by Allyson McClain
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for this episode and previous episodes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
In “Hitman’s Team,” we start off with the true fight beginning between Formaggio and Narancia, Formaggio’s stand somewhat mysterious in the ways it can be used and Narancia is getting his time to shine. Narancia is rather dumb and comes off as brutishly childish, while his opponent comes off as experienced and well-rounded despite his initial look, which seemed to be dumb as he placed himself in a closed situation with an enemy before analyzing them. The reason behind this becomes clear as his stand is able to shrink things and he needs to slice something to shrink it. In this case, he slashed Narancia. We start “Hitman’s Team” with Narancia slowly shrinking, with no idea where his enemy is, and determined to make sure he is not followed back to the hideout on behalf of Bucciarati’s orders.
I love this episode for a plethora of reasons, one of which was the style in which this fight was done. The fight between the mysterious enemy on the boat was a game of wits, the enemy that Mista fought was a game of skill, and this was a game of hide-and-seek. This game of hide-and-seek between Formaggio and Narancia brings a more fun side to a Jojo fight that really shines with these characters. Jojo has had a lot of aggressive fighters or characters whose intelligence levels are not all that high. Nevertheless, those fights are the greatest because you appreciate that character even more when you really see how they develop in a combat setting. Many believe stands are connected to the personality of the person wielding it, whether it be in how they appear or the power they have.
In Narancia’s case, this connection shows in Aerosmith (also known as Li’l Bomber in English sub) when his powers are revealed. His plane shoots without hesitation and immediately changes course, much like Narancia’s behavior as we have seen already, showing a connection between behaviors and the stand’s power type. The biggest trouble the enemy had, while shrunk and hiding from Narancia, was that Aerosmith kept telling Narancia where he was. How could a plane tell where he was though? Then it is revealed that Narancia’s stand has something similar to echolocation. His plane can pick up sounds on a radar similar to one you would see on one of the old boat movies with a sonar. Little blimps show him sounds, and the volume of the sound detected changes the size of the blip. This little other side to his power is enough to show that Narancia isn’t dumb, and that perhaps he is observational to a degree that isn’t visible to others, or that he is in fact good at hearing? These are all possibilities, but until we receive a backstory or more information, I can only theorize that something connects from his life to this power.
Anyway, this interesting stand power and behavior correlation makes Narancia more interesting as a character. These crucial character development fights are something Jojo does extremely well to the point where it is hard to hate a stereotypical dumb character in Jojo. Unlike other shows, Jojo can develop unlikable characters in this way, making them charismatic and more appealing without taking away from the main story. Another thing that is impressive this episode is the animation! The animation of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure once again came through with stunning movement, particularly when Narancia’s Aerosmith came into view. Along with that, the changing of Narancia’s height and the background angle to suit his slowly shrinking frame looks phenomenal, especially when Aerosmith comes close to killing the quick thinker Formaggio many times.
Formaggio is another character that got a backstory that wasn’t expected. A pattern that had been happening for the last two fights was: start with a backstory of one of Bucciarati’s gang, reveal their stand and defeat their enemy, a pattern that was simple and starting to get consistent. That is, until Formaggio started getting a backstory that wasn’t exactly his, but instead for the hitman group after Trish, the Big Boss’s daughter. The backstory shows things in a way that keeps the viewer interested as now we have questions that we wish to have answered. What is their true motive for going after the big boss of Passione when they have witnessed the brutal murder of their co-workers who got too close? The backstory generates interest, shows us who potentially Bucciarati and his gang will have to fight in the future and showcases what type of person the Passione boss is so far in the story.
The gruesome punishment was enough to see why Giorno and Bucciarati want to take him down and leaves one wondering what type of man could kill others so easily yet care enough about his daughter to have her protected. This man who runs Passione has an odd morality, switching from a positive view back to one of negativity, still, the people who killed those two men from the hitman’s group are definitely a large threat and it makes one wonder what type of larger enemies await as one approaches the boss. It makes it more stressful when one realizes that the goal of the hitman group is similar to Bucciarati’s gang in a way, which also shows that those two men dead from torture could have very well been anyone from Bucciarati’s gang if they go about their investigation of Passione’s boss in the wrong way.
Images: Crunchyroll
Featured Image: Jojo Animation
