Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, Vento Aureo, Golden Legacy Vol 3 Review:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Volume 49

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

First off, this is definitely the turning point of the series, when the gears start to shift, all right guys, this is what you probably been waiting for, even though the first two volumes were really slow, now the time for coolness to shine, and it does.

Second of all, remember when I said Giorno would never abide to senseless evil? Well, we know now that he is a master at the Tranquil Fury, he never forgives cruelty no matter monstrous or indifferent, the moment you think he's staring at you, he is really plotting your demise in a sneaky and sometimes horrific way.

The first chapter is already awesome simply due to this page.

if you actually read the first two volumes, then you probably know why he's saying this. If not, we'll recap, ok, last volume, a janitor accidentally spilled some water on Giorno's lighter, he realized that the lighter could be relit but Black Sabbath came out and pierced the janitor, who relit it, with the arrow, the janitor, having no fighting spirit to obtain a stand, died soulless. Giorno, unforgiving at the fact that the innocent janitor died, after 24 hours, he meets up with Polpo and... he doesn't know, doesn't care. Polpo is pretty coldhearted and unfeeling, the fact that maybe because he had an automatic stand was probably a factor why he doesn't know but really, he probably knew that an innocent causality would happen and he simply didn't care. Anyway, he goes sprouting about how if a man insults an another man, you lead him down a path he can no longer return and so whatever actions they do, even God will forgive. To be fair, he did say from the beginning that what he was about to say would contradict some of God's rules. Giorno decides to take matters into his own hands. After 5 seconds, he leaves and Polpo grabs a banana, hearing a sound and only after he puts it in his mouth... does he realize Giorno turned one of his guns into a banana and he just cancelled his ability converting it to the gun. This follows,

"You say one can kill if he is humilated? You're right, it's very important indeed, you're insulted the life of the old man who had nothing to do with you at all!"

And the finishing touch,

"I turned your gun into a banana, treat it as your last meal!"

No matter what, Giorno will never forgive evil, indeed he has inherited the spirit of the Joestar bloodline.

Anyway, we meet Bucellati's gang, composing of Guido Mista, Leone Abbacchio, Narancia Ghirga and Pannacotta Fugo. Guido's rant on the number 4 was pretty funny and the math problem scene was too much... What's 16 times 55? As long as you answer above 500, you're fine. Narancia on the other hand...

REMEMBER, stay in school and don't end up like that!

Anyway, the gang members decide to play a little prank on the new member by pouring a cup of dirty liquid and giving it to Giorno which I'm not supposed to say out loud. How does Giorno get out of it? He drinks it... after he turns his teeth into water molecules thus absorbing all the dirty liquid before getting it in his mouth.

From left to right: Giorno, Fugo, Mista, Narancia, Abbachio and Blono

The next arc is basically getting Polpo's hidden treasure worth 6 billion dollars, unfortunately two stand users want it, one of them, Mario Zucchero wants to go on vacation and the other, Sale, wants to use the 6 billion to gain a reputation and replace Polpo as an operative. There is something they share. They both want the six billion and going through underhanded means isn't above them.

The gang ends up trying to find Polpo's hidden treasure, good news is Blono is the only person Polpo ever entrusted any information including the six billion, bad news? That makes it really easy for enemies to figure out who to target. So begins a battle at sea that gives us one of the most unbelievable fake-outs yet. Making it to the island, hoping to lure Mario's partner with a broadcast message and figuring out that he used a back-door to get into the broadcasting room.

I can no longer spoil solutions for you. Sorry, try reading the volume.

So far, we know three new stands, Moody Blues, Soft Machine and Sex Pistols.

Giorno Giovana: Gold Experience: We see that it can also transport people by turning a lifebuoy into a fish and getting on it.

Blono Bucellati: Sticky Fingers: We see it can hit its own arm to partially unzip that to make for extended hitting range.

Leone Abbachio: Moody Blues: It can rewind memories like a tape recorder and take the appearance of people when it’s rewinding, it cannot defend itself while broadcasting. This is a good stand if you want to know the ability or mystery of a stand due to the fact that actions done to an individual that Moody Blues was rewinding will also have the same effect. For example, if you were cut at a certain spot five minutes ago, Moody Blues would rewind five minutes in time and would take your appearance and get cut the exact thing way.

Guido Mista: Sex Pistols: We actually don’t know much about them right now, at least you don’t, we know that they appear as six pistol beings starting from 1-7, ignoring the 4, apparently, they are living creatures and must be fed before job or will whine or complain.

Mario Zucchero: Soft Machine: It can use a short sword to deflate people and objects like tires running out of air. those deflated pieces can also be pull inside small surfaces such as pipes, despite at what it looks like, piercing doesn't do much damage but, cutting does wonderfully.

~ A Wonderful World

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

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

Natsume Yuujinchou Vol 1 Review

(Natsume’s Book of Friends)

Hello, My name is A Wonderful World, I review manga, (Japanese comics) on this blog.

Natsume Yuujinchou is a shojo (girl) manga about an orphaned boy, Takashi Natsume who can see spirits, who also inherited a notebook from her grandmother. Natsume’s grandmother was special like him, being about to see spirits, unlike him and unfortunately for many youkai, she chose to bully spirits or youkai into playing games with her and take their names, thus taking command of a lot of them and binding those youkai into her notebook. Thus Natsume takes the responsibility of giving back names of the youkai his grandmother kept, with help from his fortune cat companion, Madara, who openly wants to take the book from Natsume should he fall but secretly is a huge jerk with a heart of gold.

