by Katherine Simon
After Abbacchio and his stand, Moody Blues, got their time to shine in the last episode, Mista is the next Passione member to get an episode dedicated to showcasing his stand and seeing him in action, or rather two since this episode is a two-parter. More importantly, this is the episode diehard fans of the series have been waiting for since the anime was announced, because this is where we finally get to see the infamous dancing torture scene animated, and boy was it worth the wait.
Continuing where the last episode left off, Team Bucciarati has recovered from the effects of Soft Machine and have decided to give Mario his just desserts in the most hilariously brutal way possible. After kicking his body around, Mista hangs Mario’s dismembered head with a fish hook through the eyelid and points his glasses towards the sun to burn his retinas, all while being forced to watch Narancia, Mista, and Fugo dance in front of him.
Image from Crunchyroll
Jojo has a knack for torturing its villain characters in darkly humorous ways (see: Kars’ fate at the end of Battle Tendency, Angelo Rock from Diamond is Unbreakable,) and out of all the methods thus far, the torture dance is easily the most bizarre. The fact that David Productions managed to translate a six-panel gag from the manga into a whole minute of extremely well-animated dance choreography with an original song to back it up (which sounds eerily similar to “P. Control” by Prince, as if having “Freek’n You” as the ED wasn’t explicit enough) is simply awe-inspiring. The animators really went all out on this scene, and it really shows with how stunning it all looks. As an aside, I hope everyone’s ready for the hundreds of Fortnite edits this scene is going to inevitably spawn, because we all know Jojo fans aren’t usually the ones to pass up the opportunity to meme an exploitable scene to death.
After the dance, Abbacchio uses Moody Blues to find out that Mario had previously contacted Sale to tell him that Polpo’s fortune is in Capri. Since the crew had taken a detour in their fight against Mario, they expect to be ambushed by Sale as soon as they arrive. To beat him to the treasure, Giorno proposes that he uses Gold Experience to get to shore early and take care of him before the boat arrives to the marina. Mista agrees to tag along with him and by using Gold Experience to turn a life preserver into a fish, the two arrive at Capri 20 minutes early.
It is at this point where we are introduced to Mista’s stand, Sex Pistols, which takes the form of six small humanoid entities inside Mista’s revolver. Their main function is that they’re able to redirect the gun’s bullets in any direction by riding and kicking them towards their target. Functionally, the stand is very similar to Hol Horse’s Emperor from Stardust Crusaders in that they’re both gun-based stands that are able to redirect their projectiles. The main difference is that instead of the gun itself being the stand, Sex Pistols exists independently from the gun and is limited to the number of bullets inside Mista’s revolver. For a part that introduced so many creative stands, it’s kind of weird to see Araki retread an old stand idea like this, but when you’re writing the fifth part of a series that’s been running for almost a decade at this point, recycling some ideas is almost inevitable.
Even with Sex Pistols having so much in common with Emperor, it’s still unique enough to stand on its own and isn’t as blatant of a ripoff as, say, In A Silent Way from Steel Ball Run copying Echoes Act 2’s ability. What makes Sex Pistols unique is that they have more personality than a majority of stands in the series. They’re prone to arguing with each other, spout one-liners during battle, and even require food in order to continue working for Mista. Up to this point, the only other stand we’ve seen with a personality independent from its user is Koichi’s Echoes, so it’s nice to see more stands that’re more than their user’s ghost puppets. Also, the Pistols are labeled 1-7 with the fourth one being absent due to Mista’s tetraphobia is a nice detail.
Image from Crunchyroll
After waiting around for nearly 20 minutes, Mista decides to pursue Sale and plans to ambush him in front of the radio room. However, Sale has already infiltrated the radio room to answer Giorno’s call, which prompts Giorno to use the same radio to warn Mista. Upon hearing this, Mista shoots at the window and lets Sex Pistols take care of Sale, managing to hit him in the leg. Sale manages to escape from the room, but Mista follows his blood trail up to a truck that’s just getting away, so Mista sets off in pursuit. The episode ends with Giorno hearing a loud gunshot, unaware of Mista’s whereabouts.
This episode is very similar to “Moody Blues’s Counterattack” in that they both feature two characters working together to solve the episode’s conflict. In the last episode it was Bruno and Abbacchio teaming up to locate Mario and the missing members of Team Bucciarati, and in this one, it’s Giorno and Mista trying to ambush Sale before he can claim Polpo’s fortune for himself. Personally, this episode is more enjoyable than the previous just because I like Giorno and Mista’s dynamic more than Bruno and Abbacchio’s. While Moody Blues might have the more creative ability and that episode did more to flesh out its characters, Mista and Sex Pistols are still more likable. While Mista has been shown to be a bit of a jerk, he never comes off as overwhelmingly arrogant as Abbacchio did in the previous episode. Most of his behavior can be attributed to him being a cocky teenager unlike this grown adult’s weird vendetta against a kid he’s known for a total of 10 minutes. That, and seeing Giorno and Mista cooperate on a mission is pretty fun to watch. The two have a really good dynamic going on and seeing the two start to form a friendship is really endearing, especially with how hostile Team Bucciarati seemed at first.
The episode is also really funny. Aside from the legendary dancing torture scene, Mista setting up a fancy lunch for Sex Pistols as soon as they arrived was quite humorous, and while this probably wasn’t intentional, Giorno giving his whole “I have a dream” speech to Team Bucciarati unprompted made me laugh way harder than it should have. The only problem I had with the episode is that it meandered too much toward the middle but other than that there really isn’t much wrong with the episode.
