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sparklyjojos · 6 years

Note

So the pieces in the book that relate back to Jorge Joestar, now that you know the context, what's the real meaning behind those exchanges?

Let me present to you: a long meta post (and I do mean LONG) in which I analyse Jorge Joestar chapter by chapter, pick quotes that relate back to Tsukumojuku and/or hint at the Beyonds’ True Nature, and unleash massive commentary as well as some theories.

[NOTE FROM FUTURE ME: THIS POST IS PRETTY OUTDATED AND SHOULDN’T BE TAKEN AS VERY ACCURATE. It also strongly depends on the particular wild guess theory linking Beyond with the narrator of another book rather than just Maijo. ]

[BIG SPOILERS for Jorge Joestar and Tsukumojuku under the read more; seriously, if you care about having spoilers for Tsukumojuku, either read the book first or head to my masterpost here for English recaps]

Chapter 1

“But you understand the concept of a detective? (…) A fictional device, a role destined to always arrive at the truth in the end. (…) That’s me.”

Not even a minute into his first talk with Jorge and Tsukumojuku already says he’s a fictional plot device. Which… yeah, he is.

[Tsukumojuku swishing curtains] “A new world lies before us!” he announced. “Facts previously hidden from view! My solution was not complete! I was wrong! The case! Is not! Done!”

Why would he say that “this is (here is) a new world” (ここに新しい世界がある!)? Because it is. For him, this is a new world, and I’m not sure if by all this talk about how “the case” is still continuing he doesn’t also mean that the narrative’s existence is continuing. (ie. ‘Y’know, with the way things ended in the previous book I thought this world was going to implode, and yet it didn’t and here I am’)

[Explaining why he doesn’t mind if he gets shocked with hamon] “Experience is everything.” [何事も経験だからな, something like “[in order to] experience everything”]

I may be oversensitive to the word “experience” after Tsukumojuku (just like I’m oversensitive to whenever he uses the word “honestly” because it has Shoujiki’s name in it, lol), but it does remind me a lot about the Original achieving “growth” because of “experience”.

“I’ve been playing the role of the detective all this time, and I know exactly how it feels. Something like this cannot occur without the arbitrary will of a ‘god’. I have something watching over me, something like a god, yet not God. (…) Say that I’m Sherlock Holmes. Then I’m certain that I have something outside of this world serving as my Arthur Conan Doyle.”

A very apt comparison there, as the Beyonds really have been ‘writing’ him. He says he’s been “playing the role” of the detective, because once again, he’s a character in a story, and on some level he’s aware of that.

“My Beyond has abandoned me. I’m still me, but my role in this world is no longer guaranteed by Beyond. Beyond has chosen a new protagonist for this world… for this story. You, Jorge Joestar. This is the last thing I’m certain of.”

Read: “the triplets switched fandoms and you’re their new shiny self-insert OC, and I got degraded to NPC status, so to speak”.

This is also why he doesn’t have the supernatural beauty anymore: it was something he only had because of the triplets overcompensating for their own poor self-image. Since Tsukumojuku is not a self-insert anymore, maybe that trait doesn’t have to be there? Or is that because the triplets are in a better mental place now and don’t have to overcompensate? (God I hope so.)

“Sure, I had my rough patches, and things happened that were sad, or painful.”

“Rough patches” is an understatement of the year, considering what things he went through in Tsukumojuku.

“I know that much, even at eleven. And because I’m eleven, I’m a little jealous that you’ve stolen my position. I’m just a kid, after all.”

That… doesn’t really sound like something an 11-year-old would say, but like something someone (a character) with far more life experience would say trying to be seen as an 11-year-old. (I’m not saying that he’s that adult-in-kid’s-body trope, he’s not, it’s just that the fictional concept of Tsukumojuku is older and.. god, I don’t even know how to explain my train of thought here. It’s very meta.)

“I think you’ll play the character of Jorge Joestar in a story called Jorge Joestar.”

…yeah. Yeah, he will.

”[Tsukumojuku] was amazing. He should have been the main character!“

He was :’)

Chapter 2

[wacky theory mode on] I said that before, but “Jouji” is an alternative name for a repetition mark, aka the thing that repeats the previous kanji without being the same kanji. Combined with the fact that neither Jorge nor the Katos recognize Tsukumojuku or even the name ‘Tsukumojuku’, and Jorge was adopted by a single father from Nishi Akatsuki and grew up to be a detective, there’s an interesting theory to be had here about whether we could count Jorge as a would-be-Tsukumojuku of this world. …though of course Jorge is the self-insert / para-me of one of the Beyonds, so you could argue he’s the Tsukumojuku equivalent for that reason already. [wacky theory mode off]

The farmhouse on fire belonged to the Kato family of Nishi Akatsuki. Kato Serika’s parents had died recently, and she’d been in town to deal with their empty house.(…) I found her standing outside with her husband Satoshi and their four-year-old son Seshiru, staring blankly at the fire.

Serika and Seshiru are here, for some reason as a mother and a child, and also without that whole matricide business. Jorge uses their proper kanji towards them both. Serika being a happy wife and mother is quite expected, since in Tsukumojuku she ultimately apologized to him and he removed the curse. (I guess the Beyonds forgave at least the fictional version of her on some level and “let” her have a normal life? Or this is an idealized, ‘innocent’ Serika – she even uses the Fukui dialect, which may I remind you she never used in Tsukumojuku and even abused it out of Tsukumojuku because hearing it pissed her off so much. …note that even in this book Tsukumojuku still doesn’t use the dialect; guess it’s kinda ingrained in his character now, even if in Jorge Joestar’s 1st Universe he was brought up in presumably different circumstances.)

I have no idea why Seshiru’s a four-year-old. Maybe because while the Beyonds can imagine a happy adult Serika easily, the only possible image of an innocent / happy Seshiru they can think of is back when he was a small child? Or did the actual Seshiru, as in Serika’s twin, actually exist in the 37th Universe but died, and the kid was named after him? Who knows.

The wormhole tornado fucking up the Kato house can be seen as a very delayed fulfillment of Tsukumojuku’s wish to destroy it back in the Seventh Story.

I looked up, and the clouds covering the sky were swirling. I saw something shaped like a funnel retreating back into the sky. It was dark, and hard to make out, but… had that been a tornado?

Wormhole tornadoes make a comeback, and just like in Tsukumojuku, they like to show up near the Kato residence and throw people into the previous story– pardon, the previous universe. Since the 37 Universes loop around, Tsukumojuku got thrown back from the 1st to the 37th one. (So he didn’t actually travel to the future, but to the past.)

“There will be no next time,” Tsukumojuku said. “I’ll never call myself a detective again. Not now I’ve met you.(…) You are the Jorge Joestar who will steal my title.”

Read: “I’m not the main character anymore, since you stole my spotlight and that’s why this book’s title is Jorge Joestar instead of Tsukumojuku”

“Why did Javier spend so much time sleeping? ‘When I slept, I was trapped in a locked room with my mother.’ (…) What caused such anger, and self-loathing? (…) What was his mother doing in that room that would lead to such hatred? (…) Sleeping and escaping into dreams were ways of escaping his flesh while he was in that locked room with her. Whatever was happening to his flesh was so horrific he had to escape it. (…) It’s nothing but a hypothesis, but I’ve begun to believe that continual, repetitive suffering can lead to the development of unusual powers that help the sufferer escape.”

This quote applies so well to what the Beyonds went through that it has to be intentional: abused by their mother (and later some other people), they withdrew into daydreaming as a defense mechanism. Or, to use a term from Jorge Joestar, they developed a Wound, and that Wound just happened to be the entire ‘reality’ of of Tsukumojuku and Jorge Joestar. The term “continual suffering” was already mentioned in Tsukumojuku, when describing how Ms. Suzuki (=the fictional version of the triplets’ mother) repeatedly burned his throat (=the fictional ‘mild’ version of what was actually her trying to kill them), and he slowly got used to that. This fact may also be reflected in the story of Antonio Torres slowly getting accustomed to getting his skin peeled off by his own mother. (You may notice there’s a lot of horribly abusive moms in Jorge Joestar. And a lot absent or never-really-talked-about paternal figures, even if you’d expect them to play a bigger role in the plot, like Speedwagon or Straits. Relating to the triplets’ own relationships with their parents?)

Tsukumojuku mentioning earlier in the chapter that Javier Cortez was a high schooler and wanted to become a mystery novelist may also apply to the triplets, as they’re assumedly teenagers (in their late teens by now, maybe?) and love mystery novels. Especially since Tsukumojuku later says that “Beyond is writing a mystery novel in which you are the detective.” Though it’s important to note that Javier Cortez never actually wrote anything; instead of pouring his creativity on paper, he used all of it to perfect the dreams and his locked room ideas… kinda like the triplets.

The first two chapters are painful to read in hindsight. The Beyonds invent two different characters who are sons physically abused by their mothers, and both of them end up killing people and later being killed. A symbol of how the triplets, consciously or not, perceive their possible life outcomes?

Maybe researching [the Katos’] family tree would get me somewhere.

This is a hint, maybe?

My eyes met Tsukumojuku’s. His eyes looked very sad. Did we have our own Javier Cortez?

YES. YES, YOU DO. I love how this paragraph is constructed. If you don’t know Tsukumojuku, you’ll be like, okay, Jorge is clearly thinking about Javier Cortez here in context of that 15-puzzle serial killer. But if you do know Tsukumojuku, this is a clever connection of Tsukumojuku ( and the Beyonds) to what happened to Javier Cortez.

Chapter 3

Nothing really important. The term Wound (as in, the word 傷 put in quotation marks) did appear in Tsukumojuku, in the Third Story, but it was only describing a mental state rather than a Stand-like superpower.

Chapter 4

”(…) Tsukumojuku must have headed [to Morioh] shortly after I left him at the hospital. Either he’d been pretending not to be interested or he’d found some reason to care after I left.“

While Jorge Joestar doesn’t give a possible reason why he went to Morioh, we can make guesses. Maybe he learned that the Arrow Cross House was there, and for some reason felt like he should head there. (Back in Tsukumojuku, the Second One mentioned that maybe because of destiny they’d have to go to the Cross House eventually, so…?)

[wild theory mode on] Or, let’s assume that while he still was in Nishi Akatsuki, Tsukumojuku really did talk with the Katos like he mentioned he wanted to – this would also explain how he got the money and knowledge needed to make the train trip to Morioh (that’s assuming they were still friendly after he destroyed their house, of course). Maybe he heard from them that this universe’s Daibakusho Curry (ie. Kato Tsutomu, his dear younger brother in Tsukumojuku) was currently in Morioh, and wanted to get to him fast? Maybe he somehow knew that the Arrow Cross House is in Morioh, and that in combination with Daibakusho Curry hanging around spurred him into action, even though he probably wouldn’t even know why he felt so compelled to hurry there (because he’s already been too late to the Cross House once and almost lost Tsutomu… though he probably doesn’t remember that.) [/wild theory mode off]

His throat had been slit so deep that only a single layer of skin kept his head attached.

If this was Tsukumojuku, he’d just stand up and continue as always with his head magically okay, since being the self-insert gave him functional immortality. However, this Tsukumojuku, just like the character of Seiryoin in the Fifth Story, has “lost the status of God of this world” (is now just an NPC) – and so can be murdered for good.

I got off the train at Morioh Station shortly after 1 PM, and looked over the map of the town posted just outside the station gates. Deja vu. Had I been here before?I was sure I hadn’t.

Later in the book, this deja vu is explained with the fact that the land Morioh is located on actually has the long-lost land of England underneath it, and Jorge has seen the shape of England on Tsukumojuku’s map. Which I guess makes sense… but in my wacky theory loving heart, this is because once he looked at the map of the town, and at his destination = Arrow Cross, he felt a weird sense of deja vu when seeing a cross-shaped house on a hill. (Tapping into Tsukumojuku’s memories? Or the Beyond’s memories, in a way?)

“It appeared five years ago, without any of the neighbors noticing the construction. Despite the size of it. For three years before that a different house stood here (…) Now, the house that stood here before this one was a very simple square building. (…) At any rate, that square house – the neighbours called it the Cube House – supposedly was moved here from a town called Nishi Akatsuki, in Fukui. How that rumor got around without anyone having any idea who owned the house, nobody knows.”

In Tsukumojuku, the Cross House was in Nishi Akatsuki. Nobody has noticed its construction, it could be moved to some extent just like Arrow Cross, and it happened to have 24 rooms, which is the number of rooms Arrow Cross has if you don’t count the halls or the Cube House in the middle. (That could also mean that you can interpret the ‘Heavenly Throne’ to be… Rohan’s chair in his study. Because he’s an artist, therefore a ‘God’. lol)

It’d be an interesting theory to say that the Cross House kinda… teleported on top of the Cube House and merged with it, but later in the book the not-Cube-House parts of Arrow Cross are said to be a natural result of Reimi getting stabbed with the four arrows, so I guess the theory fails here. (Still a cool reference, though.)

Whatever. I was more concerned with what the fact that Tsukumojuku had been murdered here, in a house that had been transported from Nishi Akatsuki, actually meant.

*looks at Tsukumojuku with the titular character having to at one point attempt to solve a case of (what seemed to be) another ‘Tsukumojuku’s’ murder in the Cross House* *looks again at Jorge’s deja vu* Hm. I wonder

Nekoneko had been found in town, near a strange-shaped stone called Angelo Rock, surrounded by stuffed dogs, cats, and pheasants.

…I feel a certain sense of satisfaction knowing that her corpse was deliberately put next to another child predator.

“There’s an important, inflexible law that defines the world. (…) Everything has meaning. Nothing is out of place.”

“Hmph. That’s only true in mystery novels.”

“But I’m a detective. The moment I get involved, the rules of the world shift to my genre.”

“(…) So this is a mystery novel, then? Hmm.”

(…) “If everything has meaning, then my coming here means something, Rohan,” I said. “I have a role to play here – that much is certain.”

Yes, Rohan this is a mystery novel. Which is why Jorge feels confident (even if he doesn’t quite know why) in repeating throughout the book that “everything has meaning”, which in Tsukumojuku was a phrase connected to the world being fictional and imagined by the Beyonds. To quote Tsukumojuku: “Everything has meaning. Everything has meaning, because this is a story. Things like these don’t happen in reality.” Add to that Jorge’s will to fulfill his role as a character.

When I used Heaven’s Door to read your book, all your adventures as a detective in Nishi Akatsuki were listed under the heading: Forgery. (…) Behind your left ear, I found the Real account. It was very short. ‘Born in 1889 in the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. Became a pilot in the English air force, and fought in WWI. Murdered in 1920 by an air force general.’ That’s all it said.“

The word used for “forgery” is 偽書, which also means “a False Document”, a literary technique where the author (=Beyond in this case) is putting a seemingly real document into a story to make it seem more authentic. To quote wikipedia, “The goal of a false document is to fool an audience into thinking that what is being presented is actually a fact.” That’s what Jorge’s memories are: something inserted into the book to make him more “real”; something to flesh out the backstory. Something his Beyond invented.

The “real” account isn’t accurately describing ENG Jorge – it’s waaay too short for that – but what it does is describe the few facts we learn about George II in the JJBA manga – because that’s what’s ultimately “real”; that’s the information that exists about his life in the real world of the triplets. Jorge is just a bunch of AU changes and headcanons built on top of it.

Chapter 5

This, I thought, was why he’d been so fixated on Jonathan. Jonathan was stuffed full where Dio was empty; he’d grown up to be a man who made genuine friends he could honestly share his honest emotions with, a man who threw himself body and soul into everything he did. (…) how could Dio not compare himself to Jonathan? The frustration this comparison caused him was perhaps the one genuine emotion he ever felt. And because he was unused to such emotion, he grew confused, and was driven to kill Jonathan and steal his body.

Remember this for later. Will be very important in the last chapter.

Chapter 6

“We all have our limits. Right? Or is my faith in limits betraying my own mediocrity? (…)”

(…) As an artist, I could see why mediocrity would be Rohan’s greatest fear, and why he’d want to deny that humans have limits.

This reminded me of when in Tsukumojuku we had the musings about how humanity hates to be “limited” and tries to rise above mediocrity at all cost. The Japanese version of Jorge puts “limit” (限界) and “humans being limited” (人間に限界がある) in quotation marks.

“They drew these pictures while they were on fire? (…) Beautiful. (…) What? That’s what I thought,” [Rohan] protested, but that’s not what my look meant. I’d felt the same thing. (…) “They were trying to get it right. But none of the drawings did him justice, so they had to try again. (…) I’m an artist, I can tell. I know what it feels like to fill every available white space, desperately trying to capture the image in your head. It was beauty they were after, beauty they sought. (…) each of them sought the same beauty! In a sense, this is a miracle! A terrifying one, but no less impressive!”

(…) “What happened here must have been some sort of mass hysteria. Anxious people, gathered in a room, the door locked…”

Not sure if this one’s intentional, but it may in a way symbolize the Beyonds desperately making their art (the imaginary worlds) while “burning in a locked room” (being kept under lock and key and abused), making newer and newer Stories to try and ‘get it right’ again since their plots tended to always go too far after a point. In a way, it really “was beauty they were after, beauty they sought”.

BTW, I believe the Mothman is something taken not even from Tsukumojuku, but straight from the JDC series (non-canon, but still): in Detective Ritual, a certain Rorschach blot-like image would cause people who see it to either commit suicide in a locked room or kill others, depending on their personality. When the Detective God Tsukumo Juku came in contact with that image… well, let’s just say he sadly wasn’t an exception to the rule.

“I thought my hunch had come true,” I said, still unsure why I’d had the hunch to begin with. Was it detective sense speaking? But it really did seem to be just some vague, baseless anxiety. If only I had some context to tie it to… anything like that.

This is referring to Jorge’s earlier sense of unease and dread, which made him feel like if he left the Arrow Cross alone, something terrible would happen. …I sure wonder why he got that hunch, huh.

Chapter 7

“And… not that I’ve ever tried to write one, but characters in a novel don’t always do what the author intends.”

Foreshadowing!

“I exist now in eternity, in the final frontier,” Tsukumojuku said. “But I expect I won’t be there forever. There must be some meaning for me to have come here. Like I always said. Everything has meaning.”

SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER Once again, the phrase “everything has meaning” shows up, and is apparently something Tsukumojuku says a lot.

Look carefully, and think. Tsukumojuku has said these word to me countless times. Look carefully… so I did.

Probably a reference to how Tsukumojuku was told to look carefully and think a whole lot in his book, which eventually helped him realize what was going on.

“I’ve been transported to a place called the Arrow Cross House, and I’ve gotten caught up in another case.”

He does use the passive verb here (”I’ve been brought”), and probably means he was brought there by the will of the Beyond (ie. this had to happen in order for the plot to go forward).

“Your Beyond is making it happen. I’m sure this isn’t a task just anyone could accomplish. For a Miracle like this to occur, you need the Name of God. ‘God’ is words. Words are names.”

こういうをおこすにわ, が必要だ. . 言葉とは名前だからね.

“For a ‘miracle’ like this to occur, the ‘name of God’ is needed. ‘God is a word.’ The word is a name.”

And that name, as we may remember from the Sixth Story, is 九十九十九 , ‘Tsukumojuku’. A name that in many ways symbolizes the biblical God, but also the Beyonds themselves, the meaning behind ‘three connected people/Gods’ being that they’re conjoined triplets.

In Tsukumojuku, the term ‘miracle’ was mentioned briefly when he was reviving Yuuki. Later on, he wondered whether or not he actually decided about it. Or was he nothing more than yet another prop to bring about the ‘miracle’, and there was actually some other God that played with him? (That would be Maijo Otaro, so, yeah.)

Back to the quote, what Tsukumojuku is saying here is basically, “Sure, I can plot device you across Europe in seconds, as the triplet writing you wants you to get there but probably doesn’t want to bother with setting it up more.”

“If you flip the kanji for 9, 九, you get the astrological symbol for Jupiter, ♃, Jupiter being the Roman name for the Greek god Zeus. The God of Gods. The kanji for ten, 十, is a cross; so my name has three all-powerful gods linked together by two crosses. If God is the Trinity, then God can be split into three. I am in the Arrow Cross House, I am here, and I am trying to connect to a third me.“

You know, I can’t believe that after however many word plays about his name there were in Tsukumojuku, Maijo still had strength to do even more of them. And all fit the Beyonds.

Chapter 8

“Ha ha ha, I guess my life belongs entirely to Jorge Joestar. To both Jorges: Don’t worry about it. In the words of Iason Sobra Quarto: ‘Life is an explosion.’ My life is exploding as we speak. Ha ha! See you again.” And with that, he vanished.

One, I have no damn clue who Iason Sobra Quarto is, and googling him (or イアソンソブラクアルト) or the phrase itself doesn’t help.

Two: Tsukumojuku spontaneously vanishing reminds me of the Original doing that in the Seventh Story, where he was somehow able to jump into Sixth (2), which I don’t think was ever explained, though the Second One pointed out how weird that was.

Either way, I see two possibilities for what is happening with Tsukumojuku here:

1) Tsukumojuku is still perfectly alive, and vanished because he let the Cube House fling him somewhere else in time (and eventually he went to get murdered to avoid a time paradox) – this is probably the intended reading here, although I’m not sure if you can time travel from the Study too, or only the deeper Cube House? (Now I remember the Original was standing just next to the Cross House when he vanished, so is there like… a weird teleportation field around it or… you know what, I give up on this one.)

2) Tsukumojuku’s already dead and this is his soul doing all the time travelling. The Deep Lore does say that people continue living past death up to the total of 120 years, and Ryouko’s soul in Tsukumojuku was perfectly visible and had some effect on the world, like audible footsteps. So it’s probable.

[wacky theory mode on] If you remember, in Tsukumojuku the Third One only started existing because the Original and the Second One jumped back in time through the wormhole tornado (or rather, the Second One jumped and Original just vanished). So if Tsukumojuku here got back in time from 1st to 37th Universe, would that mean that the 37th Universe would start its existence with a newly created Tsukumojuku running around and being a narrator? And considering that JPN Jorge is the narrator… although JPN Jorge may as well exist because ENG Jorge is the narrator of the 1st Universe, so the 37th would have another ‘Jorge’ narrating. Even if it wasn’t ENG Jorge but Tsukumojuku who jumped back in time… GOD this is confusing. [wacky theory mode off]

“Do humans come back to life sometimes?” she asked.

Depends. Is their name Yuuki?

I laughed, buoyed by the sudden possibility that Tsukumojuku might be alive. (…) “I think some people just don’t die that easily.”

*looks at Tsukumojuku surviving things he really shouldn’t in his book* Yep.

They were summoning me by name? Daibakusho Curry and Runbaba 12 were both from Nishi Akatsuki, too!

With Kato Tsutomu aka Daibakusho Curry arriving, we now have all four Kato kids showing up in Jorge Joestar at some point.

“Hey there.” “‘Sup” “You still alive?” “Eh heh heh.” “Didn’t think we’d have a reunion here.”

This dialogue is so vague we don’t know who says what. But I swear to god, if this is Daibakusho Curry saying “didn’t think we’d have a reunion here”… from a meta standpoint this breaks my heart, because aw, buddy, nice to see you too!

[wacky theory mode on] Also, hey, remember when pretty much the last thing Tsukumojuku thought about in his book was that he could go and help Tsutomu with detectiving, and wondered what new name he should choose to go under?… well, JPN Jorge technically does help in the same giant case that Tsutomu gets roped into by Passione, so… yeah. [wacky theory mode off]

I kept the pebble, Daibakusho Curry took the rubber ball, and Runbaba 12 the orphaned shoe.

I still think this is a morbid brick joke on how Daibakusho Curry seemed to die in Tsukumojuku, with that iron ball smashing him, and with a volleyball and a basketball placed next to the corpse.

I looked at Narancia and saw someone standing next to him. It was Tsukumojuku.

(…) He grinned at me. “Hey! I am your instrument. A person needs your help. I’ll take you to them.”

Tsukumojuku once again refers to himself as a tool or (plot) device. (Also, if Daibakusho Curry remembers anything from Tsukumojuku, I imagine he’s internally screaming right about now.)

Chapter 9

I wanted to get back to my cell. The tiny cell at the very back.Where Lisa Lisa was.(…) I didn’t really want to leave. With Lisa Lisa being nice enough to bring me food and snacks and clean the place and teaching me things this place was paradise. (…) Since Lisa Lisa had been with me almost since the moment I was arrested I had escaped all anxiety and fear.(…)“You’ll be in prison for a long, long time, Jorge.”But then I could live in prison with Lisa Lisa. That was my first thought, but a moment later I realized how pathetic that was, and felt dizzy. (…) it’s not like I wanted that to happen but if it did it wouldn’t be that bad, and knowing that made me willing to accept it. That’s how fucked up my mind was. (…) As time passed trapped in that tiny world I was sure I would convince myself it wasn’t that bad.

*points at this* *points at Tsukumojuku and the Beyonds being fine with trapping themselves in ‘a tiny world’ as long as they had their imaginary beloved* *coughs*

Chapter 10

What did [Tsukumojuku] mean, he was my instrument? He seemed as if he knew everything, understood everything, but threw me off the deep end without even attempting to explain.

lol get used to it, that’s how reading Tsukumojuku feels like

“Do you know how to get to Heaven?” Pucci asked. (…)

“Isn’t… that what you’re supposed to tell me, Father?” (…)

“It is. You’re a good detective. You always find the right answer. But not where it concerns the one who brought you here. The one who vanished soon after. You don’t understand what Tsukumojuku Kato said. Yet. (…) Detectives are a wonderful thing. Everything has meaning, huh? (…) God is everywhere. (…) God is the word. The word has meaning. Thus, everything in this world has meaning. I see! You coming here, too, has meaning.”

If you’ve been paying attention, you may notice that the “god is the word” stuff was indeed said by Tsukumojuku… but to ENG Jorge. JPN Jorge should NOT have this in his memory, unless he a) somehow has his memory mingling with ENG Jorge’s (???), or the more intriguing option [wacky theory mode on] b) what Pucci is actually reading are remnants of the last few parts of Tsukumojuku, where similar musings are made (God is the word, word =meaning, everything has meaning etc.). According to the Second One memories do stay in their bodies between worlds, though they don’t seem to be readily accessible by the person holding them, or can randomly surface like when Tsukumojuku was remembering the women from the previous Stories. [wacky theory mode off]

Whether Pucci fully Knows about the Beyond or not, he implies he knows more than Jorge, and that it may have something to do with “going to Heaven”.

Funnier chuckled. “Pucci said he’s going to talk, sure that he alone will find the ‘Way to Heaven’. Rather selfish for a servant of God, wouldn’t you say? Will the staircase to Heaven really open for one so impetuous?”

If Tsukumojuku taught me anything is that the “stairway to Heaven” is that worhmole tornado, so yeah, he could probably jump into one.

“This Way to Heaven you speak of? You know nothing, That is why you cannot talk to Cars. (…) I’ve been negotiating with Cars for the last eleven years.”

Implication that Funnier knows way more than Pucci does, and either shared this knowledge with Kars, or Kars knew it before.

“Jorge Joestar, I do apologize, but that ship will explode in two minutes. If you really are brought here here by fate or destiny, then I’m sure you’ll find a way to survive that explosion!”

Funnier seems really adamant that Jorge will survive it. Later we’ll see that he and the Funnies may understand what’s going on, so is he so sure about it because he knows about Jorge’s functional immortality?

[No noticeable quotes later in the chapter, although Jorge’s explanation about the meteors burning up in the atmosphere seems really similar to Tsukumojuku’s from the Second Story.]

Chapter 11 - Nothing particularly interesting.

Chapter 12

“Humans are a fascinating species. They seem like they are constantly striving to become something else, but they resist actual change. Most likely they simply enjoy imagining things.”

Just like the triplets, who prefer to imagine things instead of doing them in reality.

“And looking back, I was baffled by how I had ever lived without doubt, without dissatisfaction. We could never set foot in the light of the sun, could never know the world above during the day. We were trapped in the world underground. I couldn’t bear it any longer.”

It’s actually surprising how much of Kars’s monologues you can just superimpose on the triplets. Not all of it, though.

It looked something like Pucci’s White Snake, but it was bigger, and had three heads and six arms like a statue of Ashura.

I don’t know about this six arms thing, but according to the illustrations Kars’s Stands tend to have three heads joined in the back, which is exactly how the triplets’ conjoinment was described back in Tsukumojuku. I’m not sure why it’d be Kars who has those Stands, though.

“Eh? I’m adopted. Not actually related to Joseph at all.” And it wasn’t this mysterious vampire who put me on the H.G. Wells, but Tsukumojuku. When I said so, Cars’ White Snake appeared in front of me, fist clenched.

This is a bit vague, but it’s possible that Kars for some reason reacted only after hearing about Tsukumojuku?

Cars didn’t respond at all (…) [After a paragraph] I managed to recover and see Cars enjoying my memories. He was just staring at empty space, but I think he was enjoying my colorful life.

Or he was just shocked seeing your memories, which apparently have bits that shouldn’t be there.

“You can still think like that even without your memory disc? This isn’t something learned through experience, but a creation of your innate intelligence? I see why they call you the ‘deduction machine.’”(…) that was an insult critics of the detective novel genre used to dismiss the presence of the detective character…

Yes, Jorge. It’s a term used towards fictional detectives. That’s exactly why it can be used towards you. As for why Jorge can think alright without his disc, well, of course he can; his knowledge/reasoning abilities weren’t something he ever learned; they were encoded into his character when he was created, so in a way, they’re something ‘innate’.

“But my experience also tells me that you’ve already died a number of times.”

Jorge had died a number of times before. Although Kars says that Jorge may have only felt like he was dying, this is still interesting.

“You’re right, Cars,” I said. “I remember who I am.”Cars was watching me intently.“I think deeper and broader than anyone else around.”“That’s right,” Cars said. “But do you really understand the true nature of what Tsukumojuku called the Beyond?”

Two implications here: 1) Kars does know what the true nature of the Beyond is, either because the Funnier told him or/and from Jorge’s memories, and 2) there is a connection between “who Jorge is” and “the true nature of the Beyond”, and Kars knows that.

I nodded. “You’re cool with that?”Cars smiled. “I have no desire to be the leading man.”

He says 主役, as in, “a leading role” or “a leading actor”. Yep, he Knows, alright.

When I’d stepped off the train in Morioh, and looked at the map of the town it had seemed familiar. Just before we hit, I’d seen it from the sky, and remembered that feeling.Had I been here before?

Again, while Jorge immediately does explain that it’s probably because the moving island’s shape looks somewhat like England that he saw on Tsukumojuku’s map, I like the theory that he just vaguely remembers a cross-shaped building from somewhere. Which would fit here, as they crashed into Arrow Cross House, so that would be what he saw from the sky right before they hit it.

[reaching mode on] Bonus points for this scene bearing resemblance to one of the biblical mitate from Tsukumojuku (on purpose or not??) : the Star / a meteor falling (the ship) would hit the earth, there would be a bottomless abyss where it hit (the Cube House’s wormhole), and from the abyss would come locust-like monsters tormenting humanity (Antonios???). This has been your daily dose of mitate hunt. [reaching mode off]

Chapter 13

“Loving you is a foundation of my personality!”

Well, Lisa Lisa, you’re… not wrong. That’s what you were created for: to love the Beyond Jorge.

“Then I guess you won’t die. (…) That god [Beyond] may not have made up its mind, either. But if you wish to go on living, you must follow that god.”

Read: ‘your author isn’t sure whether he wants to off you or not, so you better give him a reason to care about you.’ Also see that Darlington quote about characters not doing what the writer tells them to.

What did believing in Beyond entail?It meant there was an author writing a story with me as the main character.

YEP.

Then come on and save me! I thought, but I know there was a reason why they couldn’t. (…) Stories had plots, they had narrative flow, and you couldn’t have things that didn’t make sense or just showed up out of the blue.I had to create the flow.

And he proceeds to create the flow by looking for a wordplay involving Tsukumojuku’s name. Basically, he’s doing what Tsukumojuku used to do in his own novel: wordplay so hard that your author says ‘huh, I’ve never thought of that before, but that’s a really good reason why the plot should go x instead! I can’t believe I accidentally wrote so much foreshadowing into this!’ (Non-writers, I can assure you that it happens a lot when writing.)

The shape of the kanji was a metaphorical symbol. In Japanese, you could manipulate that meaning to ‘convey’ that one thing was another. Force open a path, and allow meaning to pass down it.

He uses the word 見立て (mitate) as ‘convey’ here. The narrativium seems to still work like it did in Tsukumojuku: if you bang two concepts against each other hard enough, you’ll always find a common point, and so you can force them to seem relevant to each other, which in turn will influence the plot.

So he’d come back once more. Here.

“That’s right.”

Aaand Tsukumojuku can pretty much read his mind now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he can see the narrative fabric itself or something. Shit’s weird, man.

“At last you decided to believe in Beyond, Jorge,” Tsukumojuku said. “It took you getting this bloody? You sure are a troublesome protagonist.”

Says someone who only resumed believing ‘in his own god’ in the Fourth Story when he was dying from injuries. Jorge is outright called a protagonist, again.

“You’ve got another role to play. But don’t worry, it’s a role your Beyond prepared for you. Although that doesn’t guarantee it’ll lead to a happy ending.”

read: ‘from what I know, and trust me I know, the Beyond sure likes grimdark fanfiction and torturing the protagonist in dark basements so uhhhh good luck?’

“The world to come is in your hands!”

後の世界はよろしく頼む. I believe this can be translated as, ‘I leave the next world / the world after this entirely to you” or “as for the next world / the world after this, I’m counting on you.” I’m reminded of how he said this was a new world in chapter 1.

Chapter 14

“Oh, yeah!” Narancia said. “You saved our asses! Thanks, dude! But why did you save us?”

Because Kars Knows about the Beyonds, so he understands that, to paraphrase the Second One, there’s no telling what could happen to this world if its narrator (Jorge) died.

“Why are you looking for that [Desolation Row]?”

Why were we? I wans’t sure, maybe just the narrative flow lead us to it? (…) We were finding Pucci’s metaphors one after another, and using them to guide us. (…)

We didn’t really need a girl to protect us, I thought, but then rethought it; perhaps this was another important narrative being introduced.

(…) Someone else came up on the bridge behind me, askind what was up, and of course it was Enrico Pucci, and I figured his religious fervor has sniffed it out. But there was no way to stop this flow now, and it would likely take us to whatever resolution lay in store.

Jorge is really aware of the narativium. (I like this last paragraph, it’s like ‘oh no no no I didn’t mean to walk into a main quest checkpoint yet fuck’).

[After this Pucci explains what the fig tart has to do with the Bible and Jorge is left trying to desperately trying to come up with some sort of an answer to Pucci’s bullshit. Which is funny because Tsukumojuku hinged on finding exactly this sort of forced biblical references.]

Thinking about it, how much free will had Tsukumojuku had?

I don’t think you want to open this can of worms, Jorge.

“"Buccellati,” I said. “I can’t move forward if I don’t solve the mystery. That’s the nature of a detective.”

“…oh,” he said. (…) “In that case, go ahead.”

It may seem surprising that Bruno allows Jorge to investigate the Kira & Diavolo murder so willingly after this line, but since it’s implied that Daibakusho Curry and Runbaba 12 has been working with Passione for the last few hours, I assume Bruno already had his head talked off about the Great Detectives’ Duty™ and is like “fine, fine, oh my god, do whatever”

[Funny V.:] “There is also a church, named for that which we serve.”[Pucci:] “Trinity Church.”.

The Trinity = the Beyonds. Also, in Japanese Funny says here: その名前は奥義を示している. “The name [of this church] indicates a mystery (?) / hidden purpose (?) / some esoteric secret (?).” 奥義 can also mean “arcana” (of a field of knowledge) or deep obligation/connection (?). I assume he means that the name of the church shows that there’s a Trinity-related secret it harbors, ie. the Holy Corpse in the basement. I’m not sure where the ‘that which we serve’ part in the translation came from (unless in the Japanese text there’s a set phrase I don’t recognize? That may be a thing too)

Chapter 15

“I understand you spent time in the company of a detective,” Giovanna said. “I hear your time together left you with a new type of power called… a Beyond?” (…)

How did he know that?

“Oh, that was me, too,” the Japanese man [Rohan] said, waving. “(…) Seems like you handled that mess with the air force commander well.”

I’m not sure why a few chapters earlier Rohan didn’t seem to find info about the Beyond in JPN Jorge’s memory, then, unless he was too mesmerized by the “forgery” thing to care. Also, once again we’re reminded that while JPN Jorge has ‘dies to the air force commander’ written as the ‘true’ account, ENG Jorge survived that encounter. Since he’s not the real canon George II

[Dio] “Heh… this is a Japanese katana, Jorge. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Oi where did you get that. Is that what I think it is

“Make me the one who gets your soul. Make me your… Dio Brando’s double. (…) I followed you here, to this far off universe, and waited. So I could be useful to you, father. So I could become you.”

Something something father and son becoming one in a very fucked up way? May be a possible reference to Tsukumojuku, check.

“It is the power of my will, father,” Giovanna said, tearing up. Without hesitation, Dio thrust the sword into his heart.

The narrator’s kinda-brother gets stabbed through the heart with a katana, after talking about the power of his will? That’d be Seshiru. Check.

Dio stood up and walked to the man with the horns (…), bit him, began drinking the man, chewing as he went, the speed with which he ate growing until he was straight up devouring the man. “(…) I can eat the ultimate being and make his flesh my own!”

Unexpected tactial vore to make someone’s body a part of you, so to speak? Shoutout to the Detective God’s creepy bulshit in the Fourth Story, and another reference check.

I managed to push myself up on my elbow, just high enough to see that there was something Japanese written on the deck in blood. A dying message left by Giorno Giovanna. Dio couldn’t read it, but I knew hiragana well enough.

ゆうき

“Courage”, of course. He was telling me to be brave. Giorno Giovanna had sacrificed himself to save me.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Because I didn’t have enough courage, he had to die!

I couldn’t just manufacture narrative flow. If I wanted this Beyond to work for all of us, not just myself, I needed courage. I had to start being more proactive.

So.

The hiragana right there?

It spells “Yuuki”.

Yep.

Of course, it can be read as “courage” (勇気), but you may remember that “Yuuki” has been an incredibly important word in Tsukumojuku – the name of Morimoto Yuuki, one of his beloveds, as well as a wordplay on the word “leaving”, “the way out” (yuki, 行き), which was the last thing Tsukumojuku (and the Beyonds) needed to see to finally decide to leave their imaginary world.

By the way, in this scene, Giorno brings to mind both Seshiru (saves his sorta-brother’s life from an evil guy, gets stabbed with a katana through the heart), as well as Tsutomu (younger technically-brother who attempts to tell the narrator what’s really happening through drawing something on the ground). Also, Jorge notices the word right after thinking of Lisa Lisa – who, in this Beyond-created world, would be yet another imaginary ‘beloved’, just like Yuuki was.

The above quote is also the very last thing in ENG Jorge’s narration. Nothing after this is written from his point of view. We can theorize it’s because while the character of Jorge doesn’t recognize the meaning of “Yuuki”, his Beyond does, and it prompts him to ‘leave’ the imaginary world – thus his narration ends. (Although you could argue that Dio never even gets first-person narration while having a Beyond, so it may not work like that.)

It’s interesting to see how the last paragraph would be read in context of it being thought by the Beyond as he slowly decides to leave [taken more from Japanese version]: I couldn’t just manufacture narrative flow [= make up an imaginary story for myself]. If I wanted the Beyond that existed for my own sake to be of help to people, [If I wanted this to be more than a self-indulging maladaptive defense mechanism], I’d have to gather courage, and do my best at being more proactive [= leave and do proactive stuff myself, in person].

[Reaching Even Harder mode on] In Tsukumojuku, ‘going to heaven’ (finding the Heavenly Throne) was synonymous with self-discovery, realizing that you are God etc. In Jorge Joestar (like in canon JJBA), the set of instructions on how to ‘go to Heaven’ tells you to “Have the courage to cast aside your Stand, and as your Stand withers, it will gather 36 souls, and give birth to something new.“ So… Have the courage [or the resolve to leave, since courage = yuuki] to cast aside your Stand [= the power you developed to protect yourself, the Wound, the imaginary world], and as your stand withers [the imaginary world collapses], it will gather 36 souls [= ??? idk, the characters will get reintegrated with you…?] and give birth to something new [= you will have a chance to discover yourself and grow in reality]. [Reaching Even Harder mode off]

Chapter 16

“The Steel Ball Run has never once been a ‘local shindig’,” ‘Funny’ said. He reached into his chest pocket, and pulled out a book. “Part of the holy scriptures. Nine volumes in all. I’ve ordered my men and their associates to collect and recover these.” (…)

“What’s in the book?” I asked, but before I could look closer he slipped the ‘holy scripture’ back in his pocket. It was a very old book, and it looked ready to crumble or fall apart if it was handled at all roughly, so I didn’t press the point.

At first I thought that these may be the Stories, but their number doesn’t check out, as it’s not 7 or 10 (7 ‘basic’ ones + Fourth (2), Fifth (2) and Sixth (2)).

However, the illustrations prove something even more interesting: the Holy Scripture Funny Valentine shows here is The Book: Jojo’s Bizarre Adenture Another Day. It’s perfectly possible that the rest of the Holy Scriptures are other JJBA light novels (not sure if there’s nine of them?), possibly released in a unified format – you can see “1/9″ written on the Holy Scripture’s cover. This raises the possibility that the Funnies know exactly what’s happening… because they’ve already read about it. For what it’s worth, the physical hardcover edition of Jorge Joestar does have something like a mock leather cover with gold lettering inside (you can see a photo of it in this post), similar to The Book’s style of cover design.

“An abandoned Japanese kid adopted by the Joestar family who becomes a detective. You are born only once in this world, and there is no replacement for you in any other universe, or in any parallel world.”

[wacky theory mode on] What Funny may mean here: ‘now if you were a (sorta) abandoned Japanese kid adopted by the Kato family who becomes a detective, well, that would be another story alltogether. But your name is not Tsukumojuku, and that’s why you’re unique.’ [wacky theory mode off]

Or, Funny Valentine considers Jorge and the Holy Corpse (ie. Dio) to be Singularities because they both have a Beyond. Though what the Singularities actually are is debatable: later we learn it’s Nishi Akatsuki and the Bermuda Triangle, for example.

And the Cars from this world appeared to be very angry.

“We told him this was but a parallel world, and he and everythingin it weren’t real,” Funny said. (…)

[Cars’s] eyes met mine. (…) Cars tossed ‘Funny’ aside, and Dirty Whatever floated away, swooping back towards us. Returning to its original owner. But Cars was flying after it…!

“So you’re the one who made this world? I did not give you permission, and I will not allow it!” he yelled, clouds billowing up behind him. He was so terrifying I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

This chapter is trying its hardest to make the reader think that this AU Kars is yelling at Funny Valentine. Earlier Jorge even asks Funny if this alternate world is created by D4C – however, Funny answers that ‘the possibility never occured to me’, so probably not.

You may notice that Kars starts pursuing them after noticing Jorge, and keeps eye contact with him while shouting ‘you’re the one who made this world’… because he’s yelling this at Jorge(’s Beyond), and immediately after that tries to kill Funny and Jorge, probably hoping that when Jorge dies, the world dies with him. Although AU Kars still achieves his goal even if he only kills Funny: with Funny’s death, this AU world is no longer accessible to the narrator, so as far as the narrative is concerned, this world doesn’t exist anymore. (We’ll be back to it later with Light Dancer).

“Do you know why Cars brought you here, and is trying to take you further in? (…) Precisely because you’re a Singularity. There is not other you in any other world. Cars has sniffed that out somehow. I’m sure of it.”

Yet another confirmation that Kars Knows, and Knew fairly early.

“That said…even without knowing a thing about parallel worlds, the nature of the world is that we all fulfill our roles.“

Because you’re all fictional characters. Gotcha.

So many ways we sync our internal time to the world outside. Keeping us aligned with our peers. It would be much harder to remain isolated, in a world of your own. In a world of my own? Cars had just accused me of doing just that.

*loud coughing while pointing between the ‘isolated in a world of your own’ part and the triplets*

Then the lights grew even brighter and the variations increased innumber and the array of copies added a third dimension and soonBudogaoka Academy’s campus was filled with blinding light cast bya giant mandala pyramid that made me forget to breathe.

The local schoolyard being filled with something similar to multiple copies of a character all burning up? That’s another check for possibly unintentional Tsukumojuku reference.

“I’ve already understood his point, so why does he not stop?”

“I think…he’s not just doing it for you. He’s doing this for himself, as well. Like…something he needs to express, something he needs to leave behind.”

“This is a parallel world. It isn’t real. Nothing will remain, so how can this have meaning?”

“Of course it has meaning! Don’t be stupid, Cars.”

First thing: Our Kars and the Light Dancer, just like the Single Braid Kars, seem to be aware that once the narrator (Jorge) leaves an alternate world, it’ll cease to exist.

Second thing: that line Jorge says that begins with “something he needs to express” is in Japanese “出し切りたいんじゃないかな, 残しておきたいというか…” Something like “I wonder if he wants to finish this / to exert himself completely [ie. put all his might and glory into this one final moment], wants something to be left behind [something of him to still remain once he vanishes], something like that…” So yeah, Light Dancer knows that his world is doomed, and decides to go out in a colorful blaze of glory, maybe hoping that at least his final words will leave some imprint on reality.

[And from a meta standpoint, Light Dancer was successful: his heartfelt speech is the only part of Jorge Joestar that made it into another Jojo medium, All-Star Battle, with Kazuhiko Inoue himself voicing more than a half of it. Even if Light Dancer is gone, a part of him still remains in reality.]

“My flesh may not be able to die, but my life is as fragile as it was before, and can be snuffed out so easily!”

Read: ‘Even if I’m immortal, I’ll still cease to exist when the world vanishes.’

“You, who are another ‘me’! You are not special! You share the same sadness I feel!”

Read: ‘Hey other Kars, you may be more ‘real’ than me in terms of how the world mechanics affect you, but in the end you’re also fictional, sorry.”

This other ‘Cars’ showed no sign of surprise at the original Cars’ arrival. So he was already aware of the existence of parallel worlds. He was fully aware that he was fake. How was it he already knew that?

Because he’d met ‘Funny Valentine’ in this world. And like in Monument Valley, he’d engaged in an experimental skirmish. I was sure ‘Funny’ had fought with ‘Dirty Whatever’. And Cars had understood that Stand ability, and realized the truth about himself.

Yeah, what I said before. Light Dancer (also Our Kars?) learned about it from Funny (or Funnier), whether it was Funny’s intention or not.

And behind Dio I saw a shadowy figure, with long hair, his face hidden by a shadow seemingly unaffected by the direction of the sun. He was half naked, his rail thin body covered in wounds, and there was a crown of thorns on his head.

“I agree with everything,” he said. “Keep going, call it off, do anything you like, do nothing at all.”

I’ve written about it before, but in the illustrations, this Beyond’s crown of thorns is wrapped three times around his head. This brings to mind the Sixth Story, when Tsukumojuku encountered a lot of his own disembodied heads all with long hair, all wrapped around three times with rope as if it was a crown (this… makes as much sense in context, I’m afraid). The ‘Tsukumojuku is Jesus / the Lamb / literally God’ was also a thing there, and since technically Tsukumojuku is the same as triplets/Beyond, I guess the Jesus imagery was left over and that’s why Dio’s Beyond looks like this? I guess neither Dio nor Jorge know (or want to acknowledge) what the triplets really look like, and that’s why the Beyond doesn’t look to them like the triplets’ True Form?

Dio opened his mouth, and I heard what he said. “This is right. There’s no mistake. Everything is taking me where I need to go.”

That sounded like what the wounded man with the crown of thorns had said.

So basically, we now have two people with Beyonds (the third one has fucked off in the previous chapter), and since both are functionally immortal self-inserts that viscerally understand how narrativium works, that’s just pure chaos, man. It seems unwinnable for either side… as long as they have their Beyonds, that is.

“You worthless shit!” Dio screamed. “Can’t you do anything you’re told!? That’s why nobody ever loved you! That’s why they all pushed you away! Your mother peeled your filthy skin off in a desperate attempt to at least love the surface of you! You were always empty inside, and there was never anything in there that anyone could love! I bet even your mother couldn’t believe it at first! Even after she peeled your god damn skin off she still couldn’t find a single worthwhile thing about you!”

Antonio Torres was letting out strangled sobs, but try as he might he couldn’t seem to get any tears flowing.

“If you can’t even take a fucking breath, then die! Die as theuseless piece of shit you were born to be! As a worthless piece oftrash even your mother wished she’d never given birth to!”

This fragment is already uncomfortable on its own, but when you know that Dio’s Beyond – one of the triplets, who spent a lot of time blaming themselves for the horrific abuse their mother unleashed on them – is writing those out-of-control, frustrated lines full of internalized hate? That’s just excruciating to think about.

“But there are still detectives in Morioh, right? Runbaba 12 and Daibakusho Curry. Have them look into it. They know what they’re doing, right?” They might be a bit eccentric, but still.

I can’t believe Jorge and co. could go back in time and save the world only because Tsutomu (okay, okay, Runbaba 12 too) was so quick to help them find 37th Universe’s Kira.

“You were right, Kunimido Chien is our man! The real Kira Yoshikage at last! He blew several detectives up. We also found a bachelor he was about to kill in the basement of that man’s home. He’s on the brink of death, seems like he was badly tortured, but he’s still alive.”

A serial killer camouflaging as an upstanding citizen with an important social function, caught torturing a main character in his basement, check! (ie. Okubo Kengo reference). Notice how quickly ENG Jorge dropped dead after he got ‘abandoned by his Beyond’. (He gets better, though.)

Cars didn’t actually have a reason to do this. This thought almost made me cry. That man was sacrificing so much.

“What?” Elizabeth said.

I wiped my tears. “This adventure’s almost over.”

It’s interesting that while Jorge seems to be crying because he’s moved by Kars’s sacrifice, his answer is about something different. As if he was on some level aware that the narration is coming to an end, and it briefly overrode his in-character reason for crying.

From what he’d just said, a head belonging to the holy man was here, too, but that was likely a miracle. One brought about not by Dio, but by the man who stood behind him, the long-haired, wounded man with the crown of thorns.

Once again we’re talking about ‘miracles’, that Tsukumojuku also talked about in context of ‘the name of God’ being needed to bring about a ‘miracle’. Since the triplets’ True Nature is contained in the name of God (ie. ‘Tsukumojuku’), of course they can bring about a miracle like this; Jorge is right.

“All this time and you’re still trapped by your parent’s curse. You’ve lived more than long enough to grow up, but you refuse to take responsibility for anything. If you had the time to steal glimpses of my heir’s lives, you should have spent some time reflecting on your own life.“

Whether Erina intended it to be or not, this may be a jab at Dio’s Beyond, too (that is, the Beyond’s subconscious yelling at him through the character of Erina): ‘you’re still trapped by what your parent [Ms. Suzuki] did to you, and refuse to face the reality and grow up. Instead of living precariously through the fictional characters of this world, you should instead reflect on who you really are.’

From inside my stomach, Funny Valentine produced seven parallel world ‘Cars’ and flung them up towards where Cars was floating (…) so a ladder of eight ‘Cars’ stretched from my stomach towards the body of the ‘holy man’.(…) I started running up the Cars ladder.

Jorge running up the makeshift Cars ladder to reach the body of the ‘holy man’ reminds of the Fourth Story, in which Tsukumojuku had to scale a ladder of souls to get to the Castle, and later had to run up the stairs he made with those corpse boxes to get to the crucified ‘Jesus’ (aka the false ‘God’, aka ‘Seiryoin’).

I ignored him, and put Jonathan Joestar’s head right on the fresh cut stump of the mummified ‘holy man’. (…) This was the place where it belonged, and now it was back. Human bodies had such strong identities, I thought; all of this was only possible because me and the other ‘Jorge Joestar’ and Dio all had Beyonds, but those three Beyonds were actually one. The Trinity.

I turned around and looked right past Dio’s severed head at the face of his Beyond. It looked a lot like him. Sad, kind eyes. Dio’s Beyond knew this was all over. With a smile, it faded out, and was gone.

…so.

Let’s take that quote about Dio I asked you to remember, and apply this to Dio’s Beyond. The Beyond was ‘fixated on Jonathan” [on the fictional character of Jonathan], who had “grown up to be a man who made genuine friends he could honestly share his honest emotions with, a man who threw himself body and soul into everything he did.” I guess this Beyond understands that it’s not something he can say about himself, and that’s why he puts himself in Dio’s shoes and not straight up in Jonathan’s; but since he still desires those things Jonathan has, he tries to take over his body – become him, so to speak.

But then Jorge breaks the entire plan, ruins the ‘miracle’, by putting Jonathan’s head back on the body that Dio(’s Beyond) wanted to possess, as if to point out, ‘this is not your body. This is Jonathan Joestar’s body. You have to understand this character’s body will never be yours; taking over it won’t make you become ‘less empty’, or suddenly have friends, or be able to share emotions with others, or change reality.’

And in that moment, the Beyond understands, gives Jorge one last sad smile, and disappears – leaves the imaginary world in order to face his own reality.

[Bonus points for that scene with Jorge being very similar to Tsukumojuku putting Yuuki’s head back on and reviving her]

Maybe I should ask Tom Petty about my name.

So I picked up the pebble and called across space time and the result made me think I’d been an idiot to ask anyone from a country without kanji but then I looked at it again and sort of liked it which was bad.

It was just super weird from a Japanese perspective.

So why did it feel right? (…)

I mean, Joestar was always just Jo-suta- in katakana, but using ‘castle’ and ‘character’ for Joji was just madness!

Jorge’s name is written 城字ジョースター. The first kanji of his name means ‘castle’, the second is ‘a character (as in a letter, a kanji, a written symbol)’ or ‘(hand)writing’.

Most Japanese analyses (and pixiv fanarts) I saw treat this as a wordplay on the author’s own name: since Jorge is 城字, you could say he’s “舞城王太郎”の“城” の ”字”, that is, “the symbol/kanji used to write the ‘jo’ in ‘Maijo Otaro’”. Or maybe he’s a part of “Maijo(’s) writings”.

This is sometimes paired with the theory that Dio might be the “o” ( 王) in Otaro, since he has a giant 王 on his clothes in the novel illustrations, and when we first see his Beyond, Dio is busy yelling about how he’s the king (王) of the world. I can’t see how ENG Jorge would fit either “mai-” or “-taro”, but it’s nevertheless an interesting theory, and meta as hell – effectively proving that while their world is already fictional, the ‘reality’ of the triplets is also written by someone – that mysterious other God mentioned at the end of Tsukumojuku: Maijo Otaro. It’s all fine and good.

HOWEVER.

After reading Tsukumojuku, the word “castle” immediately brings to mind Geneijo, the Illusionary Castle. When we first encounter it, it’s a paracosm created by Serika and Seshiru, a way for them to escape from the unpleasant world – a big foreshadowing that the world of Tsukumojuku itself is a similar ‘imaginary castle’ of the triplets… and so is the world of Jorge Joestar.

So Jorge’s name may as well be read as something that betrays the true nature of his world, like ‘the symbol of the Castle’, or ‘writings that have something to do with the Castle’, ‘the letters and symbols that make up the Castle’. It may be that Tonpetti (who’s pretty genre-savvy in the book), just like Giorno, by giving this word to Jorge actually passed it to Beyond, who realized what it meant, acknowledged the nature of the imaginary world, and decided to leave.

And this could be why JPN Jorge’s narration stops and never continues again after that last sentence – and since his Beyond was already the last ‘author’ standing, the book itself comes to a halt and ends.

#Anonymous #jorge joestar #jorge joestar spoilers #jorge tag #maijo and jdc stuff #hcs meta and stuff #long post #who's ready for EXTREMELY LONG JORGE META #with extra reaching

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