themanofax

[themanofax]

javert my blorbo my beloved my everything

I love how the parallel between Valjean’s crisis after the Bishop and Javert’s crisis after the barricades is so strong that their thought processes are often described with nearly the exact same metaphors.

The musical conveying this by having them sing the same melody is such a perfect translation of the way their dialogue/descriptions echo each other in the novel...Like:

Valjean: 

“Is it true that I am to be released?” he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep.

Javert: 

As though in a dream, (Javert) murmured rather than uttered this question: “What are you doing here?”

Valjean:

Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

Javert: 

He perceived amid the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle.

Valjean:

He no longer knew where he really was. 

Javert:

Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no longer find his bearings.(…) He no longer understood himself. 

Valjean: 

At times he would have actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less.

Javert:

But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force.

Valjean:

He actually saw that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by him. 

Javert:

He conceived a horror of himself. 

Valjean:

He could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the old man.

Javert:

He had not yielded without resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. 

Valjean:

 By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his reverie continued, as the Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance.

Javert:

Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. (…)

Javert, the spy of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul.

Valjean:

That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.

Javert:

All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, he must be a different man.

Valjean:

He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it seemed frightful to him.

Javert: 

He felt himself emptied, useless, put out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing.

Valjean:

Did he have a distinct perception of what might result to him from his adventure at Digne? Did he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; that if he wished to become good he must become an angel; that if he wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? (….) did he catch some shadow of all this in his thought, in a confused way?

Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion.

Javert:

God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting.

..And these are only the lines I've caught tonight. I don't know, as much as Les Mis adaptations love to focus on Valjean and Javert (often without understanding them cough bbc les mis cough) I feel like there are very few that Get how much both of them were broken by the same prison system, and how the trauma of that makes them view themselves and their own feelings through similar lenses.

[themanofax]

THIS IS SO COOL THANK YOU

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (Master List)

This post will contain scripts for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure / JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken / ジョジョの奇妙な冒険.

COMPLETED EPISODES

ENG sub/JPN/ROM: Season 1 (1), Season 2 (1-8), Season 3 (39), TSRK (2)

ENG dub: Season 1 (2)

STATUS: Ongoing (last updated 2022/10/09)

CLICK HERE for the Google Drive folder with all JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure transcripts.

Season 1

Episode 01 – English (sub)  |  English + Romaji  |  English + 日本語  |  日本語

Episode 02 – English (dub)

Season 2

Episode 01 – English (sub)  |  English + Romaji  |  English + 日本語  |  日本語

Episode 02 – English (sub)  |  English + Romaji  |  English + 日本語  |  日本語

Episode 03 – English (sub)  |  English + Romaji  |  English + 日本語  |  日本語

Keep reading

[themanofax]

y’all ever think about how polnareff is basically a representation of humanity and its struggle against the divine in jojo?

he’s the only person to have opposed both God (DIO) and the devil (Diavolo).  a man positioned in the middle; heaven at the top of the stairs, hell at the bottom.  a man who, no matter how silly he may be or how incompetent he may seem, represents humanity’s drive to never give up.  to struggle against anything that might stand in its way; the indomitable human spirit that dwells within us all.

i love my big-tittied french man very much lol

#jean pierre polnareff #polnareff #jjba #stardust crusaders

[themanofax]

extra funny because araki has stated that he based morioh off of his hometown lol

I love the weirdly specific Morioh details, but…

Fish heads? Araki, what are you TALKING about? Can anyone explain this to me?

[themanofax]

omg thank u

On Diavolo’s Rage

One of the most supremely underrated aspects of Diavolo’s character is his unrelenting, implacable rage. Moreso than any other JoJo character, I associate Diavolo with “rage” - more than Fugo, more than Ghiaccio, more than Kira. Those characters, while prone to violent, angry outbursts, possess other defining features - but Diavolo is a man who is defined, who is controlled, by his rage.

If you subscribe to the theory that Doppio was the original personality, then a sub-theory of that which I like to believe is that Diavolo, as a split personality, emerged in response to Doppio discovering that he was adopted. Not only that he was adopted, but that his mother was a prisoner housed on a remote island, where he would likely never be able to meet her. Doppio, being an innocent, mild-mannered kid, likely had no idea how to process this information; and out of the wreckage emerged Diavolo, a personality whose existence was wholly dedicated to protecting his beloved Doppio.

(I also believe that Diavolo is the Antichrist and that him emerging out of Doppio’s mind was likely fated to be but that’s a discussion for another day)

Anyway. I’m sure you can see where the tragedy arises out of this idea. Over time, Diavolo grows more and more controlling and manipulative, and Doppio loses more and more control of his body. Until eventually, the personality that emerged to protect the “original” survives, while the “original” dies alone, unaware that he’s lost any agency at all.

But what does this have to do with Diavolo’s anger? Well… what happens when an empty shell, a being created to fulfill one singular purpose, forsakes that purpose? What happens when a program is left running, long after it should have been terminated?

Diavolo’s anger - at least, the anger he displays during the Silver Chariot Requiem arc - fascinates me. Because it’s the anger of a being which really has no reason to be doing the things it’s doing; that is carrying out the ghost of its directive.  I like to believe that Diavolo became a mob boss because it was the simplest way of ensuring no harm would ever come to Doppio; how could he be hurt if Diavolo became the most powerful person in all of Italy?  But now that Doppio is dead, Diavolo is fighting desperately to keep his position… for basically no reason at all.  He’d forgotten long ago the reason he’d killed and maimed to achieve this power, and with Doppio dead and gone, any hope of him remembering was gone too.  And so, we get Diavolo fighting tooth and nail, sacrificing his body and dignity to get the arrow and sit atop the apex of the world… all for a boy who has already died.  Ozymandias, the king of kings.

One last element to Diavolo’s rage that I adore; his fervent, unshakeable conviction that fate is on his side.  Moreso than any other villain, I feel, Diavolo truly believes that he is an immortal god who can never fail; who fate has chosen to prop up above all others, who will live forever despite still being biologically human.  This fundamental delusion goes deeper than Kira’s simple belief that “luck is on his side”; and even DIO, who became the closest thing the JoJo universe had to a god, was aware of his mortality, and had a “Plan B” in mind in the case of his death.  

Diavolo truly, fundamentally believes that if he is able to eliminate all the obstacles in his way, he will “live forever”.  And, after all, he has no real reason to doubt this idea; fate smiled upon him in the form of the arrows, and his King Crimson is able to defend him from literally any misfortune (there’s a moment in the final fight that I love, where we see King Crimson for the last time - he all but pops up in front of Diavolo, screaming like a furious and over-protective father at Giorno before being pummeled himself.)   

So when that belief is challenged, Diavolo snaps.  His rage, his disbelief, his patheticness puts any other (main) JoJo villain to shame.  What other villain would beg their enemy to let them win; to resort to fallacious, circular arguments of “look at me!  think who is truly worthy!”  For Diavolo, the arrow continuing to elude his grasp in the final arc is tantamount to the sky being green, or dropping an apple and having it fly upwards.  It simply does not make sense; it is a violation of a fundamental rule of reality.  And as Giorno and his allies continue to outmaneuver him, he grows more and more desperate, his cries more and more venomous, his denials more and more fervent.  An injustice is being carried out, in his eyes, and it is his duty to right it.  

This is part of why I think the decision to cast Katsuyuki Konishi was such an amazing move; casting a seiyuu who is primarily known for voicing heroes (including Jonathan Joestar himself, in the Phantom Blood OVA) imbues Diavolo with a truly unique quality.  We hear all the time that “a good villain is one that believes themselves to be the hero”, but moreso than even Pucci or Valentine, Diavolo believes himself to be the protagonist of the world.  His beliefs about fate cause him to believe that his struggles, his ability to overcome his own past and insecurities, are all that matter; that the world truly revolves around him, and that he can become an immortal god-king if he just overcomes the obstacles that Fate puts in his way.  

That determination to grow, to overcome one’s flaws and grow stronger, is one we commonly associate with heroes in shonen - and Diavolo has deluded himself into believing that his conquest of bloodshed and oppression is as just as the journeys that our favorite shonen heroes go on.  All of this imbues Diavolo with a uniquely pathetic quality; he is a villain that believes himself to be the protagonist, and so when faced with the true protagonist of the Part, he is left utterly confused and helpless.  He believes that Giorno is the intruder, the one who is barging into his life and threatening his status quo, and he believes that if he fights hard enough he will be rewarded and continue his conquest. 

In that light, his frustration, his rage at being unable to beat this newbie makes more sense (as does the decision to cast Katsuyuki).  When we watch Diavolo fight against Bucciarati’s gang at the end of Part 5, we are not just seeing good vs. evil, hero vs. villain; we are seeing the complete implosion of a life-long belief, and the violent de-throning of a “protagonist”.  Diavolo is a king who finds himself de-throned, cast down into the role of a lowly pauper.  And he fights it desperately, all throughout the Part - and in the end, leaves the series with a rage-filled, fear-suffused scream.  

[themanofax]

“you could say it’s. it’s one step too late.”

MOTHERFUCKER

more detailed rundown of this under the cut cause im insane

Keep reading

[themanofax]

What Makes Someone a Joestar?

So I’ve been diving headfirst into Stone Ocean recently; I finished the second batch a while ago, and just finished re-reading the manga.  I’m feeling Very Normal about the whole thing, and so I wanted to take some time to write about what I think is the most heartbreakingly beautiful part of the story, as well as how it embodies what makes JoJo different from so many other series out there.

It should go without saying that Stone Ocean is meant to be a culmination of all the previous parts.  The “main story” of JoJo can be traced from Part 1 through Part 3, before concluding with Part 6.  Strictly speaking, the main universe is “about” the Joestars and their conflicts with the Brandos; Parts 2, 4 and 5, while amazing, are more meant to flesh out the universe and characters in preparation for the conclusion of this overarching storyline.  (I should mention that Part 4 is by far my favorite and this isn’t meant to be criticizing these parts, lol)

So, obviously, with Part 6 being the last Part in the main universe, Araki had a tall task ahead of him.  How would he decide to end this story - this war that started 131 years ago, when an unfortunate carriage driver careened off a cliff and set Fate into motion?  Who would be the one to deal the final blow, to be the instrument of justice that set right all the wrongs that DIO had wrought?

Most mangaka would’ve said “the main character”.  Others, slightly less conventional ones, would’ve said “all the characters together - or maybe, Jotaro, since he was the one who killed DIO in Part 3.  Or maybe, Pucci wins, and the storyline ends with tragedy.”

All valid answers.  But Araki chose differently.

Araki decided that the hero of Part 6 would be a scared little boy.  A boy who was emboldened by the main character’s sacrifice.  A boy who became so much braver, so much cleverer, so much more determined than he ever could’ve dreamed he could be.  

Emporio Alniño is the last character anyone could’ve expected to be the sole survivor of Part 6.  I can only imagine how confused, scared and hopeless weekly readers must’ve felt - “Jolyne and Jotaro are dead!  Emporio is the only one left?  And now we need to wait a week for next chapter?  How are we gonna get out of this?”

But Emporio rose to the occasion.  Screaming, crying as he watched his friend, the older sister he never had, torn apart by an unstoppable god, he found the courage to win.  And, in one of the saddest, most heartrending moments in JoJo, the Part ends as he watches look-alikes of his friends meeting for the first time, knowing that they don’t recognize him and that he is the only being in the entire universe that knows this pain.  A truly amazing ending, which ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT DESERVE THE BAD REPUTATION IT HAS IN THE FANDOM-

Anyway.  What does this have to do with the title of the post?  

Well.  It all ties back to that insanely daring, one-of-a-kind decision that Araki made.  

What does that decision say about JoJo as a whole?  (Or at least, about the main universe.)  It’s a decision that centers around the climax of six parts, of 16 real-world years of storytelling - surely it has some bearing on what the story up to this point has meant.

Well, let’s look at Jolyne.  The protagonist of Part 6, the daughter of invincible shonen badass Jotaro Kujo.  Throughout the part, she displays the ferocity, tenacity, and cleverness that we’ve come to expect from the Joestar bloodline; skinning guards alive to escape their grasps, lighting herself on fire to best one of the sons of DIO, printing out an image in binary to overcome a Stand that messes with one’s memory.  All incredibly impressive... but those traits are not what end up saving the day.

Instead, the trait that Jolyne possesses - that all the Joestars possess - that ends up saving the entire universe... is kindness.  

Jolyne’s selfless, senseless kindness - which inspired her to risk her life to save a little boy she had just met, to defend him as they escaped from prison and fought to revive her father, that inspired her to stand up to a time-bending demon just to buy a few seconds for him to escape.  It is that kindness that allows Emporio to live, that drives him to avenge the main cast and free humanity from an eternity of sleeping slave-dom.  

And that, right there, is what I think makes JoJo so different from so many other shonen.  In any other shonen, Jolyne would’ve overcome Pucci by being the strongest, or the fastest, or the smartest.  And to be sure, those qualities are great!  Every Joestar has those qualities to some degree, and they certainly couldn’t have overcome the obstacles they do in their Parts without them.  But when the cards are down and it’s the main JoJo vs the main villain, what ends up saving the day every time?  

The allies that the JoJos have made.  The no-lifes, the thugs, the villains and nobodies, that the JoJos, through their impossible kindness, were able to redeem.  

And that’s what I think makes a Joestar.  Their ability to bring out the best in others.  Okuyasu was just a street punk mindlessly following his brother’s orders; but when faced with Josuke’s mercy and casual compassion, he was able to become one of Morioh’s staunchest defenders.  Bucciarati was a mafioso who had completely given up hope of bringing about change, who wasn’t above torturing and psychologically manipulating a teenage boy who he didn’t even know for sure was a murderer.  But when faced with Giorno’s golden dream, he woke up from his fate as a sleeping slave, and was able to bring about a better tomorrow for all of Italy.

I could go on.  But hopefully you get the point by now - and maybe you can apply this to your own favorite characters in the series.  In the main universe, the Joestar legacy is one of compassion.  Being the strongest or the smartest means nothing if you don’t have allies on your side; and JoJo as a whole goes to great, pain-staking lengths to show that we, as a species, excel when we are together.  That it is the human connection between us that allows us to overcome gods of time, or immortal vampires, or any other manner of boogeymen and monsters that constantly threaten our future.  And I just think... that’s so refreshing.  

So many shonen make a big deal of their MCs being “special”.  Because they were born with a special power, or because they can beat up the opponent enough that it brings about change.  And, to be clear, the “power of friendship” is a shonen trope for a reason; JoJo isn’t the first series to have this kind of message in a long shot.  But I just... feel like JoJo does it so well.  It never feels cheap, or contrived; and I think that’s because, rather than just being used as a plot device to allow our heroes to beat villains that they logically shouldn’t be able to, JoJo threads that message into its very core.  Not a single moment goes by without the series reminding you of this fundamental truth; and as I described above, it all culminates in the ultimate act of kindness resulting in the ultimate victory.

JoJo is a weird series.  It’s about overly masculine men making strange, sexual poses at each other.  It’s about ghosts punching each other until they explode.  It’s dumb, it’s cheesy, and sometimes it straight up doesn’t make sense.

But at the end of the day, it is a story that posits that humanity can overcome the impossible.  And the vehicle through which they deliver that message - the JoJos, a name synonymous with shonen manga, with badassery and masculinity - are special... because they help others be who they were meant to be.

I think there’s something unspeakably beautiful about that.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #emporio #jojo emporio #jjba emporio #emporio alniño #jolyne #jolyne cujoh #part 6 #part 6 jojo #stone ocean #ALSO as i mention in the post #this mostly only goes for the main universe #cuz johnny and gappy (even tho i love em) #aren't necessarily the nicest dudes on the planet #i think that's fine? the alternate universe is meant to be a new story anyway #i think it's good that araki told this story with this message #and then decided to move onto something new #something more morally grey and ambiguous #but that still shows the potential for humanity to overcome the impossible together

[themanofax]

(i should mention that i was inspired to write this post by this video [which is just a compilation of all the times diavolo gets angry in part 5].  i think it’s meant to be a funny video but it does a really great job at illustrating the qualities i describe in this post.  altho ngl diavolo screaming is pretty funny)

On Diavolo’s Rage

One of the most supremely underrated aspects of Diavolo’s character is his unrelenting, implacable rage. Moreso than any other JoJo character, I associate Diavolo with “rage” - more than Fugo, more than Ghiaccio, more than Kira. Those characters, while prone to violent, angry outbursts, possess other defining features - but Diavolo is a man who is defined, who is controlled, by his rage.

