JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable

Episode 18

So a few episodes ago, we saw Joseph using Josuke's credit card to buy an unnecessary amount of supplies for the invisible baby (which we still haven't gotten a resolution for), and obviously that situation resulted in Josuke cursing the old man for all of his future money problems. However, from the sound of things, Joseph had no problem paying him back, and now Josuke's money woes are all on him.

This is what brings us to the opening of the episode, where Josuke is distraught to discover a measly 285 yen in his bank account. It's here that he discovers a new Stand, a little bug monster he sees running off with a loose coin it found under a vending machine. He begins chasing it and hilariously finds himself running alongside Okuyasu who happens to be chasing an identical bug heading in the same direction. It turns out that dozens, maybe hundreds, of these bugs collectively make up the Stand "Harvest," belonging to one Shigekiyo Yangu.

Shigekiyo is a spiky-headed short kid who hangs out in a secluded part of town behind the woods, where he uses his Stand to explore Morioh and search for loose change as a money-making scheme. Immediately, he's pretty friendly towards Josuke and Okuyasu, and he's especially happy to meet other people with powers similar to his. I'm trying to think of the most delicate way to say this, but Shigekiyo feels very distinctly written as a special needs child. Like, perhaps Hirohiko Araki was drawing inspiration from somebody he knows in real life, since it feels very real both in the way that he's characterized and, more specifically, the way that other characters talk to him.

Josuke and Okuyasu are amazed at Shigekiyo's idea to use Harvest to collect loose change around town. Since he's collecting amounts less than 100 yen, he isn't legally obligated to turn any of it in. He's managed to collect a whopping 120,000 yen in total, an amount that our heroes are very jealous of. Shigekiyo, thrilled to have friends to share his Stand powers with, even offers half of the money to them, but Josuke's moral backbone won't let him accept it unless they can conjure up an 'everybody wins' scenario. The plan? Use Harvest to collect discarded department store stamps and coupons, discarded items that can be exchanged for real money. This way, Shigekiyo can make even more money than he was already making before and share the profits with Josuke and Okuyasu as an idea fee.

The plan works gangbusters, and soon the trio is swimming in cash. However, the higher their profits reach, the stingier Shigekiyo becomes. His friendly demeanor begins to peel away as he starts to disagree with the fifty-fifty terms. "It was my Harvest's job to collect all of those. I did all the work!" he claims. The tension rises further as Okuyasu discovers a winning lottery ticket for 5 million yen among the junk that Harvest collected. Josuke and Okuyasu are firm about the fifty-fifty agreement, but Shigekiyo's internal monologue implies that he's ready to get ugly in the next episode if it means a bigger cut.

It feels like it's been a while since we've had an Okuyasu-heavy episode, so it's fun to see the boys-being-boys side of Diamond is Unbreakable. The overflowing excitement these two have over all their monetary prospects is electric and comes packaged with all the goofy faces you could ask for in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It's also cool to see conflict in stories being dealt with in interesting ways, another thing this show is very good at. This episode's all about diplomatic problem solving, with the main characters' goals of being 100% inclusive when it comes to Shigekiyo.

Shigekiyo in particular is an interestingly written character, as he plays a well-meaning and innocent kid with the potential for genuine selfishness. Whether he comes of as a kind or mean person is never reliant on his looks or intelligence, but rather the choices that he makes. It's kind of tragic to see the friendship develop among these three kids, only for it to be torn apart the second he starts to get too greedy.

Rating: B

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach writes and records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw