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I have very mixed feelings about part 5 of jojo, and deciding on a rating and comparing it to other parts is definitely a tough one for me, especially when this part, very weirdly, has the highest rating of all the other parts here on MAL.
Maybe a reason for the unreasonably high rating is the fact that most people give their ratings early on, before they get to see how the anime ends. Another one is that manga readers would base their rating on how well this part was adapted, and not on the quality of the story itself. In any case, I’ll explain why ... this part was not bad, but definitely not as good as any of its predecessors.

First what this part got right, if you’re a fan of jojo you know David production always goes the extra mile to make sure they not only adapt the manga well, but even improve on it in many aspects. Animation, sound design and soundtracks are great.
The story being set in an Italian mafia gang is great, because it avoids many of the self-righteous themes about justice and morality. Different parties have specific objectives, and they’d do whatever brutal methods it takes to achieve them. In that sense it’s better that the sort of cartoonish tone that some parts of part 3 had. It also had basically no filler arcs, unlike parts 3 and 4, where you could basically take out a lot of arcs in them, and the story wouldn’t be impacted at all.

We follow the piss-drinking Muda-yelling Giorno Giovanna, on his dream to become a gangster. For his motivation we have the very generic “drugs are bad” reason, in that aspect Bruno was a better main character than him. As for his character, it’s pretty much non-existent, he’s just perfect in every way, every time he opens his mouth or does anything, everyone is amazed at how right and perceptive he is, to the point where he basically becomes a plot device instead of a character. His backstory, like many others in this part, feels irrelevant since it’s never explored or connects with anything back in the story. Hell, we don’t even know how he came into existence since Dio supposedly never cared about children and viewed the human race as his subjects. And finally his stand has the power to grant life to objects, which later means he can heal injuries and regenerate body parts. Yeah. Remember in part 4 when Josuke had the restriction that he can heal everyone except himself, because that would make him too OP? Apparently Araki changed his mind for this part, which very unsurprisingly meant there was very low tension in a lot of fights. It got to a point where they would basically lose limbs and receive near fatal wounds every single fight after that, and it always meant nothing to us.

------Spoiler warning here (discussing the main villain and the ending)---------

Following the trend of severe lack of characterization in this part, Diavolo definitely suffered from this as well, he was intimidating and had an OP stand as usual, but other than that there was nothing interesting about him. Sure the dynamic between him and Doppio was interesting, but that amounted to nothing at the end, Doppio died the lamest and most pointless death I’ve ever seen, and their backstory wasn’t explored again ever. I know the joke “Araki forgot” exists, but that was just ridiculous, it was like he literally forgot all about that weird backstory he gave them, and never explained anything again. Who was his father? Why did he torture his mother? Why did he keep her alive? When did he develop his second personality? Nothing answered.

The most disappointing aspect of this part was its lackluster ending. Araki always struggles with this, where he gives the villain a ridiculously overpowered ability, and then has to do an ass pull to figure out a way to beat it. In part 2 kars lost even after becoming a god because a detached hand impaled him into outer space. In part 3 we discover out of nowhere that jotaro could also stop time. In part 4 kira has to undo bites the dust and eventually lose basically because he literally always thinks out loud so josuke heard him say his name (that was hilarious). Noticing a trend here? It was always so ridiculous, it never made any sense, but we never cared, because the final fights always managed to deliver, they were always so damn entertaining. This is jojo’s after all, a show where cyborg Nazis fight liquefied vampires. But that was sadly not the case for the finale of part 5, it wasn’t even a fight. It was a confusing mess, where they were chasing an arrow after a rogue stand took it and kept walking like a zombie. Random rules were made up on the spot, and after the arrow inevitably falls into Giorno’s hands, it’s all over. Diavolo dies infinitely (why??), Bruno finally dies after destroying the little sun behind his head (what??), and Polnareff is now a turtle…… Definitely the worst ending of any previous part.

