Note how everything I have to say about this series boils down to "Viva las eighties!"

[petronia]

Yet another JoJo post in lieu of everything else I should be doing etc. you know the drill. (BTW, when do the scanlations get crappy/stop? Because there I have to start buying it in whatever language, I may as well know now.)

Now up to volume 24 (I turned the page and saw the next opponent was named "Pet Shop" - seemed as good a place to stop as any). Series only gets better. It reminds me of watching some episodes during the X-Files' third and fourth seasons, convinced by the end that I'd just seen classic television in the making.

Bast/Mariah: at least one good "I wish I knew how to quit you" LJ icon can be wrung from this episode.

Sethan/Alessi: while this is one of the more disturbing episodes due to Alessi's sheer vileness (oh, and nice Jack Nicholson impersonation there)...... *ded of cute* OMG SILVER CHARIOT. T___T

Osiris/D'Arcy: last night I dropped by Andrew's place during what turned out to be weekly D&D night. I told him I was reading JoJo and he was like "Seriously? That is one weird manga. :O" It turns out he had only read disparate chunks like volume 4 and 20 or something but that did not stop him from spoilering me for this 'fight' (only a little though). Basically, after 12 volumes Jotaro puts his poker face to good use. XD Tense as whoa but - you're going to hate me for this - I kept wondering if Araki liked The Gambler miniseries rather a lot. I mean, we know he's into Westerns. Then there's Kenny Rogers' hat and beard...

Hol Horse and Boingo: LOLOCAUST. That is all.

(Unrelatedly, it's been a month and a half in manga time and Dio has still not bothered to put on a shirt. Maybe he habitually doesn't? It must interfere with his appreciation of hi-- you know, I don't think I'm going to finish that sentence.)

Someone on that Japanese BBS posted a bunch of comparisons between actual 80s fashion illos/photos and JoJo frontispieces. FTR the wilds of 2ch/Jfan internets are obsessive about documenting who (may or may not have) gacked off whom, mostly in a condemnatory manner - actually speaking of Marxy I remember him tracing this to a supposed thirst for authenticity stemming from lack thereof in "corporate" Japanese pop culture. I have nothing to add to the argument: my attitude toward reappropriation is on the lax end of the scale so I'll probably never grok the indignation from a 'native' perspective, and the way Marxy lays it out makes me suspicious due to overtones of r--kism. XD Also it just seems to me like one of those slightly overboard net memes (in the original sense not the LJ quiz sense), yanno? Like how people go nuts over "feedback" and such in Wfandom. Online cultures construct their own ethical subsets that may or may not be 100% applicable to RL. I mean pop melodies is one thing but I can't picture serialising a weekly manga and never having recourse to reference images (OR STANDARD GENRE TROPES WHUT), pakuri-ing some other manga's poses and framing wholesale isn't kosher - which is not to say it isn't blatantly done by some - but otherwise...

...That wasn't what I wanted to discuss. XD What I wanted to say was that I thought this was pretty cool, because it foregrounds an intentional element of the artwork that the reader picks up on anyway, subconsciously (like the horror tropes). That is, you recognize with some part of your brain that you're seeing guys built like Arnold Schwarzenegger posing like Iman in a Helmut Lang fashion spread, because you've already encountered all these things and assigned them semiotic value - it just manifests nebulously, as an impression of overwhelming campness.

Araki stops mining the schtick eventually, though; his characters slim down progressively as their outfits get more outré, until they look like fashion models to begin with, if bogglingly fit ones. Part 3 outfits are not so bad, though Polnareff's top looks like he wound masking tape around his torso, and I keep worrying Jotaro is going to turn around too fast and whap someone in the face with that dangling chain.** Part 4 seems to slide down a slippery slope of heart-shaped doohickies, and when I see scans from parts 5-7 I can't decide whether the clothes are awesome or should be burnt at the earliest opportunity, so I just sit and blink in bafflement.


** Never let it be said that Jotaro doesn't know what he likes. I suspect if he woke up naked in a shopping bag factory he'd walk out of there wearing cap, coat, shirt, slacks and chain made out of brown paper origami. Star Platinum has unparalleled precision you say? May as well put it to use.

At my going rate of two tankoubon a night it will be another month before I finish reading the series. BUT AT LEAST IT'S NOT MIRAGE OF BLAZE.

Comments

[vonbrigthi.livejournal.com]

Yeah the latter half of Series 3 and all of Series 4 is pretty much uh, not great on the translation front. Understandable, but brain mushy-ing. If you need the raws, I was finally able to get them, though they're not very large? :x Haha, I was thinking of getting the entire series, but I've _seen_ all those photograpsh of the complete Jojo collection, and I'm not sure I would have a place to sleep if I went and got every issue.

I think I spent a week or three reading Jojo and nearly broke.