Before I continue, first, get the idea that a shojo has to have recurring romance and sparkly, bubbly backgrounds out of your head because Natsume Yuujinchou is not like that, it’s got heartwarming stories but its approach with that is a lot different from other yokai stories, like other demon stories, it’s got demons that just want to eat people but the majority of yokai in this series have sorrow, loneliness, rejection, dejection, negative feelings that normal humans have. This series deals with Natsume trying to reach a helping hand to those demons.

This first volume gives us a smooth introduction by not overextending or trying to go out its boundaries, instead of giving us a huge cast right off the bat which would take time to digest, Natsume Yuujinchou gives us just two main characters, Natsume and Nyanko and a simple concept for the story.

The first volume introduces the story, deals with a deity who might die due to his worshippers dying before him, an exorcist who has been causing trouble in the area and a girl, once sparrow, who wants to meet the man who had once tried to save her. It’s fairly realistic that not every yokai gets a happy ending but the stories always end on an optimistic note.

Natsume is a refreshing character, at first he seems like the normal lonely, orphan character we see in every manga to garner sympathy but here’s the thing, unlike most orphan stories, he’s not angsty, mopey or whiny, he takes him being an orphan fairly well. His reaction to isolation is also more realistic, because before when he tried to tell people about the yokai, they thought he was lying to gain attention and so, he keeps to himself and always take care of himself which distances the people who want to help him, it’s not that he wants to be alone, it’s that his nature prevents him from opening up. But I thought the most winning quality about him was his selfless need to help. Unlike other altruistic characters, who come off as unrealistic do-gooders who help out for no reason and butt in pointlessly, he doesn’t feel the need to push a offer for help without good reason, that reason? Natsume wants to help yokai is because he senses that the yokai are in just as much pain and loneliness as him and so he tries his best to help others so that others won’t continue to have the same pain as him. Nyanko is a mix of funny and menacing, since he is a yokai, he does have a scary form but he usually goes by the form of a fortune cat and is hilarious, I dare you not to laugh at page 24 of chapter 2.

The art… I love it for not being typically shojo and it gives a tranquilizing feeling of calm with thin lines, although a little rough at first. But the thin lines takes away from the dramatic times but it makes the heartwarming scenes, which are numerous, all the more heart-wrenching. Also the yokai aren’t made to all be beautiful or cute, some are scary and are fairly accurate to what real demons look like.

There was one scene that was particularly touching, a local deity, is about to die due to having his last worshipper dying. Natsume offers to pray for him every day, the deity’s reply?

“That wouldn’t work, Natsume.” “You are my friend.”

He eventually dies but he’s able to meet his last worshipper in the afterlife.

Overall Natsume Yuujinchou is a refreshing departure from normal shojo and I recommend anyone read it, especially one susceptible to tearjerkers.

You can buy this at Sakura Media or read online at www.mangareader.net or otakuworks.com

~ A Wonderful World

The Sky and Earth

If I could unite,

Could I unite the two opposing omniscient forces?

The sky that serenely looks down at me,

Coolly looking down at me as I look up,

And laughs at what I could do,

Even though it has done nothing but be the prideful sky,

But it still takes the time to look at what it cannot do,

A tranquilly pond of ignorance?

The earth that understands pain and indifference,

Always hard, always tough, never wanting to show pain again,

Always reserved, never sure of what to show,

And shows feelings by showing us itself,

Even though it works hard, it cannot rise up

As the sky shows a confidence and pride that overshadows the earth,

A modest stone of humility?

|If I were the earth, could I accept,

|The sky’s prideful, limitless confidence?

|If I were the sky, could I understand,

|The earth’s suffering and effort?

And…

If I were a human being, could I,

Connect the two beings’ strength and faults,

Grow strength and understanding from ignorance and fear?

Could I do the same,

As the rain that takes the best out the two, understands them

And connects

The otherwise eternally separated earth and sky?

~ The Grateful Dead

Welcome to A Wonderful World

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ~Toni Morrison

Life is like a book, just like a real book, you always want to know what's next, and you always want to know the ending. Did the hero ever find happiness at the end or did he get consumed by the cynical ways of the world and have his idealistic ideals crushed? Unlike a real book, you can't cheat by looking at the ending, it's unwritten. You simply have to stick around long enough to find your ending, and if you live well, you'll finish your story and you'll say, 'That was the best and final book I'll ever read."

We can never know our ending before it actually happens, so what can we do?

Write an aria of the soul.

Humans are the kind of people who can't express their feelings with mere words, so we can only express them through writing, we can only do so through the pen, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing, when we use use written words, we express our souls, we give a ballad for the eternal darkness, we shed a light for our thoughts.

A man who writes for just for the results will grow up to only find shortcuts and he will lose his sense of self.

A man who writes to walk the journey he must take will grow up to know pain and kindness and he will get his happy ending.

I'm "Mamoru Kuroki" and I try to write so that I may please people and progress to my ending.

I will also have different names for different pieces of writing, I will do chapters, short stories, poetry and reviews of manga.

Mamoru Kuroki - Chapters

The Grateful Dead - Poetry

Dead Man's World - Short Stories

A Wonderful World - Manga Reviews

See you later.

Meaningful Name -

Using Different Kanji, you can change the meaning of names.

Mamoru - Protector, Defender.

Kuro - Black.

ki - Tree, Air or spirit.

Mamoru Kuroki - It can mean Protector of the Black Tree, meaning a defender of down-to-earth cynical people. It can also mean Black Spirited Protector. It can also mean Protector of the Black Air, meaning someone who is cynical himself or someone that protects a abnormal realm.