----------------------------------Spoilers end here-----------------------------------

This part is definitely overrated, and by overrated I don’t mean bad. I was really enjoying it, and maybe up to 4 or 5 episodes before the ending, I was sure it would be one of my favorite parts for me, but sadly the ending of a series either makes or breaks it, and unfortunately the ending disappoints.

Art 7/10
Sound 8/10
Plot 6/10
Characters 4/10
Enjoyment 9/10
Overall 7/10

This season is a great example of how a show with potential could rapidly descend to mediocrity, and this is coming from someone who enjoyed the first 2 seasons. The writing this season has been so bad, that it’s impossible for me to review it without dissecting just how bad every part of this season was, so spoiler warning. Anyone who hasn’t already seen this season, stay away from this review.

We start off with a mini training arc, continuing this show’s incredibly repetitive formula of training arc – villain attack – tournament arc – villain attack – training arc – villain attack. Then we’re reminded ... of one of the show’s weakest points, the villains, they’re just so hilariously incompetent, they always lose, and they’re painfully dumb. Shigaraki, who after his confrontation with Deku last season, the show would like you to believe he’s some sort of a criminal mastermind now, came up with such a genius plan: kidnap Bakugo and turn him into a villain. Why Bakugo specifically you might ask? Did he do his research and discover he had a history with heroes that would make him more likely to betray them? Some psychological weakness he could exploit? Nope, it’s because he saw how angry he was in the ceremony of the last tournament and thought “Hey, he hates the hero society just as much as me!!....Yes, that’s right. That’s the reason he risked his entire crew (and lost some of them) for. Remember how it was weird when Todoroki suddenly didn’t want to use fire against Bakugo in the final even though he just had that break through with Deku and used fire just 1 episode earlier? I thought it was just because Horikoshi wanted to save this cool fight for later in the story maybe, the reasoning was lame but I didn’t mind. But now I get it, Todoroki didn’t use it, so Bakugo would be upset, so Shigaraki would see it and this whole stupid arc happens now. Brilliant writing.


Deku’s fight with Muscular made it certain for me that this show wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. Wasn’t this show supposed to be about how an underdog who could beat stronger opponents by outthinking them? It really came down to who shouted more passionately. “My 100% broke my arm and it had no damage on him?? Well I’ll use the same broken arm but this time with 1,000,000 %!!” And then Horikoshi corrected it in an interview saying no it’s actually just 100%, he was just joking I guess. You know your writing is bad when you have to clarify something in an interview that your own story failed to do.

Then comes the peak of the season, AFO vs All Might, I was actually dumb enough to expect All Might to die in this fight. I just thought this must be it, the reason manga readers keep saying this show is amazing, the reason this season was hyped so much, and it makes sense story wise, he dies taking down AFO and passing down the torch to Deku, that would be such a great turning point for the series, an actual death that changes everything, actual consequences in this series, I mean we all know All might’s literally useless as a mentor, so what possible role would he play in the story if he’s still just around as a skeleton? But yeah that was definitely my mistake, expecting a show as safe and bland as MHA to do something so risky, I mean what would happen to the sales of All might’s figures if that happened? We can’t jeopardize that! So the fight ended up being a dull replica of the muscular fight, a punch that didn’t work in his muscular form now worked better in his skeleton form somehow, and AFO proving to be not as menacing or bad ass as we thought, but another dumb villain with no motives or interesting perspective, just like the rest of them. The dullest final boss fight I’ve ever seen. Brilliant writing.

Then came my absolute favorite moment of the entire series: Deku, who is supposed to be a smart guy, after nearly 60 episodes into the show, finally discovers that instead of always using punches, he can use his legs too. The way the show treats this discovery as something epic and groundbreaking is the most unintentionally hilarious thing ever. I mean the epic OST was used, and everyone was so shocked and impressed, even Bakugo was like “I just made up this new AP shot, but Deku just kicked a rock?? Damn it, I’ve been bested again!!” This is without a doubt the most retarded power up a shounen protagonist has ever had. And btw he did actually use his legs before (he broke them twice), and after that muscular fight he specifically said he didn’t use his legs to keep moving afterwards and help the heroes, so yeah, Brilliant writing.

