JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable

Episode 32

“I started living on this pylon because I disliked other people.” Last week, I mentioned being a little disappointed that the enemy Stand users in this final stretch of Diamond is Unbreakable didn't feel as sympathetic as the rest of the antagonists in the series, but honestly that was kind of silly of me to say. Of course I just had to wait a little bit. Both Kanedaichi and Yuya Fungami (the Highway Star guy) get their own, “Oh, maybe they're not so bad” moments in this episode.

The Kanedaichi fight gets wrapped up this week, and having it run parallel to the other conflicts introduced last week, involving Rohan and Koichi, made it instantly more engaging. Part of that may have been because the show enters one of its alternate color schemes, lots of orange, purple, and green, for probably the longest duration that I can remember seeing in this series. Its dawning on me that Part Four of JoJo either relies on that technique a lot less, or that I'm just so used to it that I don't notice it as much.

Long story short, Josuke and friends win the fight with their usual JoJo strategy and trickery, and Kanedaichi reveals himself as a scared, lonely man who wears a mask and a fake name. From here, it's the other subplots that take priority. First, Rohan invites a strange guy into his house, a man charged with inspecting the damage done by the house fire from a few episodes ago. Rohan quickly deduces that this man is not an enemy Stand user, but he does have one standout quirk: he's terrified of people seeing his back, to the point of always walking against a wall or crawling along the floor to make sure Rohan doesn't accidentally see it. This is established simply as a bizarre, inexplicable insecurity of an otherwise normal human being, and the drama comes entirely from Rohan's curiosity. I would love if this story remained as banal as it seems. It would be a perfect example of JoJo sensationalizing something that's supposed to be super boring, as the show does.

The second subplot is the more serious conflict; Kanedaichi reveals that he overheard Kira's father (still floating around the inside of a photograph) mention that Koichi has been "taken care of," and it becomes a race against time for Josuke to find his friend. He enlists the help of Fungami and his bloodhound sense of smell, and it brings us to our next Stand user. This new foe's power isn't clear at this moment, but he was able to bring Josuke's unconscious mother into the fight, only confusing us further.

This episode covers a lot of Diamond is Unbreakable's "modes". We have a pretty standard JoJo battle with Kanedaichi, complete with the characters using the unique limitations of each other's Stands to gain the upper hand and trick each other, but we also indulge in Rohan's misadventures where the show balances bizarre and mundane in the way that only Jojo's can. Each time I went through the episode for review, Rohan's "I want to see it!" turn when he decides he's just too curious not to overstep his boundaries with this man's weird back-phobia got a big laugh out of me. His sudden motivation is just so contagious.

I was so-so on the Kanedaichi plot last week, but it honestly got a lot more interesting once it was one of several things going on in an episode. We've only got so much more time with Diamond is Unbreakable before it concludes, so I'm counting on the show to deliver better and better stuff with each remaining episode.

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