This intro is going to be pretty brief, I just finished an 11 hour night shift at work and then immediately went to see the new Star Wars movie. So I’m flagging a little bit and need to get some sleep as soon as possible before I have to go back to work tonight.
If you want to read the anime and video game top ten lists up until now, then click here.
#6: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
Originally aired: 5th October 2018 to 28th July 2019 | 39 Episodes | Based on the Manga written by Hirohiko Araki | Action, Adventure, Shounen
I felt kind of cheap putting this on my anime of the year list for 2018, considering it had barely gotten started at that point. But I was kind of hard up to find 10 anime at that point and I was feeling deep excitement for the early parts of a new Jojo series that I felt the strong desire to gush about it.
Not we’re 12 months later and the series is all wrapped up. I am content to say that Jojo’s Bizare Adventure Part 5 does deserve a spot on any top ten list. That it of course, if you have an admiration and a stomach for the utterly nonsensical and barmy world that this anime takes place in.
Part V might be the most “stand alone” series in the entire Jojo-verse, having very little connection to the other parts in the series outside of the very start and the very end. Taking place in Italy, as the world’s most capable 15 year old; Giorno Giovanna plots to take control of the mafia and become the most benevolent crime lord there ever was.
If there was ever an anime that chooses to get by from dumping all of its stats into style, then Golden Wind is the series that does it. On it’s surface, the series is a villain of the day format, throwing a different enemy at Giorno and the gang for them to deal with before them moving onto the next guy.
All of the drama of the series comes from discovering the powers of the enemy stand, and then finding the most improbable and often nonsensical way of defeating. In ways that can quickly fall apart if you try to think about it too much. And I love it. This series in particular has a bunch of character whose powers make absolutely no sense and even seem to change without question as the plot dictates.
But Jojo has become a franchise that seeps into the culture of the interest that really makes you realise why it’s popping up everywhere. The visual style, the quotes and the music, oh lord the music… Giorno’s theme might be my favourite anime track of the year, simply because of how well it’s used and implemented into those moments of the series that have you pumping your fist into the air.
While I would complain that both Golden Experience and King Crimson make no god damn sense in this show and what they do, what I ended liking the most in the series were the supporting characters. Mista, Bucciarati and Trish Doing a lot more for me than the series’ titular Jojo, although that often ends up being the case for me.
This series does a lot for me, helped quite a bit by the fact that it is a literal meme factory that manages to creep its way into everything else on the internet in some shape or form. It’s hard to ignore it, but why would you want to?
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 