Recap

Polnareff is attacked by Alessi, whose Stand can revert opponents to children.

Iro’s thoughts

See? More Polnareff! And this isn’t even the last time! By my count, he’s still got like two more fights where he’s the center of attention. It’s downright weird, I’m telling you. Speaking of weird, Alessi’s Stand abilities and the ensuing battle are perhaps the most bizarre thing we’ve seen in JoJo yet. I mean, we’ve had an orangutan whose Stand was a freighter, a guy whose Stand was a demonic car, and a guy whose Stand was a fucking gun, but a Stand that turns people into children takes the cake, especially since we get to see stupid little kid Polnareff run around and try to fight using adorable baby Silver Chariot.

Alessi himself is hilariously over the top, even for Araki’s villains. Dio might have lit a dog on fire when he was twelve, but he was never a child molester. Every one of his scenes with kid-Polnareff would be super creepy if he wasn’t so ineffectual and stupid-looking (the bells in his hair, the sleeveless vest, the half-circle glasses, good lord). He had a gun and an axe and still failed to kill a toddler, and then he got his face beat in by eight-year-old Jotaro. Come on, man. Also, it’s such an incredible missed opportunity that he didn’t attack grandpa Joestar; a return of wily Battle Tendency Joseph probably would have stolen the show a tad too much, though.

A final note about Alessi: he was a playable character in the old 90s JoJo fighting game, and could indeed turn the other fighter into a kid for a few seconds as a special move. There are a few great jokes hidden in there, and some of my favorites are:

• Mariah turns into the old lady who hits on Joseph.
• Dio turns into head-in-a-jar Dio, carried by Wang Chan.
• Young Joseph turns into 13-year-old-reading-manga-on-a-plane Joseph.
• Khan turns into the bull that Anubis got stuck in on the boat.