Recap: Suspecting his father is being slowly poisoned, Jonathan does some investigating in the slums of London. Dio takes the opportunity to plan an assassination using the stone mask.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Clearly the highlight of today’s episode was the introduction of Robert EO Speedwagon and his crazy bladed bowler hat. His legacy will assist the Joestar family for years to come. The stone mask also reveals itself as a mechanism to turn people into vampires – this was originally shown in a prologue to the very first chapter of the manga, but I think the anime is better for turning it into a small reveal. The anime also glossed over a few points that the manga would have spent several pages ruminating on, again for the better – JoJo has a tendency to flat out explain all of its plot points, as you may have noticed.

Next week, the actual plot should kick off, instead of just British familial drama.

Gee’s Thoughts:
Just like last week, Jojo continues the absurd antics and melodrama when Jonathan has to go to London to prove Dio’s treachery. Here we get to meet another colorful member of the Jojo cast, Speedwagon. Speedwagon has always been a favorite of mine due to the combination of his awesome bromance with the Joestar family, his really awesome hat, and his fucking awesome name. While cliche by today’s standards, Speedwagon befriending Jonathan after being defeated by him is a Jojo staple and Speedwagon’s legacy lives on in many characters in the later arcs.

We also get to see the mask used for the first time, revealing *gasp* vampires! Anyone with any familiarity with shonen knows exactly where this development is heading (Hint: Dio is EVIL, vampires are EVIL, do the math). Jojo ‘s never tried to be too unpredictable, but it does shonen like no other, and I hungrily await the next episode to see more Jonathan and Dio screaming at each other while making flamboyant poses.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts:
I actually enjoyed this episode of JoJo even more than the last one. With the groundwork firmly laid down, the show is free to concentrate on the absurd melodrama of the plot. Part of the appeal here is the way the show never even for a second offers us a nod or a wink – everything is played absolutely straight and becomes all the funnier for it. There’s also the beginnings of what will probably be a major arc , with Dio’s discovery of the stone mask’s true power. Yes, vampires are cliche (Iro’s note: were they cliche in the 80s?) but the method of creation is pretty cool and they’ll likely provide an abundant army of of fodder for, say, a mighty shonen hero to come along and beat the crap out of.

Special shoutout this episode has to go to the animation, which dresses the characters in a variety of ridiculous outfits, paints them even more ridiculous colours and then drops into completely different shades or dramatic shots. There’s a vibrant, pop-art feel to the whole thing, helped by the classic character design and the abundant musical shoutouts (The JoJo REO Speedwagon is way less villainous than the band). I like the idea of the OP, but it’s hindered too much by obvious use of CGI. Still, this episode was an awful lot of good, hearty fun, and that makes it a winner to me.