Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, Vento Aureo, Golden Legacy Vol 2 Review:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Volume 48

*WARNING WARNING READER’S DISCRETION IS ADVISED, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*

First off, that tooth being punched out? That’s just going to be the least serious, yet comically because you know it’ll never actually happen in real life, body damage you’ll ever see in this entire manga, not just this part, ALL parts.

Also, I’ll bring up something interesting, the stand stats. Each stand is being graded from F-A from F being the worst and A being the best. That’s great! You actually know the stats of stands.

Problem? This is ARAKI we are talking about. This is a man who could turn a ridiculous-on-paper power of zippers into something DEADLY-in-practice, this is a man who would, later in Part 6, turn an ability to make story book characters come to life to an ABSOLUTELY DEADLY power due to fate, you get assimilated as a role in a fairy tale story and the deadly part is, if the role you’re assimilating in that story died by the end of the story, it’s going to be fated you’ll die too. So that’s the problem, in the world of stands and Araki, it doesn’t matter if your stand can punch through diamonds and at 300km/h or if your stand ability’s range is the entire city of Orlando, Florida. If you’re dumber than a pile of bricks, it wouldn’t matter if you could stop time, as long as the heroes still have brains, they’ll figure out how to overcome the ability and they’ll eventually kick your butt multiple times. Kind of like real life like how even if you’re the richest person in the world, if you had no money, you would be nothing unlike a rich, smart person who can still use his brain in a situation.

But let’s not delay further, Vento Aureo Vol 2 deals with the the reminder of the Bucellati fight, Giorno offering to join Bucellati’s gang and meeting Polpo, a senior gangster and a test to get in the gang and finally a battle against Polpo’s stand, Black Sabbath.

First off, Bucellati isn’t just some gangster as we assume in the last volume, he’s a kind gangster who helps people out in many ways and is racked with guilt due to being part of the gang causing problems that people ask him to fix. This is a clear cut example, Bucellati runs away, zipping himself into someone’s body after realizing Giorno’s stand power, of course, Giorno being the son of Dio, has enough brains to turns Bucellati’s teeth into a fly and let it find him. Then the two people face off and Giorno hits Bucellati but… Instead of being unable to function, Bucellati seperates Giorno’s limbs, how did Bucellati avoid Gold Experience? Answer, he didn’t. He simply unzipped his own arm off and zipped the arm of the punk he was hiding in onto his body and let Gold Experience hit his arm. How does Giorno avoid getting completely separated by more punches from Bucellati? This. Very cool.

This is the first sign of awesome that every Joestar successor must have. He passes. Bucellati laments the fact that if one punch had hurt so much then what if several punches were launched from Giorno? He waits… and Giorno goes out of his stand range, 2 metres. He tells him that he could have finished him off but Bucellati saw traces of drugs on the punk’s arm he napped and paused out of regret. This is Bucellati’s dilemma, he can’t tolerate gangsters selling drugs to kids, yet the person selling the drugs is his boss, so he feels conflicted. So Giorno offers to join his gang and overthrow the boss.

Now we learn about gangs and Polpo, who is a gangster in a gang cell with everything he needs in it, he could’ve even been considered innocent in court if he wasn’t safer in the cell. He gives Giorno a test to keep a lighter lit for 24 hours. This guy likes to cheat and manipulate people from the get-go, he purposely sends Giorno out with a lighter… without telling the guards not to do a body check and since prisons don’t allow people to give or take items, only Giorno’s quick wit and stand power help him overcome the situation.

Later, the lighter goes out and Polpo’s stand comes out and tries to shoot Giorno with an arrow.

Remember when I said any damage to a stand gets transmitted to the user? This is the only exception, an automatic stand like Black Sabbath. If you have an automatic stand, you will receive no damage the stand receives, the stand will usually be indestructible, strong, have a amazing ability and automatically target anything you select until the target, user or you die, but at two stipulations, one, you cannot guarantee that your stand will receive direct orders and so automatic stands tend to move more clumsily and slowly than close-range or remote-control stands. Two, you will not be able to know what your stand is doing, this is a disadvantage if your stand got trapped somewhere and so it cannot defend you when an enemy user finds you and tries to finish you off.

Also there is the stand arrow.

This stand arrow allows people with potential to gain stands, if pierced with the arrow, to actually get a stand, problem is if you don’t have potential, you die. But the arrow usually guides itself to those with potential.

Afterward, Koichi comes in and helps out Giorno by teaming up with him to take down Black Sabbath and they realize soaking it in sunlight completely will disable it.

Remember those over-the-top-punching-scenes I told you about? Well, no Jojo part is complete without over-the-top-beating scenes. Well, Koichi and Giorno eventually beat Black Sabbath. This is the first sign of manly and crazy awesome that Vento Aureo has to offer. Hilarity ensures.

Now, let's talk about the stand stats.

Power: This is kind of obvious, if you have A in this, you can break diamonds and at a speed of 300km/h if you have E in this, you can't even scratch human skin.

Speed: How fast a stand can punch, attack using hand-to-hand combat and dodge. If you have an A in this, you can dodge by even the smallest millisecond and punch at the speed of light. If you have E in this, better hope that you can take the hit you stand is going to transmit to you when IT gets hit.

Range: This is a rather grey area, this is how far your stand extends away from you, If you have an A in this, I think your range is maybe 30-50 meters, if you have E in this, your range is 1-2 meters and an interesting note. Almost every Jojo protagonist has a stand that has a E range.

Precision: This is how you judge if your ability is going to strike fear into someone's heart or indiscriminately hit one of your comrades. If you have an A in this, even if you launched a marble at someone's heart, it will hit at the exact spot you aimed for. If you have an E in this, you either have an ability that indiscriminately attacks anything in a certain vicinity or if you launched a marble at someone, you're going to probably hit some unlucky bystander.

Staying: This is how long your ability is going to last, or how easy/hard it'll be to banish away your stand. If you have an A in this, the effects of what you do are probably permanent. If you have an E in this, your ability only lasts 5-10 seconds! Better be fast.

Learning: This is the potential your stand has to evolute or have new uses for your ability. If you have an A in here, your stand either has potential to gain more uses for your ability or it already has many abilities. If you have an E in here, well, you've already mastered your ability or your stand can only have one use for your ability.

Giorno Giovana: Gold Experience: A stand that it whatever it touches gives life to things. Now a stand that gives life to things, that doesn’t seem very useful in battle right? Wrong, that’s Araki’s, the author’s, genius at work, he can make the worst abilities useful. Need to carry heavy baggage? Turn it into a frog. Need to bash someone the right way? Let them hit one of your creations. Need to screw someone’s thought process? Punch them with Gold Experience, it’ll make their thought process so fast that the body can’t keep up, giving their an overload of life, and it’ll make the damage from Gold Experience’s fist all the more painful because the pain is transmitting slowly. It can also give an overload of life to plants, causing them to grow old and die. Do you want to track people? Punch out their teeth and turn it into a fly so that it'll want to come back to its owner.

Blono Bucellati: Sticky Fingers: A stand that makes anything it touches or punches turn into a zipper. Now you must be thinking, zippers? That, again, is Araki’s genius. Need to seperate off someone’s body parts? Hit the body part you wish, separate it and remove the zipper off it. Need to dodge attacks? If someone aims for your head, unzip your head. You want to get to places? Unzip walls and get out through the other side. Want to store something? Unzip part of your own body and put the thing inside your body. Want one of the best hiding spots? Unzip someone in half and hide inside them. Want to avoid an ability that activates through touch? Unzip your own arm and replace it with a different arm.

Polpo: Black Sabbath: A automatic stand that can be invincible in the shadows but is very vulnerable to sunlight, it doesn't seem like much but think about this, your body makes a shadow, that alone is enough to make this stand invincible. It can hide in many shadows, shadows from bikes, shadows from cracks in the ground, shadows from human beings and even shadows from birds flying above.

Just this once because he'll be gone after this volume:

Koichi Hirose: Echoes 1,2 and 3: It would take too long to explain all of them, so I just talk about the Act 3, it is a small stand that makes things heavy on contact.

~ A Wonderful World