocked into a jagged spike.

Mista also put up a heck of a fight considering that he ended up nearly shooting himself to death so that he could get Ghiaccio to stumble into the pipe. Giorno might have tried to show his resolve by tearing off his own hand after trying to heal his White Album-induced injury and deciding that crashing the car into a nearby canal would be a wonderful idea, but only Mista would go the lengths of letting himself get fatally shot several times in order to win the battle. While his blood was able to spatter on Ghiaccio’s helmet, hindering his (and interestingly enough, the viewers’) visibility, Mista continued to shoot himself in a bid to knock Ghiaccio further into the spike he was stuck on. Becoming a bullet sponge is a running gag for Mista, but it was also fun to see him get Giorno to help him create a snowboard that he used to gain some sick air over the ramp that White Album ended up making. The episode also elaborated on Mista’s backstory at the same moment you see it in the manga, but this time around, we get to see more of what Bruno was able to see in Mista as a noble, misunderstood gunman.

But above Mista shooting himself constantly, above Mista doing some SSX Tricky moves, above Ghiaccio screaming at everything, above all else, this was the episode that brought us one of the most iconic moments of Vento Aureo: The Succ. Although Giorno’s ability to turn the bullets inside Mista into proper flesh to heal his wounds and save his life, it also looks highly suggestive to see Giorno go to work on him. So much so that when Narancia finally found Mista and Giorno, the first sight he saw was Giorno manhandling Mista’s lower section as he gives loud exuberant shouts in response. Many have speculated that Jodeci’s “Freek’N You” was chosen because they knew that it’d be the song that would eventually follow this scene and add fuel to the fire. It was probably to set the tone for the mid/late 90’s production of Vento Aureo, but, much like the fully-fleshed out dance sequence. it effectively turns what was once a humorous gag into a golden experience. With so many moments already that properly set the tone for the incoming “Every time I close my eyes…”, none get quite as close to making the last scene of an episode as sexual as Narancia catching Giorno and Mista in a compromising position. On the horizon, we are also getting extremely close to seeing the boss as he makes his first appearance to rendezvous with Passione, so it’ll be exciting how they pull off their interactions.

Epilogue: