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duhragonball · 1 year ago

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JoJolion Ch. 95-98

Yep, we're still in the "Wonder of You" arc.

So the last Rock Human, the mastermind of the whole Locacaca business, is currently fighting on two fronts. His Stand ability basically punishes anyone who tries to pursue him with bad luck. If you chase him, try to look at him, or even think about approaching him, a bunch of improbable things will happen that will hurt you, badly. I think the "calamities" get more and more severe over time, but it might also be random chance.

On one front, Josuke, Rai and Yasuho were trying to find the Head Doctor of TG University Hospital, Satoru Akefu, and the Stand sent so many calamities their way that they had to split up. Josuke wound up in the hospital, Rai's in jail, and Yasuho went to the Higashikata estate to see if she could find the Locacaca Branch there.

But this put Yasuho in the middle of the second front, where the Enemy Stand just keeps lurking around the mansion, and every time Mitsuba sees it, she recognizes it as the Head Doctor and some sort of calamity happens. Then Jobin captured Paisley Park snooping around and trapped her in a smartphone in a toilet. Finally, the next calamity made Mitsuba's stand backfire, which attracted the attention of Norisuke.

Norisuke confronts Jobin for apparently attempting to murder Yasuho, and also about the Locacaca Branch, which has now been revealed from its hiding place. Jobin insists that what he's doing is the "Right Path", and he explains that his plan is to use the New Locacaca fruit to cure Tsurugi and end the curse. But the fruit has to remain a family secret, which is why Yasuho must die.

Norisuke removes the phone containing PP from the toilet, but before he puts it near an outlet for PP to escape, he seems to assent to Jobin's way of doing things. But before he does, he uses his own Stand, King Nothing, to check on an unusual odor he's detected from the Locacaca's pot. Remember, King Nothing can reconstruct objects based on their odors, so when it locks onto the scent, it forms the image of a man who once held the pot: Ojiro Sasame, who was reported dead along with his girlfriend. Since Jobin had the pot before and after Ojiro's death, it's pretty clear to everyone that Jobin killed them both with his Stand.

This would seem to prove that Jobin's "Right Path" is anything but right. That still don't dissuade Jobin, though, and he uses Speed King again, this time to incapacitate his own father. Everyone freaks out because they think Jobin killed him, but he assures them that he only knocked him out. I'm not sure why his right hand comes off during this, though.

Everyone's upset, but Jobin keeps insisting that this is all necessary for the good of the family, and that they just have to wait three more hours for the fruit to be ripe enough for Tsurugi and they'll be home free. He keeps saying they're winning, but then he finally notices that Norisuke dropped the phone containing Paisley Park.

And he dropped it close enough to an electrical socket that Paisley Park can escape the house now. I'm not sure if Norisuke planned this or if it was another calamity produced by the enemy, or maybe it was just dumb luck. The point is that it makes Jobin look really incompetent, since he's the one who was adamant about preventing Yasuho from escaping.

Meanwhile, Rai is in prison, and while his powers would allow him to escape whenever he wants, he doesn't dare risk it because of the calamity that would hit him if he tried to link up with Josuke at the hospital. Instead, he explains the plot to his cellmate, then uses a phone he swiped from the evidence locker to try to get a photo of the Enemy Stand, which occasionally floats around outside the cell window. He also took a knife from evidence, and when he explains that they both belonged to his cellmate, the guy gets enraged and tries to attack Rai with the knife, only to injure himself instead, becuase it was his phone that took the picture.

This was Rai's plan from the beginning, as his cellmate was a mass murderer, apparently, and he knew it wouldn't take much provocation to get this to happen. Now that he's injured, the police will take the guy to the hospital, and Rai uses his abiliity to unravel his body to hide inside his cellmate's clothes.

Back at the Higashikata estate, Yasuho is reunited with her Stand, so she's out of immediate danger, but she's still badly wounded, and she can't reach Josuke, so she calls Toru instead. He... does head her way, though he doesn't seem too fussed about her predicament.

Inside, the image of the Head Doctor continues to haunt Mitsuba, and now she's seeing it inside the house. Jobin's already adopted a siege mentality, because now that Yasuho's Stand has escaped, he believes that word of the New Locacaca in his possession will get out to the outside world, and so they have to fend off anyone who might try to come get it. But he's mainly worried about Yasuho and Josuke. I don't think the Head Doctor is even on his radar.

Mitsuba explains to him that they're under attack, but she can't quite explain it. All she knows for sure is that approaching or attacking the Head Doctor is a bad idea, but it's kind of the only tactic Jobin seems to use these days.

They think they see him on the nightstand, so Jobin attacks the bed with his Stand, but it turns out all he hit was an aerosol can of hair spray. The can springs a leak and starts flying around the room as the pressure bleeds off.

Jobin gives another bullshit speech about how he has the matter well in hand, and he's not worried about this new enemy at all, and then he goes out to search the rest of the house for the guy. He catches a glimpse of Toru in the security camera feed, and then suddenly he notices he's bleeding from the mouth. Somehow, the dip tube from the can of hairspray came loose while it was flying around and it launched itself straight into Jobin's chest. How did he not notice this until now? Chalk it up to the calamity, I suppose.

Then he stumbles through the hallway and the pot presses up against the dip tube, driving it further into his body and making his injury even worse. He finally collapses, dropping the pot and calling out for his wife and son as he dies.

You know, it's weird, but for some reason I totally misremembered this part of the story. I knew Jobin died around here, but somehow I convinced myself that he put up more of a fight than this. It's like when a supporting character has a pretty clever way to beat the main villain, and it allllmost works but then the villain prevails and kills the guy. I thought Jobin had a scenario kind of like that, but no. He brazenly attacked the Head Doctor and continued to pursue him, despite Mitsuba's explicit warnings, and then he died without accomplishing a damned thing.

And this takes me back to Jobin's strategy during that beetle contest with Josuke. He had that one beetle with the hole in the back of its head, and he put wax in the hole which could then be melted in order to make it more aggressive or something. The hole would eventually prove fatal for the beetle, but it would still live for at least twenty minutes, and Jobin only needed the beetle to survive for two or three minutes to finish the battle.

And that's Jobin in a nutshell. For all his high talk, he's too shortsighted and too sloppy to be a leader. He wants the power and the prestige that his father has, and he wants even more power and prestige on top of that, but in the end he's just like those beetles he collects, which only have 45 seconds' worth of useful memory. Also, he died a lot like that beetle with the hole in its head. Jobin got a fatal injury, and he was so aggro that he didn't even notice it for a few minutes and then dropped dead.

Meanwhile, remember that package Josuke sent? Well, it finally reaches its receipient, which is... some reporter. He's got pimples and little girl pigtails. It's a bold choice.

Not long after, the reporter finds Dr. Akefu and confronts him with the contents of the package: A sample of Locacaca fruit, and video records of Holly's present condition. The reporter concludes that Akefu and his colleagues must have created Locacaca 6251 from the fruit, and they tested it on Holly, resulting in her illness. Akefu is bemused at first, but once he establishes that the reporter intends to expose him with this evidence, he asks him if he opened the jar with the fruit in it.

Akefu reasons that the reporter probably examined the jar, and would have gotten some of the fruit juice on his fingers, which he probably inadvertantly got in his mouth. This leads to an equivalent exchange, but since the calamity effect in is play, the results are disastrous. The reporter's acne clears up, but the middle of his neck turns to stone and breaks apart, killing him instantly.

Still, Dr. Akefu is unnerved, and heads for the Locacaca lab.

Back at the Higashikata Estate, Toru has arrived, but he's not helping Yasuho or doing anything else, really. He just rocks out to Elvis songs until he suddenly realizes that Josuke has stopped "pursuing" and he's now "inviting". That's right, if you didn't already know, Toru is the Rock Human final boss of JoJolion, and the Head Doctor, Satoru Afeku, is his Stand.

I sort of realized this a bit early. I want to say around Chapters 94 or 95, just because it suddenly hit me that the design of Toru's hair kind of reminded me of the shape of Dr. Akefu's hat. Also, if Toru's not the main villain, then his presence this late in the story seems kind of pointless. Mostly, though, it was beginning to seem pretty clear that the "Head Doctor" was appearing in more and more unlikley places, and sometimes in multiple places at once, to the point where it seemed to make more sense for him to be the Stand instead of the user. And if we're looking for a Stand User, hey, here's Toru, a new character with nothing else going on. It all fits.

And yet, what irks me is that I never noticed until this read-through that their names are connected. Dr. Satoru Afeku. You literally can't spell the Head Doctor's name without Toru.

So now, Toru's Stand is heading for the Locacaca lab to confront Josuke, and Rai also shows up at the hospital heading the same direction. To his amazement, he sees the Head Doctor following him instead, and Rai realizes that he has to get to Josuke first or he'll start experiencing calamities again. He makes it to Josuke and he doesn't exactly approve of Josuke just sitting there and waiting for the enemy to come to him. Once the Head Doctor arrives, he'll have all the bad luck in the world bearing down on him, with nothing to help him.

Josuke counters that he has his Stand, and Rai made it here, in spite of everything, and there's still Yasuho too. Josuke is standing firm because he believes there's a way to win. Otherwise, Holly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to help him and give him that advice earlier.

And that's the difference between Jobin and Josuke. Both are driven, perhaps to the point of stubbornness, but Josuke is willing to trust others and take a stand for the right thing. His resolve is born of faith, not overconfidence in his abilities.

Speaking of Yasuho, she's not doing too well, but then she thinks she hears Toru coming to help, but instead it's... Joshuu? And he has the Locacaca branch. He's come here to help her, more out of desperation than anything else.

Back at the hospital, Toru's Stand arrives. I think the idea here is that Toru has been forced to withdraw the Stand from the Higashikata estate in order to go after Josuke. The whole pursuit-brings-calamity effect seemed to have an unlimited range, but now Josuke has flipped the script, so maybe Toru can't attack on two fronts like this. At the very least, Toru seems to have paused his search for the branch. He almost found it, but now Joshuu's outside of the house with it, but Toru's apparently too focused on Josuke to notice.

As for Josuke, he's got a bunch of Soft and Wet's bubbles in the room when the Stand enters, but it's a little too cagey to walk into a trap like this. It introduces itself as Wonder of U, and sticks close to the wall. Instead of attacking Josuke directly, Wonder of U takes out some new Rock Animal, and sics that on Josuke instead.

So this is Do Do Do De Da Da Da, a Rock Insect that looks like it's made of tongue depressors. It lays flat like a placemat, but it can raise itself up like a tower and swing this poison barb around on a string. This is the dumbest looking one yet. I think the only reason it's a credible threat here is because Josuke can't move around too much while he fights it. It stings Josuke, but we still have a ways to go before we can get into its abilities.

Wonder of U tries to taunt Josuke into fighting more aggressively, but Josuke shoots back by asking why he's still trying to draw him into a fight if he's already got the Locacaca branch. Wonder of U doesn't answer, and Rai concludes that he must not have the branch yet, or otherwise he'd just withdraw, confident that no one can stop him or take the branch away.

So there's more at stake here than just Josuke's trap. Toru wants the new Locacaca fruit, but he also needs this lab of his, and he can't seem to secure both of those things at once. So the longer Josuke can keep him tied up here, the better chance Yasuho has of keeping the branch safe. It's not much, but it's a chance...

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #jo2uke higashikata #yasuho hirose #rai mamezuku #toru #jobin higashikata #norisuke higashikata iv #mitsuba higashikata #tsurugi higashikata #daiya higashikata #joshuu higashikata #hato higashikata

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yerpenachams · 2 years ago

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JJBA Protagonist Abilities

I'm really inspired by 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure,' because stands are an excellent way to go about avoiding power creep and creating versatile but limited power sets. Probably my favorite plot point in Part 8 is that the Rock Humans have more predatory and devastating, but situational stands, compared to most other antagonists in the series.

However, Araki doesn't go as far as he could with the protagonist's abilities. Giorno's is a little too versatile, while still being strong (although you could say this fits thematically with him being the son of Dio, whose stand is also 'unfair'). Jotaro's stand is obviously very basic, but that's acceptable since it's from the first part with stands. That leaves Crazy Diamond, Stone Free, Tusk, Soft & Wet, and November Rain.

I was super excited about the reveal of November Rain, because it really seemed like a mook stand that just happened to be used by a main character. To me, this fit really well with the themes of Part 9, since Jodio believes that he's a psychopath doomed to struggle with human connection; he doesn't view himself as a hero. Of course, in more recent chapters, November Rain has been established as a pretty versatile stand, although it's still a bit more specific than any of the previous main character stands (in my opinion).

Crazy Diamond has a very neat and clean powerset; healing and repairing objects. This may seem simple, but has a variety of applications in Part 4. Stone Free essentially just allows Jolyne to stretch herself, fit through tight spaces and go "long-range" at the cost of vulnerability; it basically just improves hand-to-hand combat, but it's still a pretty good stand.

Tusk is a stand that really makes a point of "harnessing a force of nature." Gold Experience gives Giorno control over biology, but Tusk gives Johnny control over rotation, including allowing him to create black holes. Objectively, it's probably the best idea for a main character stand so far in a series about the power of fate. However, I've read some convincing fan theories about November Rain, I love the way that Crazy Diamond is used in certain fights in Part 4... and I think that Soft & Wet had a lot of potential.

I actually love Part 8, and it's kind of necessary for Josuke to have a "bullshit stand" when a lot of his opponents use devasting and/or long-range and/or automatic stands (of the Rock Humans, Aisho Dainenjiyama, Dolomite, Poor Tom and Satoru Akefu/Toru all have automatic stands). In addition to Doobie Wah!, Blue Hawaii, Ozone Baby and Wonder of U, Tamaki Damo's Vitamin C and Yotsuyu Yagiyama's I Am a Rock both have features of automatic stands. Once infected, victims of Vitamin C are doomed as long as they're in its range. I Am a Rock attracts objects to people's bodies automatically, although Yotsuyu is at risk since he has to touch people to activate his stand. For Vitamin C, I Am a Rock and Brain Storm, calling them 'automatic' is varying degrees of a stretch, but I definitely think Doctor Wu and the Schott Keys are the only Rock Human stands that have no automatic elements (although Doctor Wu clearly has a different-functioning brain to control all the different parts of his body in the way he does). That's a count of seven automatic stands to three non-automatic, and Brain Storm and Schott Key No. 2 have very small automatic features, since they are diseases. One could argue that, if Green Day functions automatically, then so do Brain Storm and Schott Key No. 2.

Of course, there are non-Rock Human stands that are automatic in Part 8. This in particular includes Kei Nijimura's Born This Way. California King Bed also takes memories automatically, although only when Josuke breaks a rule. That's excluding Yasuho Hirose's Paisley Park and Norisuke Higashikata's King Nothing, which are automatic stands used by allies of Josuke.

I just really enjoy talking about my theory/"observation" that the Rock Human stands are especially predatory, aggressive and unfair because they're a solitary species of humanoid with low to no empathy.

Regardless, Gappy's Soft and Wet is a very interesting stand that's hard to write for. It can "plunder," absorb, steal basically whatever Josuke wants... from physical objects to abstract concepts. He can place himself inside a bubble, mediate air pressure, steal friction from a floor or eyesight from a human being.

I basically came up with this list of Jojo protagonist abilities to make myself feel a bit better while I devise abilities for my own protagonists.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #stands

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beeskneescharacters · 6 months ago

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CHARACTER OF THE DAY: Taoka

Series: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)

Taoka is a journalist who confronts Satoru Akefu about his unethical research of the locacaca fruit at TG University Hospital.

#CotD #Jojolion

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mastomysowner · 3 years ago

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1: 透龍 by VKR

2: 明負悟 by VKR

#tooru jojo #satoru akefu #jojolion #jojo #fanart

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shine-on-cd · 3 years ago

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i finished jojolion teehee

#jjba #jjba part 8 #jojolion #tooru #wonder of u #satoru akefu #jjba fanart

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imnosupaman · 3 years ago

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#jojolion #jojo part 8 #jjba #jojo bizarre adventure jojolion #jjba toru #Toru #Tooru #jjba Tooru #Satoru Akefu #Akefu Satoru #mybestaquotes #manga #mangacap #jojo bizarre adventure #jojos bizarre adventure #yasuho hirose #hirose yasuho

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cofa · 4 years ago

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What a nice 89 year old peepaw, I sure hope he isn't secretly something that I thought he wasn't which is also malicious and calamitous in nature

#keeping it vague to avoid jojolion spoilers #jojo #jjba #jojolion #jojo's bizarre adventure #meme #shitpost #satoru akefu #satoru afeku

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toru-saynomoree · 2 years ago

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Akefu be like a irl npc

#Satoru Akefu #jojolion #he looks cute when he give his card to that dude

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askruru · 1 month ago

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i am not offering to be a sugar daddy- ask satoru-san if you wanna be a goddamn sugar baby! i'm just ""paying child support""

You think I should ask Doctor Akefu? Oh, I bet he'd be thrilled to have the part timer ask him if he's looking for a sugar baby. How short of a skirt should I wear when I ask? Drop the clipboard or is that too obvious?

Thanks for paying child support by the way. You're a fantastic father. I'm swooning over here.

#jjba #jojolion #tooru jjba #anon ask #jjba ask blog #jojo rp

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duhragonball · 1 year ago

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JoJolion Ch. 89-94

"What are you boys doing up there?"

"We're having a delicious breakfast, mom!"

So where were we? Oh, right, Josuke was on the run from the police, so Rai told Yasuho to head off by herself and link up with them later. I guess Rai and Josuke are sticking together since they'd have a harder time finding one another than Yasuho would with Paisley Park. Somehow, they got Josuke's Lambroghini up in a tree. I'm thinking Soft and Wet could do that, but we don't get much of an explanation. Anyway, Rai bought a paper on his last trip down the tree, and it says that Satoru Akefu is doing some sort of public lecture at the TGU Hospital. They see this as a perfect opportunity to get a look at his face, but as soon as they agree to do it, the Enemy Stand appears in the back seat of the car. It vanishes almost as soon as Josuke sees it, but they soon realize that even thinking about pursuing the Head Doctor will trigger the Stand's ability, which is to inflict misfortunes on the target.

So they get down from the tree lickety split to get clear of the car before something hits it. But then it starts to rain, and even the raindrops hit them hard enough to cause injury. The only shelter available is...

... inside one of the police cars currently searching for them. The boys agree to surrender themselves, but they refuse to step out of the car, which creates a standoff. For some reason, Rai and Josuke have a whole conversation during this, like the cops are just standing there waiting patiently for them to make up their minds.

Rai's a realist, so he's concluded that pursuing Dr. Akefu is a non-starter. His Stand is too strong, and too sensitive to hostile intent. They can't even come up with a plan to go near him without getting attacked from all directions. He doesn't give up, but he's not exactly coming up with any better ideas, either.

But Josuke's too stubborn to quit. He reminds Rai that his name, "Josuke Higashikata", is just a placeholder he was given until he could find out who he used to be. But now he knows he's a mix of Yoshikage Kira and Josefumi Kujo, and he's essentially a whole new person. The police won't find any records of him anywhere. The only thing that gives his life purpose--"proof of existence" as Josuke puts it-- is his quest to save Holly. And so he refuses to stop pursuing Dr. Akefu, regardless of the danger.

Brave words, but he only makes it a few paces out of the squad car before the rain injures him enough to knock him out. So the cops send Josuke to the hospital in an ambulance, while Rai gets taken to the station. On the way, Rai realizes that Josuke's play was actually brilliant. This way, he gets a free ride to the hospital, where Dr. Akefu will be delivering his lecture. Well, it's not that brilliant. They were all together in the hospital when this chase started, remember? And it went so poorly that they wound up in this mess. At best, Josuke's starting over from square one, only he's in worse shape this time around.

As Yasuho tries to track down Josuke and Rai, she gets a visit from Toru, who continues to try to rekindle their relationship. He tells her about something she said once about power lines that inspired him to invent a way to recharge a cell phone without cables. This technology is widely available in 2024, but I think in 2011 it was still in the early stages. Anyway, Toru tried to take the idea to big tech firms, but they dismissed him as too inexperienced and behind the times. The idea had already been developed, and no one really had any confidence in someone his age.

When he sees Yasuho trying to get a lead on Josuke and Rai, Toru offers to show her a photo he once took of Dr. Akefu at the hospital, and Yasuho recognizes the other person in the picture as Mitsuba Higashikata.

This intensifies Yasuho's belief that the Locacaca Branch is at the Higashikata estate. I'm not quite sure how this proves anything that Yasuho didn't already know, but she asks Toru to drive her to the Higashikata mansion right away. It's almost like Toru wanted her to do this... hmmm...

At the Higashikata place, Mitsuba sees how stressed out Tsurugi has been, and she reads about the death of whatsername and Ojiro Sasame, and she starts to put everything together, but she can't quite make sense of it all. I think Mitsuba has most of the pieces, but she'd need someone like Yasuho or Josuke to connect the dots. To be fair, this is all pretty complex, and she's been absent for large swaths of this story. Also, she keeps seeing Dr. Akefu outside the window, and that makes no sense to her at all, since she doesn't know how he fits into any of this.

Finally, she checks on Tsurugi and finds him in this state, and he says it must be the Rock Disease, although it seems to have advanced much more quickly than it did for his father or grandfather. This visual made no sense to me the first time I read this chapter, but now that it's in color I can tell that Tsurugi's body is turning into some sort of half-human/half origami crane. This is probably due to him losing control of his Stand, since Paper Moon King lets him turn other objects into origami, like cell phones and such, but now it's turning him into an origami crane.

This is what Tsurugi was talking about when he told Yasuho about the bunker's purpose way back in his earliest appearances. It was designed to contain the eldest son whenever he succumbed to the Rock Disease. That didn't make sense to me at the time, but we know it causes mental problems and memory loss, and everyone in the family is a Stand User, so yeah, I could see Tsurugi or his ancestors getting potentially dangerous to be around in this condition.

It's also possible that Tsurugi's rapid onset of the disease may also be partly due to the presence of Dr. Akefu. No one in the mansion is pursuing him, but he seems to be having some sort of effect on them anyway. I look at it like a kind of probability warping. The Stand makes accidents more likely and more dangerous, so it's conceivable that it can make Tsurugi's illness progress more quickly than it normally would. Also, his sudden decline has gathered the entire family together in the hallway, so that may also be part of the enemy's plan.

What about Josuke? Well, his dumb plan doesn't work. He wakes up in the hospital and manages to incapacitate the police watching him, but as soon as he tries to get on with his search for the Head Doctor, the calamities start all over again and he falls flat on his face before he can do anything.

But just as he's about to give up hope, who should come to his aid but.... Dr. Holly Joestar-Kira?! But how? Turns out her coma was only a temporary situation. Parts of her body have turned to rock, but they're constantly moving. When they reach her brain, she goes into a coma, but she's been dealing with this for a while, apparently, which is why she wrote a bunch of notes on her body with a felt-tip pen. I once wondered why we never saw any of this before, but in her previous appearances she was always covered head-to-toe, and she had some sort of head scarf over the side of her face.

Okay, so how to sum all this up? Somehow, Holly managed to come out of her coma just in time to find out Josuke was in the hospital, and she threw on a uniform and a pair of sunglasses so she could go to his aid. She only has two minutes before she goes into another coma, but she plans to take him to the secret room where they store Locacaca. Not the plants this time, but the vials of Locacaca 6251, the new pharamceutical version that Dr. Akefu is announcing in his lecture.

Here he is now, explaining the drug and medical implant which he developed to provide this revolutionary treatment. The whole presentation seemed half-baked to me, since this is just a refined version of the Locacaca fruit that the smugglers were selling, and it's a gamble at best. Why would you go to market with something as unpredictable as this?

Then I realizes that Akefu isn't trying to sell this product here. He's just telling people that it exists, and that it's currently still being studied and submitted for approval. Akefu isn't making a sales pitch here, he's giving this talk to attract investors. They get excited about the drug, pour a bunch of cash into the TGU Hospital, and Akefu gets richer and more powerful without putting a drop of Locacaca on the market. It's brilliant, really.

So how does Holly know about this? Well, Dr. Wu said that Holly once did research on Locacaca herself. He called her efforts a "failure", but I think the implication from her story is that she was actually investigating something fishy at the the hospital. By the time she found out anything substantial, she was already beginning to succumb to the effects of her illness, which appears to have been caused by the Locacaca drug. As her health declined, the Four Rock Human Doctors joined the staff, and she never had a chance to tell her son, Yoshikage Kira, what she had discovered. So Kira had to discover the Locacaca Fruit on his own, and he tried to steal a sample, never realizing that it had been the cause of Holly's illness from the beginning.

Holly even knows about Damo's group smuggling the fruit into Japan, but they didn't know about the Four Doctors, apparently. Akefu was using their smuggling ring as a "clinical trial". He was also, most likely, using Holly as a guinea pig too. Josuke asks if they were dosing her with Locacaca, but she never directly answers. Maybe at this point it's obvious.

Wait, so if Holly's been to the Locacaca room before, why didn't Yasuho find her credentials in the security system for the room? That's because Holly has a special key to get in the room, and it's shaped like a motherfuckin' ax! Part 8 Holly is hot as hell.

Holly gives Josuke a dose of the Locacaca 6251 and explains how it works, though Josuke already knows. As far as I can tell this version is just safer to use, as it only forms rocky growths on the skin instead of inside your brain or your uterus or whatever. But even as she warns Josuke not to pursue the Head Doctor, he still feels compelled to go after him. This causes another calamity, and the drug petrifices his mouth and nose before it can heal him. So Holly pours another dose in a hole in the side of his face. This time it works, since she's the one pouring, and she has no intention of chasing the Head Doctor.

I'm wondering if this might have something to do with Holly's illness. Maybe she had tried to use Locacaca 6251 during her conflict with the Four Doctors, and Afeku's power caused it to backfire on her in a way that led to the illness she has now. I'd almost describe her current state as a perpetual equivalent exchange, with parts of her body turning to stone then flesh, then stone again without ever settling on a single configuration.

The last piece of advice she gives Josuke--whom she keeps addressing as Yoshikage because she doesn't know what's happened to him-- is that he can make the Head Doctor pursue him. It won't activate the Stand if Josuke is the one being pursued. As she goes back into a coma, Josuke thanks her for her help and acknowledges her as his mother.

Okay, one question before we move on: How did Holly just happen to wake up just in time to tell Josuke all of this, and how did she even know he was here?

I'm going to chalk all of that up to her unseen Stand. We know Holly has a Stand because she was aware of other Stands in this story. She asked Yoshikage to use Killer Queen to remove a blood clot from Josefumi Kujo, and then when Yasuho visited her in the hospital, Holly noticed Paisley Park before Yasuho had realized it herself. She also knows a lot about Dr. Afeku's ability, although his power seems like the kind of Stand that even non-Stand users could perceive.

So we know Holly has a Stand, but we never learn anything about it. We never see the Stand, nor find out its abilities. That's frustrating, but it also works out very nicely for explaining Holly's odd behavior throughout JoJolion.

For example, she said certain encouraging words to Yasuho back when she was a child. Yoshikage dismissed them as nonsense, but Yasuho recalled them later and realized they were what led her to pull Josuke up from the soil in Chapter 1.

When Yasuho visited Holly later on, Holly seemed to recognize Yasuho as someone who would be a great help to her son. She was right, but how could she have possibly known that?

Holly also had a profound influence on Josefumi Kujo, which is why Kujo was so devoted to Kira's plan to save her. So maybe she said some inspiring words to Josefumi back when she saved him as a child.

I'm just spitballing here, but it feels like Holly contributes more to the plot than she ought to be able to contribute. It's like she somehow intuits all of these fated connections that don't get realized until she's too sick to get involved herself. Maybe her Stand can see the future, or maybe it just recognizes people who are destined to do good later on. Her illness may have compromised its ability, but it still had enough power to lead her to Josuke in this scene. I think she just has some sort of special insight. This might explain some of the markings she put on her body. Her Stand may have helped her know where to put the tick marks on her face.

So Josuke is healed--aside from some rocky growths on his face-- and he follows Yasuho's advice. He calls a courier and sends him off with a package, and then he sits down in the Locacaca room and waits.

... like a BAMF. Look at this cool dude with his adorable li'l sailor outfit. Yasuho's a lucky woman, I tell you what.

Speaking of Yasuho, she arrives near the Higashikata house and sends Paisley Park inside to scout around for the branch. But when she finds Tsurugi and discovers how sick he is, she also finds...

A TRAP! Jobin was expecting her to try something like this, so he grabs the cell phone she was using to contact Tsurugi and drops it in the toilet! Paisley Park can't jump into any other devices to get out, and as the phone gets soaked, Yasuho begins to drown and disintegrate.

Tsurugi begs his dad to spare Yasuho, but Jobin explains his intention to use the new Locacaca to cure Tsurugi and every other generation of their family. I think he plans to cultivate the fruit in secret, and with the Rock Disease out of the picture and his "might makes right" philosophy, Jobin thinks the family will be unstoppable in the future. All he has to do now is keep Tsurugi alive for a few more hours, and give him the fruit when it's ready for harvest.

The thing is, he says that there won't be any further need for "sacrifices", like the way Norisuke's mother died for Norisuke, and Caato killed that bully to save Jobin. Except, yeah, the new Locaca totally works that way. You can only remove the Rock Disease from Tsurugi by sending it into someone else. I don't know why Jobin doesn't seem to understand this, or maybe he does understand, and he's just become so cool with murder that he doesn't see it as a problem anymore.

Mitsuba sees Paisley Park in the toilet, begging for help, and Mitsuba is moved at first, because she still owes Yasuho for saving her from Dr. Wu. But her loyalty to Jobin and her fear of everything going on is stronger, so she shuts the toilet lid, apparently consigning Yasuho to her fate. I'm not sure I understand why Yasuho must die for Jobin's plan to work. Maybe he's just that paranoid about Josuke showing up to screw him over, but right now he doesn't even know where Josuke is.

So Yasuho's stuck out in the yard, drowning. Then she sees the Head Doctor nearby, and the calamity hits her and lops off her arm. This sucks.

Well, it's still better than riding around in Joshuu's pants.

As for Mitsuba, well... I guess it comes down to her being too scared for her family to do the right thing. She tries to use her Stand to force Paisley Park down the drain, but then something goes wrong and her Stand misfires. She recognizes the calamity from before, when she saw the Head Doctor outside, and I think she believed that Jobin's "Kill Yasuho" plan was supposed to resolve that, but no. Jobin doesn't know jack shit about the Head Doctor.

Instead, her force beam shoots the wrong way and blasts a hole in the wall that reveals the New Locacaca fruit that Jobin had been hiding. And it just so happens that the whole family is there to see it. Oops.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojolion #jo2uke higashikata #yasuho hirose #rai mamezuku #holly joestar kira #jobin higashikata #tooru #mitsuba higashikata #tsurugi higashikata #joshuu higashikata #hato higashikata #daiya higashikata

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