JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

Episode 31

The Green Day/Oasis fight continues as Giorno and Mista try to make sense of the dastardly Cioccolata's mold powers and the withering husk formerly known as Bucciarati continues his battle with Secco. Naturally, this is the finale of this particular battle, and with it come a number of entertaining surprises.

The Cioccolata fight quickly becomes a game of mind chess, where the competing Stand-users keep planting traps for each other. Cioccolata is able to target the Sex Pistols and put Mista out of commission while he hides himself inside the helicopter by chopping his own body to bits with a scalpel and covering his open wounds with mold, something he's capable of because of his medical expertise. The sight of him wiggling around with an exposed spinal cord was worthy of a good jaw drop. That's so gross! I love it. Meanwhile, Giorno's plan hinges on Green Day's ability to infect living organisms with mold, so when any life created with Gold Experience gets infected but then changes back into a non-living state, the mold will cease. There are some shenanigans with the bullet he changed into a branch last week turning back into a bullet and shooting Cioccolata in the face. This is one of those times I'll just have to trust the characters to keep their own logic straight, because I give up.

Overall this is probably one of Giorno's most satisfying victories to date. He's always had that soothing confidence going for him, but the finishing blows against Cioccolata just keep coming. I guffawed at the part where Cioccolata was playing dead; their one-sided conversation goes on long enough that we're forced to wonder if he already bit the dust and Giorno's just talking to himself. But of course, he still has one more attempt in him and Giorno has to smack him down with the world's longest "muda muda." I've been enthusiastically informed by multiple people now that this scene lasts for seven whole pages in the manga. I was more struck by Cioccolata landing in an honest-to-god trash compactor. That's some modern-day meme energy right there. "Looks like this trash is out of the ba—" Wait, I'm combining colloquialisms. *ahem* "This trash just got taken out." No, I'm not feeling that one either. Whatever. Your fave is trash.

The Oasis half of the fight appears to be fizzling out, ending with Secco answering a pre-recorded message from Cioccolata on his phone. We know by this point that Cioccolata's dead, so this turns into a surprisingly bittersweet scene as Secco listens to his dead boss give him instructions, ending the message with "I love you." Even the worst piece of shit on the planet is capable of love. It almost makes you wish we hadn't just killed him. (Not really.) In all honesty, I was impressed by how impactful those three words managed to be. It really drives home Golden Wind's mantra of "Yeah, we're a bunch of amoral screw-ups, but at least we have each other." Take your gay serial killers where you can find them, I guess.

Secco's still got his sights on Bruno for the time being, and it appears that our old friend Polnareff might have been the mysterious man on the computer. I wish I could feign genuine surprise, but I accidentally got spoiled over a week ago. It's certainly a curious development, since Golden Wind has been so great at using its new cast of characters that I'm always surprised when I go back to the early episodes and remember Jotaro and Koichi were in this season at one point. It almost feels wrong to bring in old characters like this, but I'll wait and see how it goes.

This was as satisfying a conclusion as I could have hoped to get from the Cioccolata fight. It's far from being one of Golden Wind's best finishers, but this episode is zany and well-paced enough to always stay interesting. Even if it's only a sliver, the humanity offered to the villains in their final hour goes a long way in endearing me to their presence, allowing their diabolical evil to take on an unexpected new meaning.

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw