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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable Part 1 (Pre-Kira)
Author: Hirohiko Araki
Arc Episode Length: 20 (of 39)
Characters
Josuke Higashikata: The high-school aged, hair-obsessed, and illegitimate child of Joseph Joestar. His Stand, Crazy Diamond, has extreme strength, speed, and the ability to repair or rearrange the structure of an object.
Koichi Hirose: Friend of Josuke, Koichi starts of as a timid high school freshman but becomes more confident as time goes on. His stand, Echoes, is the lone stand in the series thus far to have multiple forms: Act 1 can write any word on any surface and that word will either gain its innate effect or repeat constantly within whatever it is applied to; Act 2 keeps the ability of Act 1 but can shoot words out of its tail and apply their effects to a stronger degree.
Okuyasu Nijimura: Initially an enemy to Josuke, Okuyasu joins him in his shenanigangs around Morioh after their battle. His Stand, The Hand, has the ability to erase anything it touches to include being able to swipe away space itself.
Jotaro Kujo: The protagonist of Stardust Crusaders. Now older and wiser, Jotaro travels to Morioh to find Joseph’s illegitimate child in order to ensure that he gets his inheritance. Jotaro’s stand, Star Platinum (and unofficially referred to as Star Platinum: The World until this name was officially adopted in Part 6) maintains its immense speed and power but also has mastered the time-stop ability that was used against DIO.
Joseph Joestar: The protagonist of Battle Tendency. Now an old and borderline senile man, Joseph is the father of Josuke. His stand, Hermit Purple, can extend pruple vines from his hands.
Rohan Kishibe: A famous manga artist that moves to Morioh. His stand, Heaven’s Door, can turn someone into a book allowing Rohan to read their life history and abilities as well as insert his own commands.
Shigekiyo Yangu: Dubbed “Shigechi” by Josuke and Okuyasu, Shigekiyo is a middle school student that takes a liking to the team. His Stand, Harvest, lets him send out multiple bug-like beings to gather or attack.
Reimi Sugimoto: A mysterious ghost girl inhabiting a mysterious dark alleyway in Morioh. She was murdered years before.
Plot
In the year 1999, Jotaro Kujo travels to the town of Morioh in Japan, seeking the illegitimate son of Joseph Joestar to inform him of his inheritance. Upon meeting and fighting Josuke, Jotaro realizes that there are stand users in the town.
Teaming up with Jotaro, Josuke is able to defeat Angelo, a stand user and criminal that killed his grandfather. Upon his defeat, Angelo reveals that he received his powers from a man wielding a bow and arrow and referring to DIO.
A long search leads Josuke, and his friend Koichi, to the Nijimura household where Koichi gets shot by the stand-producing arrow and Josuke defeats Okuyasu. The next battle, against Okuyasu’s brother Keicho, results in Josuke’s victory as well and the revalation that the head of the Nijimura household was corrupted by DIO.
Before Josuke is able to secure the stand-producing arrow from Keicho, Keicho is killed by another stand user. This spurs Okuyasu on to join josuke in the hunt for his brother’s killer
A series of encounters with other stand users like Kobayashi and Yukako lead to Koichi awakening and evolving his stand, Echoes. Josuke and Okuyasu also encounter other stand users during their search for Keicho’s killer, namely the Italian Chef Tonio that can heal with his cooking.
Eventually encountering Keicho’s killer, the team is able to defeat the stand user Akira Otoishi. Just as they win, an elderly Joseph Joestar arrives to Morioh.
Even more stand users pop up around the small town, including the famed manga prodigy Rohan Kishibe and the middle schooler Shigechi. More battle take place as well, such as Jotaro and Josuke’s battle against a stand-using rat.
This half essentially ends with Rohan encountering the ghost of an old friend in Reimi Sugimoto, who reveals that she was murdered and that the murderer is still in Morioh. Meanwhile, a man drives to his home in a car with a severed woman’s hand.
The Praise
Atmosphere and characters are the strongest aspect of Diamond is Unbreakable. After a long journey across the world in order to defeat DIO, it was refreshing to see a smaller and more focused environment that just felt more organic. Rather than running to another country for a well-defined battle, Josuke and company had to use the resources within the town constantly to deduce who was doing what. In a way, this part reminded me of Persona 4: Small-town mysteries being solved by small-town kids with the help of one strong outsider.
None of this would have worked, though, if it the characters were not there and man there were some colorful characters both in and out of the main cast. From Josuke’s quick-to-act mentality, Okuyasu’s straight forward way of thinking and even Koichi’s growth from timidness to Rohan’s aloof nature, there felt like a real variety in this team. Whereas stand powers were still strong, too, there were more creative ways for the main cast to fight than in the previous part. This can be seen as a further evolution of the puzzle-like battles in Battle
Tendency, with some fights involving outwitting opponents through clever uses of abilities. Jotaro and Josuke's fight agains that rat, alongside how they defeated Aqua necklace, were particular highlights. Even side characters had interesting and unique powers, such as Kobayashi’s lock-like stand, Yukako’s control of her hair, and Tonio’s cooking that could heal. All in all, the sheer amount of stand users and their differences made the town feel more alive and almost a character in itself, especially considering that many stand users were not outright beaten and instead befriended the main cast.
The Critique
My main issue with Stardust Crusaders was that the path to the payoff (being DIO) was fraught with too many fights that I didn’t care about and that is doubly true here. Unfortunately, too, this issue is a requirement for series progression. If you noticed in the sections above, I mentioned different stand users that weren’t in my “characters” section and I did that to cut down on the length, for sure, but also to point out that so many side characters that have eventual importance exist in this part that it would be inconvenient to list them all at once or it would seem like they weren’t important now only to pop up with some importance later. What I’m trying to say here is that, in establishing the feeling of a living town, each character had to be established as well and this led to what felt like stretches upon stretches of just filler. Unlike Stardust Crusdaers, where every battle had the purpose of defeating DIO’s henchmen to get to him, confrontations in Diamond is Unbreakable happen for almost no reason at times. A trip to the Italian restaurant results in a stand fight, a conman ends up being a stand user, and a love-obsessed girl ends up trying to use her stand to win the heart of her interest. Even the larger, more set up fights fell a little flat (I'm looking at you Red Hot Chili Pepper). Ultimately, I get that characters beyond the main cast needed to be introduced and explained but with no clear-cut villain up to this point in Part 4 it all felt like fluff.
The Verdict
Whereas Stardust Crusaders started with a main villain and then introduced side characters as a result of that villain’s actions, Diamond is Unbreakable started with the side characters to build up to one main villain. However, with no glimpse at said villain until the very end of the first half of the show and no true mention of his misdeeds either, the setup felt hollow and, dare I say, like a waste of time compared to prior parts. Some of the side characters went too far beyond the bounds of goofy in the confines of the events of this part and many just felt like filler. To spoil a bit about my review of the last half of the show, the buildup is totally worth it but taken as a whole the first half of Diamond is Unbreakable failed to live up to its predecessors.
Rating: 7 gold nuggets out of 10