First Impressions / JoJos Bizarre Adventure

「キング・クリムゾンの謎」 (King Crimson no Nazo)
“The Mystery of King Crimson”

And so, we’ve absolutely hit the crossroads of Vento Aureo. The moment where the objective is changed from delivering Trish to the Boss to getting out of Dodge and formulating a plan to discover the Boss’ identity and exploit any of his weaknesses. The episode does a wonderful job at raising the stakes as it’s Bruno versus the world from here on out with the Boss willing and capable of mowing through anyone in his path to protect his identity.

Kudos to Araki for creating a Stand that is as intimidating and puzzling as King Crimson. The radius of the Stand’s time-skip ability is wide enough for it to affect the members of Passione outside as seen when chocolates that Narancia was planning on stuffing in his mouth were warped there out of the blue. Or when Abbacchio ends up warping to the moment he grabs Giorno for trying to meet with Bruno. The episode did an awesome job at showing us what exactly the Boss can see when he activates King Crimson’s ability, and how he can easily warp behind people while telegraphing their moves. It does have glaring weaknesses in its ability to only be able to experience a few seconds into the future and its five to ten-second buffer between uses, but this was a detail that Bruno had to get himself nearly killed to pick up on. In fact, the notion that a Stand user as strong as Bruno was easily apprehended by King Crimson will prove to provide a difficult battle for the gang when they end up having to face him.

With fatal injuries that were deadly enough to have his soul temporarily leave his body, Bruno’s life is also on thin ice. The last time we saw someone survive after their spirit form floated out of their body was with Joseph Joestar in Part 3’s conclusion. But unlike Joseph, Bruno’s condition was too dire for even Golden Experience to be able to restore him to good health. Additionally, his encounter with King Crimson has branded him and anyone who would side with him as traitors. So, for Bruno to be suffering from internal trauma and have the strongest members of the Boss’ personal mobsters after him, he’s pretty much a dead man walking no matter how you cut it.

The last moments of the episode are the most pivotal because of the decision that all but one member of Bruno’s gang made would be to join Bruno on a suicide mission. Giorno was always going to follow through on any of Bruno’s goals no matter what because they strongly align with his dream of using his power and influence to rid the streets of drugs. Abbacchio acknowledged that it was a reckless mission that he could easily save himself from taking part in, but he had nothing to lose by going with Bruno and has a tsundere attachment to his capo. Mista sees the bigger picture with the faith he has in Bruno’s judgment calls, the gut feeling he has that they’ll take over when they defeat the Boss and the fact that he wasn’t the fourth member to join Bruno. Narancia was the most conflicted due to the lack of decisions he’s had to make by his own accord, but upon seeing Trish’s hand again, he was finally able to formulate his own thoughts on the matter as it struck an emotional chord in him when he related Trish’s experiences with his own.

Fugo’s situation is interesting because he’s the only one who was against going with Bruno the entire time. For him, he tried to think practically that it was outright suicide to go against the organization even if what Bruno did was morally correct. In his eyes, no one would have to risk their lives if they didn’t stick their necks out for a girl who they just met. The amount of material based around Vento Aureo has varying depictions of Fugo with some novelizations toying with the concept of having him be a traitor (the most prolific of which is a sequel novel Purple Haze Feedback). For the manga and anime, however, Fugo is reluctant to join and tries to discourage his friends not to join Bruno because they would all be getting themselves killed by doing so. The anime was by-the-book with Fugo leaving, but it did help capture the sorrow he has in seeing all of his friends sign their own death warrants. What this means for a Purple Haze Feedback adaptation, given that they are going by the manga interpretation of his departure and changed up his side story, is up in the air, but hopefully, we’ll get to see more of Fugo by the time the anime reaches its conclusion.

9 Comments

  1. I hope this episode wasn’t the Make-Or-Break in allowing viewers to understand King Crimson’s ability, cause I don’t really understand what is going on with Bruno’s health right now… confused, so I hope I’m not the only one and they are to elaborate further later.

    Meanwhile, I find Giorno and Bruno’s relationship very interesting, I guess because of the fight they had when they met Giorno was able to be partners with Bruno as individuals of equal standing. For the other members, they seem to have varying degrees of servitude towards Bruno, out of respect of course, and hierarchy. But Giorno has always been the black sheep that kill Polporo (sp??), and kept to his goal of becoming a head in his own right in order to eliminate what he knows to be evil in the town. Anyway, not sure where I was going with this, but I find this point interesting.

    Bambi
    Reply

    1. I don’t think that King Crimson’s abilities have anything to do with Bruno’s… survival I guess? I think if anything, it was Giorno’s ability that revived him (as he did heal him and all).

      Nayrael
      Reply

    2. Bruno’s connection with Giorno is interesting because he seems to have gravitated towards him less for his abilities or spirit like the other gangsters and more for his ideals. It seems that as soon as Giorno had shared his personal disdain for drugs to him, it struck a chord with Bruno that didn’t quite touch with his other pupils. Not that he doesn’t love them as much, but he seems to have a much different reverence for Giorno’s idealistic approach to using the powers he has to fulfill the dream Bruno had always wished he could accomplish by taking drugs off the street by force.

      Bruno’s survivability seems to have come both from his determination to meet his goal of protecting Trish and Giorno’s ability working on Bruno right when his soul was about to leave. Where his physical body became a vessel yet his spirit was able to jump back in. It is explored a bit much later, but isn’t given as much depth to it, so it wouldn’t be too spoilery to say that Bruno’s body and soul are in a strange limbo between life and death, or rather, the combo of Bruno’s resolve and Golden Experience restoring his body’s structural integrity helped tether his life to his thoroughly damaged body.

      Choya
      Reply

  2. For what it’s worth, this episode was a good explanation–or rather, demonstration of King Crimson’s ability. From what I can understand, King Crimson…

    – Freezes time in the real world (BTW, The World’s good old “time stop” sound effect can be heard).
    – Puts King Crimson and his opponent in some pocket dimension where the scene plays out in slow motion–at least for the opponent–and King Crimson uses it to dodge or counterattack. This also causes time to skip forward.
    – Time skips forward in the real world with the opponent in a really bad situation and (usually) not knowing how King Crimson dodged or turned the tables.

    Though I just know King Crimson might have more abilities (and tricks) up its sleeves.

    Also, I’m just gonna go and save a few of those King Crimson screencaps.

    Incognito
    Reply

    1. It’s simpler than that. King Crimson is in two parts. He can see about 10 seconds into the future. If he didn’t like what’s going to happen in those 10 seconds, he can choose to erase that time frame. Everyone other than King Crimson and his user is locked into the action foreseen by him. He’s erasing the cause but keeping the effect. Thus, Sticky Finger was punching where he think King Crimson is at. King Crimson already seen where the punch is going to land and move himself out of it. Bruno cannot redirect the punches because Sticky Finger’s action is locked into the time that’s erased.

      BigFire
      Reply

  3. and thus, fugo went home to his home planet

    the best explanation of king crimson is videogame lag,

    you suddenly moved elsewhere and your opponents just see you flailing aimlessly while they dodge and prepare for counter attack

    randomlurker
    Reply

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