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Binge read this whole thing over the last two days after finding out it was ending soon and not wanting to touch it until it's complete and uh I think I might hate it? Jojo has obviously always been about weird poo poo happening and that's part of what makes it great but this is the first time where it felt like 99% of the story was weird poo poo and then like 1% was concerned with actually being an interesting narrative to the point that the manga doesn't even end so much as it comes to a rolling stop way past the sign and then gets hit by a semi in the middle of the intersection. After the end I don't really care for the characters or about what happened to them because it felt more like a vehicle for Araki to draw whatever images came to mind than anything resembling a story. Honestly pretty apprehensive about another part but I guess I won't read that for a decade anyway!
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Aug 18, 2021 18:58
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Oxxidation posted:Listen. To say that you are "almost" 70...this means that you are "approaching" 70, right? That 70 is "before" you. And if you are more than 35, then 35 is "behind" you. Having surpassed 35, it has been "abandoned." Understand? You can only "approach" what is "before" you! To strive for an "abandoned" thing is folly! And in the smallest increment of time after you have turned 70, that very first "moment"...70, too, will have been "abandoned!" What will lie "before" you then? What will "almost" approach you then? And when will your approach falter? To constantly approach this receding "almost," amidst the wreckage of "abandoned" things...that is what it means to live!
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Aug 18, 2021 19:01
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Oxxidation posted:Listen. To say that you are "almost" 70...this means that you are "approaching" 70, right? That 70 is "before" you. And if you are more than 35, then 35 is "behind" you. Having surpassed 35, it has been "abandoned." Understand? You can only "approach" what is "before" you! To strive for an "abandoned" thing is folly! And in the smallest increment of time after you have turned 70, that very first "moment"...70, too, will have been "abandoned!" What will lie "before" you then? What will "almost" approach you then? And when will your approach falter? To constantly approach this receding "almost," amidst the wreckage of "abandoned" things...that is what it means to live!
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Aug 18, 2021 19:40
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Anyway, part 8 was uneven as all hell, especially during the last five years. Araki couldn't commit to the idea of a long, cohesive narrative and he really misused most of the side characters (i'm looking at you Kato). Wonder of U lasted 89 years longer than it needed to. Still it had its hype moments, so i can't say that I hated it. That ending chapter was really good. Loved the Joseph reveal and the fact that he can't stop cheating on Suzy Q no matter the universe. The guardrail rock animal was some gnarly poo poo. Tooru really was 89 years old this entire time. The bit with Josefumi's mom was bittersweet, tugged at my heartstrings a bit. I'm really going to miss Gappy and Yasuho.
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Aug 18, 2021 19:48
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It definitely needed a more cohesive and satisfying narrative overall and it definitely lost its impetus once the original rock humans died with Damo, the villains after it just had little charisma, other than maybe the old man baby cos he was a funny little dude. The ending chapter is really wholesome and it really drives home what JJL should have been more about, the Joestar lineage from Johnny's death onwards and who Kira Yoshikage and Josefumi Kujo were and why it's okay for them to live on as Josuke Higashikata in the end. We never got any expansion on why Norisuke was painted as somewhat villainous earlier on and how he knew Kira. I think we actually got no elaboration on Karera and Josefumi & Kira's relationship. Tooru is easily and by far the worst final villain in a JoJo part. Diavolo is sort of a nothing but he has Doppio going for him. Kars is fun and is enhanced by the other Pillar Men's characters. Both iterations of Dio are fun, even if Dio 3 is also sort of a bit part player. Pucci is great. Kira 4 is actual perfection. Valentine is a huge player throughout SBR and has an awesome stand and awesome fight (if not a bit overlong). Does Tooru belong in that company? Hell no. When JoJolion was doing slice of life/everyday antics with unlikely and strange stand happenings, it was great. It was great at body horror like Vitamin C. It wasn't nearly as good when it was relying on rock beetles or monster of the weeks who weren't especially interesting. The chapters about Joshu getting loving wrecked? Milagro man stuff, Awesome. Tooru's "you can't hit me i'm calamity man haha" for the 7th chapter in a row, nah, not so much. Still, I'm hype for part 9 if Araki is happy and healthy and I'm not if he's not. I know the meme is that he's immortal but he's not and I just hope he genuinely feels he's in a place where he can do P9 because he wants to, not because he feels obliged to. Josuke Higashikata fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 20:13
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Milagro Man and Shakedown Road were really cool stories and I wish Jojolion had more setpiece stories like that.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:18
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Josuke Higashikata posted:Still, I'm hype for part 9 if Araki is happy and healthy and I'm not if he's not. I know the meme is that he's immortal but he's not and I just hope he genuinely feels he's in a place where he can do P9 because he wants to, not because he feels obliged to.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:21
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TheLoneStar posted:Why do people keep making reference like Araki's health is declining or he doesn't want to work on manga anymore? I keep seeing this all over but I don't think anything actually backs it up. He's not even the oldest active mangaka. Trauma from Miura It was like 1-2 weeks after Miura died that we found out Jojolion was ending and there were a ton of speculation on whether or not this was a reaction towards Miura suddenly dying.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:22
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Araki also seems to take breaks and go on vacations to places, which is promising for both his long term health and creativity.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:23
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TheLoneStar posted:Why do people keep making reference like Araki's health is declining or he doesn't want to work on manga anymore? I keep seeing this all over but I don't think anything actually backs it up. He's not even the oldest active mangaka. aortic dissections are on alot of peoples minds right now I think
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Aug 18, 2021 20:25
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Whelp, Jojolion's done. Time to rate it! I feel like the story wasted a lot of potential; and the final enemy was rather lame by himself. But I really, really liked the Stand fights. There were some all-time greats in there. Wonder of U was an incredible Stand, and I wish it had been involved earlier in the story. Vitamin C is clearly the absolute high point of the entire arc. And I just plain like Urban Gorilla, Blue Hawaii and Milagro Man. Overall, though, I feel like other parts just plain succeed more as a whole. I would put it over Part 1, 3 and 5, somewhat on par with 2, not as good as 6, and definitely not as fantastic as 7 and 4. Oh well. Here's to more weirdness. I will read Jojo forever
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Aug 18, 2021 20:37
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Yeah I think the bottom line for Jojolion is "less than the sum of its parts" - most individual fights are pretty good, and the characters are fun, but they never really mesh together into a cohesive whole. Reading it all at once is better than reading it month to month though, imo.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:46
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SKULL.GIF posted:Trauma from Miura Also kind of awkward trying to make it seem like Josefumi's mom actually cared about him when her only character trait until this point was being a horrible mother and person.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:46
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CodfishCartographer posted:Yeah I think the bottom line for Jojolion is "less than the sum of its parts" - most individual fights are pretty good, and the characters are fun, but they never really mesh together into a cohesive whole. Reading it all at once is better than reading it month to month though, imo. I can't imagine if I had read this monthly for a decade waiting for a lot of mysteries to get solved that kind of get shrugged off by the end
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Aug 18, 2021 20:52
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TheLoneStar posted:Why do people keep making reference like Araki's health is declining or he doesn't want to work on manga anymore? I keep seeing this all over but I don't think anything actually backs it up. He's not even the oldest active mangaka. he's 60 odd. he's been a mangaka for 40 years. being a mangaka loving sucks and the schedule is awful. we have no reason to believe he's significantly ill at all, but he's been in a hard industry for a long time. i'm sure Araki holding a lot of cache as a powerhouse of the medium and a legendary author gives him leeway and freedom to work to his own schedule and freedom, but still, it still can't be easy on a body. Josuke Higashikata fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 20:52
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Araki's almost 80, part 9 might be the last one. Part of me is extremely hoping Jojo ends by echoing part 6's ending and doing a universe reset/loop around to set up the start of part 1
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Aug 18, 2021 20:57
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Enricou Pouchii's stand "Heaven is a place on earth" resets the SBR verse and the final panel is the first page of Buso Poker
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Aug 18, 2021 21:01
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araki is almost 110 now and everything he has made since cool shock bt has been steadily more dogshit and i can't believe how far he has fallen. incredibly disappointed in this latest showing and personally i think someone should have talked about how to catch wasps
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Aug 18, 2021 21:16
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:Araki's almost 80, part 9 might be the last one. Almost 83 years old?!
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Aug 18, 2021 21:20
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I’m always willing to excuse a little sloppiness in a serialized work—writing is dumb and hard when you’re not doing it more or less live—but Jojolion is so sloppy and ends with such a dumb shrug that I have to assume the failure extends well beyond Araki. Not to like, start a totally baseless conspiracy theory here, but I do feel like Jojolion started out with a bunch of radical ideas (four balls! dressing boys like girls to escape curses! beetle tendency! an ambiguous and inhuman jojo! a female character with agency!) and then every single one of these elements was stripped away until we were left with 20 chapters of Zeno’s paradox-ing in the direction of a boring old man. Yasuho became a plot device, a literal conduit for the bullshit powers of the designated Jojo, and then fucks off from the cafe with some boring tearful look like the wife at the end of The Godfather? Tsurugi I guess is just hanging out and is fine now, the end, no moral? And that’s without even getting started on the mantle bristling with loaded and unfired Chekhov’s guns. Is it just a coincidence that the Jojolion run happened at the same time as the series gained a large Western audience via the anime? Did Araki get cold feet, or somebody at Jump? What happened to turn this very cool, Lynchian Jojo part into this mess? I’m in a bad mood about the comic book I read now, though, so I think I’m just saying stupid stuff. It still stinks.
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Aug 18, 2021 21:31
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Jojolion is still not officially available for a western audience and likely will not be for at least 5 years so I doubt that was a factor.
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Aug 18, 2021 21:40
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Honestly I think it’s more he tried a new technique for writing and just kind of failed at it. It happens when you try something new. Can’t guarantee the results
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Aug 18, 2021 21:41
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josuke should pick the rokakacake
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Aug 18, 2021 21:56
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i honestly didn't get any of the second half of this chapter
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Aug 18, 2021 21:57
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For the next part villain. I hope we meet them and know who they are before the final arc. Like we only meet Tooru for the first time in the middle of the Dr Wu fight.
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 22:01
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Mamezuku, Tooru, Cato, Jobin, and Kei all died within the span of five chapters and none of their deaths felt particularly notable. Jojolion's definitely going to go down as the most frustrating part.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:04
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Baron La Croix posted:Mamezuku, Tooru, Cato, Jobin, and Kei all died within the span of five chapters and none of their deaths felt particularly notable. Jojolion's definitely going to go down as the most frustrating part. Jobin died way faster then that. He died 10 chapters before the end of the Wonder of U fight. Wonder of U was a really cool stand, to the point it outshone it's own user. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 22:06
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Aurora posted:i honestly didn't get any of the second half of this chapter Yasuho asks if there are any Rokakaka left in the area, and Josuke confirmed there's not - showing a picture of Holly, implying that there's no way they can save her and she's probably hosed. Then they ran into Josefumi's mom, and Josuke was like "she has a new kid, she probably didn't look for me, I'm my own person" and then Yasuho found out no she actually did look for him, but by then she was gone. Then the family is trying to pick out a celebratory cake for Norisuke, and asked Josuke to pick it, probably showing he's fully accepted as a member of the family. Yasuho leaves with tears in her eyes. Fin.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:12
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CodfishCartographer posted:Yasuho asks if there are any Rokakaka left in the area, and Josuke confirmed there's not - showing a picture of Holly, implying that there's no way they can save her and she's probably hosed. Then they ran into Josefumi's mom, and Josuke was like "she has a new kid, she probably didn't look for me, I'm my own person" and then Yasuho found out no she actually did look for him, but by then she was gone. Then the family is trying to pick out a celebratory cake for Norisuke, and asked Josuke to pick it, probably showing he's fully accepted as a member of the family. Yasuho leaves with tears in her eyes. Fin. Also Joshuu still has his tiny Jerkin' Hand.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:14
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yeah that second half of the chapter really felt really undercooked then
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Aug 18, 2021 22:16
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Yeah I wouldn't have minded an extra chapter to give things a bit more room to breathe. Elaborate a bit more on Holly and Yasuho / Gappy. Would have loved to see at least a scene of Gappy having to tell Holly that there were no more fruits, or at least seen him come to terms with the fact he couldn't save her. It kind of comes off as him going "guess I can't accomplish this thing I've risked my life dozens of times over for, oh well!" I guess they managed to save Tsurugi, which was the other half of what they were trying to achieve. But it's still a pretty big motivation that got seemingly dumped.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:44
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Huh. I actually rather liked that ending. Still, this isn't one of my favorite parts. I have to agree with the thought that it had some pretty great moments, but the part as a whole feels kind of underwhelming. That being said, the guard rail that eats people singlehandedly made me excited for whatever Araki's gonna do next.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:45
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I don't think I can add anything that hasn't been said, but I gotta say, I keep being impressed by how much Araki loving LOVES body horror. You can just feel how the guy loves to draw weird poo poo by the way he does it, and his seemingly endless way of turning people into cubes/sausages/discs or whatever keeps amazing me every time. Overall, a very uneven part. Tooru is definitely the weakest villain, and I can't believe there wasn't any time poo poo going on at the last second.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:46
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Even though Tooru was the final villain, and had the longest fight, I still consider Jobin to be the main antagonist. It's a shame that we didn't get a straightforward fight against him.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:54
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I do think a fight against the Joubin family might've been a more fitting conclusion, yeah. Joubin already had a reasonable amount of setup regarding his character and motivation.
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Aug 18, 2021 22:57
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I was kinda hoping Tsurugi would become the final boss gaining some power from Wonder of U and being influenced by his dad’s lovely philosophy
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Aug 18, 2021 23:02
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Jojolion wasn't very good, probably the worst jojo part? But it's not the only part that I haven't liked so whatever. I'm down to read a Part 9 if Araki is still up for more.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:12
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I think jojolion suffered the most from Araki trying to write a longform mystery story. None of the other parts really did that kind of thing before. The mysteries were generally presented either to the audience in short bursts of "what is happening" >> "ok I know what is happening" but this whole part was a bunch of different pieces of mysteries that all got dropped at one point or another and it's just disappointing. I don't know how far ahead araki plans things out but I feel like part 8 really could have used a far more concrete and comprehensive outline than it probably had. It's hard to enjoy a longform mystery when it's as inconsistent as part 8. There were parts of part 8 that I liked and some fights are definitely in the top of jojo fight lists but on a whole it's probably my 2nd least favorite part.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:29
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Was Radio Gaga a Stand (user) or another Rock Insect that Tooru was packing? Josefumi says it's very "dry and hard" suggesting it's some sort of rock creature, insect or not.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:32
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It really should have ended with a fight against Jobin instead of just Tooru. Tooru is one of my least favorite main antagonists along with Diavolo, which seems fitting given the similarities between the two. The biggest issue that is repeated with Tooru is the weak and ill-defined motivations. Maybe I'd be less harsh with Tooru if he had an actual good fight.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:34
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