Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure 21
Posted: December 29, 2007 Filed under: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Leave a comment »Because I think I should probably mention this in every Jojo review, I go by the Japanese volume numbers.
Somehow, I completely forgot the existence of the Police in my grief over the loss of Oingo and Boingo’s names last volume, and it was like a hilarious surprise when it hit me while I was reading the first couple pages of this volume. Naming them Zenyatta and Mondatta was a brilliant solution to that problem, and I was once again impressed by the retouch, since Zenyatta was subbed in for Oingo in almost every panel the character appeared since his shirt had his name on it. The Zenyatta Mondatta story is mostly silly, and the characters never pick up on the fact they’re fighting stand users. The pair wind up much worse for having tangled with the Joestars et al.
The next story is about Anubis, which is a stand without a user. It manifests itself in a sword and possesses whoever unsheathes it, and there are several users in this volume (including one named Chaka and one named Kahn, though I don’t think the barber is actually called Kahn here). In addition to awesome fights between both Polnareff and Jojo, he’s also got a silly ending to him. There isn’t really much to figuring out Anubis’s powers… once they figure out the sword possesses people, he’s just an insanely powerful and smart stand. The battle is just hard instead of puzzle-y.
Because Hirohiko Araki wants to impart his vast knowledge of bathrooms around the world, this time the elder Joestar bails out on a really weird one in Egypt. This kicks off the fight between he and the stand Bast, who has a user named Mariah. Bast’s power is… to magnetize people. This may not sound that effective, but it produces hilarious results, and does seem like it’ll make for a difficult fight next volume.
