Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – Part 5 – Golden Wind, Vento Aureo or Golden Legacy

Before I start, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is exactly what it means, it’s a guy who has a nickname called ‘Jojo’ and he/she goes on bizarre adventures and this isn’t your normal shonen manga.

Why is that? Well for starters, it started at 1987 and it’s still running with 100 volumes collected, secondly, it has seven parts, from Part 1: Phantom Blood to Part 7: Steel Ball Run, thirdly it didn’t just redefine over-the-top punching, it made it and lastly and most importantly of all, to me, this was when the term “fight” didn’t exactly mean what it meant.

Why? Well for starters, starting from Part 3: Stardust Crusaders, people have ‘Stands’, semi-physical manifestations of one’s fighting spirit that have different abilities stand users can only have one stand, normal people can’t see them, so that makes taking hostages easy and all stands users that have their stands take damage also have the damage transmitted to them and sometimes some enemy stands are so powerful that it’s not worth your time to beat the stand just beat the user.

Problem? The bad guys aren’t just going to let you beat them unconscious. They go through clever ways to avoid damage and try to seize victory using their stands and so, the heroes must do the same and use brains instead of brawn to win, although that doesn’t stop making over-the-top-punching at the end of fights absolutely cool to watch.

So why am I starting with Part 5? Because Part 4, 5 and 7 are the only standalone parts, Part 1, 2, 3 and 6 actually have a canonically plot connecting them.

Why not choose Part 4 or 7? Part 4 because the translations are horrible, and Part 7 because it’s currently running and not done yet and it’s seinen (young adult) which would some require some discretion. So Part 5 is the easiest due to it easily having the least amount of plot connecting other parts.

Part 5: Golden Wind, Vento Aureo and Golden Legacy Vol 1 Review:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Volume 47, excluding the first three first chapters of that volume due to it being the ending of Part 4 and you don’t want to spoil yourselves if you want to continue reading.

First off, Vento Aureo is fabulous, with impossibility cool clothes and personal aesthetics that make you want to think what clothing store did they go to. Vento Aureo is also the making point where stands become extreme; this was probably the point when shouting out stand names became cool, because all the stands have super cool abilities and awesome musical references.

Vento Aureo deals with Giorno Giovana, the main character of this part, who is the son of Dio Brando, a recurring villain who has been in Part 1 and 3.

Now this being said, since this is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the main antagonists of each part are always sadistic or complete monsters and Dio Brando beats all others by a huge lead.

That being said, Jotaro Kujo, the main character from Part 3, wants to know if Giorno takes after his father or not, if he doesn’t, that’s great! If he does, well, that’s another complete monster the world doesn’t need. Jotaro sends Koichi, a character from Part 4, over to Italy where Giorno lives, and Giorno makes an unintentionally bad first impression, stealing Koichi baggage and travel documents. Well, Jotaro’s is both right and wrong, Giorno isn’t a saint, he’s also smart, calm, cool and collected like his father, he wants to join a gang and become a mafia boss. Fortunately, Giorno hates senseless evil and the only reason he wants to join a gang is because he wants to help people instead of the other way around.

His wish is not to become a sports star but to become a Gang Star!

This first volume deals with Giorno’s first impression, him dealing with an arrogant and unbelievable rude gangster, Leaky-Eyed Luca, we learning what his stand does, his back-story and him dealing with a gangster who’s on orders from his boss to deal with the punk who did Luca in.

Giorno is a pretty smart guy who likes to help people and he’s not a saint, he knows that the world doesn’t work on black or white but he’s a dependable guy who makes great decisions and would never senselessly maim the innocent. His back-story makes him more interesting, because at the beginning, his mother would constantly leave him when he was two years old alone at night while she went out; she married an Italian man who would constantly physically abuse Giorno and Giorno would get constantly bullied from others, to the point where he thought of himself as useless trash, fortunately, he saves a gangster who repays Giorno by stopping Giorno’s step-dad from beating him and making neighborhood kids respect Giorno. It was remarkable, a lowly, crude gangster touched Giorno’s heart and set him on the right path.

We are also met with our first real opponent, Bruno Brucciarati, who is a gangster ordered to take care, the gangster take care, of Giorno who had done Luca in. We know more about him later but now we only know that he has a cool stand.

I’ll talk about the stands now, now stands starting from Part 4 have musical references so try to spot them.

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.

Bruno Brucciarati: 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.

You can read it at www.otakuworks.com

~ A Wonderful World