If you subscribe to the theory that Doppio was the original personality, then a sub-theory of that which I like to believe is that Diavolo, as a split personality, emerged in response to Doppio discovering that he was adopted. Not only that he was adopted, but that his mother was a prisoner housed on a remote island, where he would likely never be able to meet her. Doppio, being an innocent, mild-mannered kid, likely had no idea how to process this information; and out of the wreckage emerged Diavolo, a personality whose existence was wholly dedicated to protecting his beloved Doppio.

(I also believe that Diavolo is the Antichrist and that him emerging out of Doppio’s mind was likely fated to be but that’s a discussion for another day)

Anyway. I’m sure you can see where the tragedy arises out of this idea. Over time, Diavolo grows more and more controlling and manipulative, and Doppio loses more and more control of his body. Until eventually, the personality that emerged to protect the “original” survives, while the “original” dies alone, unaware that he’s lost any agency at all.

But what does this have to do with Diavolo’s anger? Well… what happens when an empty shell, a being created to fulfill one singular purpose, forsakes that purpose? What happens when a program is left running, long after it should have been terminated?

Diavolo’s anger - at least, the anger he displays during the Silver Chariot Requiem arc - fascinates me. Because it’s the anger of a being which really has no reason to be doing the things it’s doing; that is carrying out the ghost of its directive.  I like to believe that Diavolo became a mob boss because it was the simplest way of ensuring no harm would ever come to Doppio; how could he be hurt if Diavolo became the most powerful person in all of Italy?  But now that Doppio is dead, Diavolo is fighting desperately to keep his position… for basically no reason at all.  He’d forgotten long ago the reason he’d killed and maimed to achieve this power, and with Doppio dead and gone, any hope of him remembering was gone too.  And so, we get Diavolo fighting tooth and nail, sacrificing his body and dignity to get the arrow and sit atop the apex of the world… all for a boy who has already died.  Ozymandias, the king of kings.

One last element to Diavolo’s rage that I adore; his fervent, unshakeable conviction that fate is on his side.  Moreso than any other villain, I feel, Diavolo truly believes that he is an immortal god who can never fail; who fate has chosen to prop up above all others, who will live forever despite still being biologically human.  This fundamental delusion goes deeper than Kira’s simple belief that “luck is on his side”; and even DIO, who became the closest thing the JoJo universe had to a god, was aware of his mortality, and had a “Plan B” in mind in the case of his death.  

Diavolo truly, fundamentally believes that if he is able to eliminate all the obstacles in his way, he will “live forever”.  And, after all, he has no real reason to doubt this idea; fate smiled upon him in the form of the arrows, and his King Crimson is able to defend him from literally any misfortune (there’s a moment in the final fight that I love, where we see King Crimson for the last time - he all but pops up in front of Diavolo, screaming like a furious and over-protective father at Giorno before being pummeled himself.)   

So when that belief is challenged, Diavolo snaps.  His rage, his disbelief, his patheticness puts any other (main) JoJo villain to shame.  What other villain would beg their enemy to let them win; to resort to fallacious, circular arguments of “look at me!  think who is truly worthy!”  For Diavolo, the arrow continuing to elude his grasp in the final arc is tantamount to the sky being green, or dropping an apple and having it fly upwards.  It simply does not make sense; it is a violation of a fundamental rule of reality.  And as Giorno and his allies continue to outmaneuver him, he grows more and more desperate, his cries more and more venomous, his denials more and more fervent.  An injustice is being carried out, in his eyes, and it is his duty to right it.  

This is part of why I think the decision to cast Katsuyuki Konishi was such an amazing move; casting a seiyuu who is primarily known for voicing heroes (including Jonathan Joestar himself, in the Phantom Blood OVA) imbues Diavolo with a truly unique quality.  We hear all the time that “a good villain is one that believes themselves to be the hero”, but moreso than even Pucci or Valentine, Diavolo believes himself to be the protagonist of the world.  His beliefs about fate cause him to believe that his struggles, his ability to overcome his own past and insecurities, are all that matter; that the world truly revolves around him, and that he can become an immortal god-king if he just overcomes the obstacles that Fate puts in his way.  

That determination to grow, to overcome one’s flaws and grow stronger, is one we commonly associate with heroes in shonen - and Diavolo has deluded himself into believing that his conquest of bloodshed and oppression is as just as the journeys that our favorite shonen heroes go on.  All of this imbues Diavolo with a uniquely pathetic quality; he is a villain that believes himself to be the protagonist, and so when faced with the true protagonist of the Part, he is left utterly confused and helpless.  He believes that Giorno is the intruder, the one who is barging into his life and threatening his status quo, and he believes that if he fights hard enough he will be rewarded and continue his conquest. 

In that light, his frustration, his rage at being unable to beat this newbie makes more sense (as does the decision to cast Katsuyuki).  When we watch Diavolo fight against Bucciarati’s gang at the end of Part 5, we are not just seeing good vs. evil, hero vs. villain; we are seeing the complete implosion of a life-long belief, and the violent de-throning of a “protagonist”.  Diavolo is a king who finds himself de-throned, cast down into the role of a lowly pauper.  And he fights it desperately, all throughout the Part - and in the end, leaves the series with a rage-filled, fear-suffused scream.  

[themanofax]

On Diavolo’s Rage

One of the most supremely underrated aspects of Diavolo's character is his unrelenting, implacable rage. Moreso than any other JoJo character, I associate Diavolo with "rage" - more than Fugo, more than Ghiaccio, more than Kira. Those characters, while prone to violent, angry outbursts, possess other defining features - but Diavolo is a man who is defined, who is controlled, by his rage.

If you subscribe to the theory that Doppio was the original personality, then a sub-theory of that which I like to believe is that Diavolo, as a split personality, emerged in response to Doppio discovering that he was adopted. Not only that he was adopted, but that his mother was a prisoner housed on a remote island, where he would likely never be able to meet her. Doppio, being an innocent, mild-mannered kid, likely had no idea how to process this information; and out of the wreckage emerged Diavolo, a personality whose existence was wholly dedicated to protecting his beloved Doppio.

(I also believe that Diavolo is the Antichrist and that him emerging out of Doppio's mind was likely fated to be but that's a discussion for another day)

Anyway. I'm sure you can see where the tragedy arises out of this idea. Over time, Diavolo grows more and more controlling and manipulative, and Doppio loses more and more control of his body. Until eventually, the personality that emerged to protect the "original" survives, while the "original" dies alone, unaware that he's lost any agency at all.

But what does this have to do with Diavolo's anger? Well... what happens when an empty shell, a being created to fulfill one singular purpose, forsakes that purpose? What happens when a program is left running, long after it should have been terminated?

Diavolo's anger - at least, the anger he displays during the Silver Chariot Requiem arc - fascinates me. Because it's the anger of a being which really has no reason to be doing the things it's doing; that is carrying out the ghost of its directive.  I like to believe that Diavolo became a mob boss because it was the simplest way of ensuring no harm would ever come to Doppio; how could he be hurt if Diavolo became the most powerful person in all of Italy?  But now that Doppio is dead, Diavolo is fighting desperately to keep his position... for basically no reason at all.  He’d forgotten long ago the reason he’d killed and maimed to achieve this power, and with Doppio dead and gone, any hope of him remembering was gone too.  And so, we get Diavolo fighting tooth and nail, sacrificing his body and dignity to get the arrow and sit atop the apex of the world... all for a boy who has already died.  Ozymandias, the king of kings.

One last element to Diavolo’s rage that I adore; his fervent, unshakeable conviction that fate is on his side.  Moreso than any other villain, I feel, Diavolo truly believes that he is an immortal god who can never fail; who fate has chosen to prop up above all others, who will live forever despite still being biologically human.  This fundamental delusion goes deeper than Kira’s simple belief that “luck is on his side”; and even DIO, who became the closest thing the JoJo universe had to a god, was aware of his mortality, and had a “Plan B” in mind in the case of his death.  

Diavolo truly, fundamentally believes that if he is able to eliminate all the obstacles in his way, he will “live forever”.  And, after all, he has no real reason to doubt this idea; fate smiled upon him in the form of the arrows, and his King Crimson is able to defend him from literally any misfortune (there’s a moment in the final fight that I love, where we see King Crimson for the last time - he all but pops up in front of Diavolo, screaming like a furious and over-protective father at Giorno before being pummeled himself.)   

So when that belief is challenged, Diavolo snaps.  His rage, his disbelief, his patheticness puts any other (main) JoJo villain to shame.  What other villain would beg their enemy to let them win; to resort to fallacious, circular arguments of “look at me!  think who is truly worthy!”  For Diavolo, the arrow continuing to elude his grasp in the final arc is tantamount to the sky being green, or dropping an apple and having it fly upwards.  It simply does not make sense; it is a violation of a fundamental rule of reality.  And as Giorno and his allies continue to outmaneuver him, he grows more and more desperate, his cries more and more venomous, his denials more and more fervent.  An injustice is being carried out, in his eyes, and it is his duty to right it.  

This is part of why I think the decision to cast Katsuyuki Konishi was such an amazing move; casting a seiyuu who is primarily known for voicing heroes (including Jonathan Joestar himself, in the Phantom Blood OVA) imbues Diavolo with a truly unique quality.  We hear all the time that “a good villain is one that believes themselves to be the hero”, but moreso than even Pucci or Valentine, Diavolo believes himself to be the protagonist of the world.  His beliefs about fate cause him to believe that his struggles, his ability to overcome his own past and insecurities, are all that matter; that the world truly revolves around him, and that he can become an immortal god-king if he just overcomes the obstacles that Fate puts in his way.  

That determination to grow, to overcome one’s flaws and grow stronger, is one we commonly associate with heroes in shonen - and Diavolo has deluded himself into believing that his conquest of bloodshed and oppression is as just as the journeys that our favorite shonen heroes go on.  All of this imbues Diavolo with a uniquely pathetic quality; he is a villain that believes himself to be the protagonist, and so when faced with the true protagonist of the Part, he is left utterly confused and helpless.  He believes that Giorno is the intruder, the one who is barging into his life and threatening his status quo, and he believes that if he fights hard enough he will be rewarded and continue his conquest. 

In that light, his frustration, his rage at being unable to beat this newbie makes more sense (as does the decision to cast Katsuyuki).  When we watch Diavolo fight against Bucciarati’s gang at the end of Part 5, we are not just seeing good vs. evil, hero vs. villain; we are seeing the complete implosion of a life-long belief, and the violent de-throning of a “protagonist”.  Diavolo is a king who finds himself de-throned, cast down into the role of a lowly pauper.  And he fights it desperately, all throughout the Part - and in the end, leaves the series with a rage-filled, fear-suffused scream.  

#diavolo #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #golden wind #vento aureo #doppio #vinegar doppio #text post #this may not be the best way of describing ppl with DID but i mean. #doppio and diavolo aren't perfect DID representation either #i'm just working off of what we see in the series

[themanofax]

this is sick

So a bit ago, I made a pie chart detailing every Enemy Encounter the Crusaders had in SDC. I also said that I might make one of DiU, and since I finished it yesterday and have nothing to do, I decided “why the heck not.”

However this time I’m taking it a step further. Because of all the Ex-Enemies Helping Us Out things that happened, it was a tad difficult for me to decide who to include in the count. So what have I decided to do? I’m going to record every single time any Stand User is attacked by another Stand User. Yes even the ones who die immediately/are never seen again.

Probably going to regret this. And because the goal has changed, the rules are a bit changed

1) For every Stand User that another Stand User fights, they will get a Point. An attack is classified by any time another Stand User uses their Stand, their own physical abilities, or uses a tool or device in a way that harms, impedes or deceives another Stand User.

2) Points are given to whoever attacked or was attacked by the Opposing User first. Other Users who attack, are attacked, or help with the fight after that initial action will receive Encounter Points. Users who were present but did not assist will not receive Encounter Points.

