At long last, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean has begun its lumbering march toward conclusion. The massively popular shonen series has seen two completed rounds of episodes, introduced the rowdy Jolyne Cujoh (Kira Buckland), a young woman charged with and convicted of a crime she did not commit. She then lost her father, the indomitable Jotaro Kujo (Matthew Mercer), whose memories were essentially turned into a disc and stolen, with his body remaining as an empty husk.
Left alone to serve time for a crime she was framed for in Green Dolphin Street Prison, Jolyne discovers she has the power of a Stand, or the manifestation of her inner power, Stone Ocean, which lets her unravel her body into an infinite amount of string. She has to use it to eventually break out and rescue her father. At least, that’s where things started. They’ve spiraled all the way out of control in the best kind of way from there, and now involve a plot to change the entire world and humanity itself. No pressure, right?
Now, with the third set of episodes available on Netflix, which has remained curiously quiet about this huge shounen series, it’s time to see all the drama come to a head, and the first episode “back” with the crew is chock-full of weirdness and high-octane thrills. This part is full of sights and sounds you may never have heard before in an anime series, with concepts and strange motives that illustrate why fans care so much about this, well, bizarre adventure.
![STONE OCEAN NETFLIX]()
Photo: Netflix
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Typically, this series is known for its lengthy shonen-centric fights that bring to mind series like Dragon Ball Z or Yu Yu Hakusho. This round, while there is plenty of combat to wade through, there’s a hefty dose of surrealism, too. It elevates this episode drop beyond mere shonen fighting paradise to plain “off its rocker” territory, which makes for some seriously entertaining scenes.
Our Take: After another lengthy wait between episode drops, the third round of Stone Ocean’s story comes in and completely decimates expectations. While you’d be forgiven for thinking the first episode of the last set would focus squarely on Jolyne, Ermes, and Emporio, it instead completely goes off the rails when it follows every character working to join up with each other.
This first episode is some of the strangest you’ll ever find in the entirety of JoJo, and it demonstrates exactly why fans are so ardently excited any time there’s a new addition to the story. It’s completely bonkers in ways that other anime series don’t ever dare to be, and even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense initially, there’s so much creativity here that it’s hard to go back to other shonen series after seeing what’s possible with Jolyne and the crew.
Sex and Skin: None to be had in this particular episode, though it should be noted that some of the characters, like Jolyne, wear what can be considered revealing outfits at times.
Parting Shot: After a confusing moment where it appears Anastasia has been separated from his body, Weather Forecast ruminates on what could be happening – a Stand user attack – while the camera settles on the cover of a children’s book: Little Red Riding Hood. The stark reality of what’s going on sets in as the all-too-familiar “To Be Continued” arrow jets across the screen: Weather and Anastasia are being attacked by storybook characters.
Sleeper Star: Stephen Fu imbues Weather Forecast with the stoicism that makes him a hero who can power through most situations, even when they seem ridiculously implausible. Fu still manages to give the character an emotional edge as well, humanizing someone who could seem disaffected instead, as his voice has plenty of natural warmth to it.
Most Pilot-y Line: “You realize we’re escaped convicts, right?” calls Ermes Costello (Tiana Camacho) to the young Emporio Alniño. (Casey Mongillo). “We’ll get caught the second we set foot on the bus.” It’s ironic that they actually don’t do very much at all in this episode that we can see, and to have done all they have up until now, there’s actually been very little chance of getting caught. It’s indicative of how silly and fun JoJo can be.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Stone Ocean is barreling toward its conclusion, and it’s only getting weirder with every single episode. It kicks off with a bizarre and completely surreal vignette that displays some of the weirdest storytelling this season and creator Hirohiko Araki is capable of. It wastes absolutely no time jumping in and showcasing the absolute nuttiest parts of the entire series, and it’s the beginning of another exemplary set of moments in JoJo history. It’s clear it’s about to go out with a bang at the end of this set of episodes.
Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech. Follow her on Twitter: @MolotovCupcake.