     2a) Points will be given to both “sides” of the fight, and the amount will vary on who fights who. EX: A fights C, and is soon joined by B to assist in the fight. A gets a Point, B would get an Encounter Point, and C would get two Points for fighting both A and B.

    2b) For clarification, I won’t be counting people shooting others with the Arrow. They aren’t technically Stand Users until after they’re hit, and also it will skew the numbers

3) It is possible for multiple people to get a Point from one opponent if they are attacked as a group or if the actions happen at roughly the same time

4) I will only count a second encounter with the same Stand User after their “episode” has concluded. Multi Part episodes with the same Enemy User and repeat attacks in the same episode also fall under this rule.

As for the Weird Bits That Are Strange To Count:

Josuke and Angelo technically get two points because of how there was their initial fight and then an episode later the follow up. The reason I’m counting the second and third encounters as one is because the fight was still “ongoing”

Okuyasu and Keicho get a Point for each other because Keicho accidentally shot him with Bad Company. The reason I’m counting it as a Point and not an Encounter Point is because at this time Okuyasu wasn’t fighting with Josuke yet

Jotaro gets an Encounter Point for Surface and not Josuke because Josuke was being controlled by Surface while trying to attack him

Tonio is giving/receiving Points because he failed to into Okuyasu what his Stand would do. Also he kinda almost stabbed Josuke

Koichi and Hazamada got Heaven’s Doored at the same time, so they both get the Point

The whole Bad Alley thing won’t be counted since that was a Ghost Thing, not a Stand Thing

Koichi gets an Encounter Point for Aya because he was influenced by her Stand’s abilities

I am counting Mikitaka as a Stand User

The time loops are……weird, so I’m going to give the Point to whoever encounter Kira first in that loop. Fuck you Kira for making my job so much harder. Yes this means Rohan gets 3 Points.

Given what I said for Keicho hitting Okuyasu, I’m counting Kira as being the one who killed his father

So the results are here, and I’ve learned even more things(sorry about the mess of the legend, for some reason the program was being mean :/):

Josuke fought a lot more people than I remember

Kira was a much more active antagonist than I remember

A Literal Baby was in more fights than Joseph

There were a LOT more Extra Stand Users than I remember

I was correct, I do regret doing this. I had to keep track of 26 Stand Users. My braincells have been turned into scrambled eggs and I’ve spent the last couple hours paranoid I forgot something.

Still gonna do a Part 5 one tho, probably Part 6 too when I get them.

Fuck you, Kira. Fuck you and your three Stands and Time Loops.

Specific Who Got Points From Who and the Encounter Pie Chart will be under the cut

Keep reading

[themanofax]

A little personal theory: 99 isn't just about Mob and his journey throughout Season 1 - it's also about Ritsu's.  Think about it: who do lyrics like "Your life is your own, OK?  It's okay to not be special” and “If you can notice not alone, maybe you can find your own answer, even if you're burdened with strife and hatred" apply to more?  The obviously very "special" Mob, whose main struggles throughout the first season revolve around his desire to fit in and become a more well-rounded person... or the tragically "unspecial" Ritsu, whose role throughout the season centers around him finally learning to move past the feelings of bitterness and inferiority that he's pushed back all his life?

Taking this idea into account, even lyrics like "Mob, Mob, whatever you want" and “Move, move, just like Mob" become meaningful.  They wouldn't just be exclamations thrown into the chorus to make Mob feel important; they'd be glimpses into Ritsu's psyche.  Expressions of his heartbreaking desire to both placate and emulate the little brother that he loves, fears, and envies so much.

I've always felt that Ritsu's growth and development throughout Season 1 was just as (if not more) well-written and significant to the story as Mob's - it was his desire to become an esper that effectively kickstarted the main plot, and his relationship (and eventual reconciliation) with Mob is one of the most emotionally powerful and thematically significant and emotionally powerful aspects of the season - so to know that the opening itself may place him at a level of importance equal to Mob is really, really touching to me.  He's a fantastic character, and one of the main reasons why Season 1 is so amazing.

#first post #mob psycho 100 #ritsu #mp100 #mob #I kinda wanna write a similar post analyzing 99.9 but I uhh don't really have any Cool Ideas about deeper meanings it might have and stuff