Obligatory training arc comes, a whole bunch of new characters are introduced, another psycho girl that likes Deku for no reason (that turns out to be the same previous psycho that likes him for no reason), but my favorite one is Inasa the wind guy. He was supposed to be the best of all the students on recommendations at UA, but for some reason he didn’t join UA and we were left to wonder why for a couple of episodes until they revealed the amazing reason: Todoroki refused to shake his hand once…. This guy’s only defining characteristic in the show is that he’s so passionate, well apparently he wasn’t passionate enough about being at UA to overcome the PTSD he got from one random guy not being too nice to him. That was such a mind-blowingly dumb reason, again such brilliant writing.

The final part was the Deku and Bakugo fight, that was cool to be fair, animation was great and all. Honestly though I still don’t get why Deku respects or cares about Bakugo so much, this was your school bully, he kept tormenting you and abusing you all your childhood, why the hell do you even consider him to be a friend at all? What redeeming characteristics do you see in him to keep caring for him after all this time? His desire to be the best? Really? You’ve got really low standards in picking friends Deku, you should value yourself a bit more than that.

The season ends with the introduction of a new villain, who if the show keeps sticking to its incredibly repetitive formula, is probably gonna end up being another stepping stone for Shigaraki, just like poor Stain did.


All in all this season pretty much exceeded my expectations in how horrible it could get, but fortunately it’s still in the “so bad it’s actually good” area for me, I still enjoyed it enough to watch the next season, although I have zero faith in the story getting any better, so it’s probably gonna be a bumpy ride.

A typical shounen anime, nothing more nothing less.
First the good parts about the show:
Amazing animation, maybe the best I’ve ever seen, the fights are very well executed.
Sound track is good but nothing amazing.
And that’s it basically.
The story starts very typically with a young protagonist whose family gets slaughtered by demons, and his sister turning into one. He now must slay all demons to avenge his family and heal his sister.
What drew me into the show initially was the dark tone the show seemed to have, darker than your average shounen that is, I mean his family was killed in episode 1, and literally all the ... fights are at night, so you can imagine my shock when literally 1 episode later our protagonist Tanjiro was already cracking dumb jokes. Seriously if you start watching the show from episode 2 or 3 you’d never guess this was a boy whose entire family was killed, it was such a tonal whiplash. And to make things much worse, the humor is awkward, cringy and very misplaced.
The characters are definitely the biggest weakness, our main boy Tanjiro is such a good natured, determined boy to the point where it’s just boring and incredibly unrealistic. “My whole family was killed by demons? Well I’ll just train hard and do my best to become a demon slayer!! My sister is now a demon with no apparent cure in sight and could potentially eat humans? Well I’ll just have to defeat literally the strongest demons in the world to heal her and end a conflict that lasted centuries all on my own, while carrying my waifu-bait sister on my back, yeah that’s not impractical or stupid or endangering to her at all, I mean every time he runs into demons or demon slayers they both obviously try to kill her, but it’s ok because she’s both strong enough to face demons and composed enough to not eat humans, because yeah she was brainwashed by my new grandpa to protect humans instead of killing them, awesome! I don’t know kid, don’t you sometimes want to just cry underneath the crushing weight of the misery you’re living in? Don’t you at least want to consider cowering away from this terrifying fight and just live peacefully with your zombie sister before you eventually realize that you have to fight? Don't you remember any of your dead family members outside of when you want to get a sudden unexplained power up in a fight? Don’t you face any problems when you always have to kill the same demons that you’re so empathetic towards now that your sister is one of them? No psychological or emotional scars at all? No? You’re just perfect in every way? OK.
Art 9/10
Sound 7/10
Plot 5/10
Characters 3/10
Enjoyment 6/10
Overall 6/10

Let me just start by saying that I am kind of an AOT fanboy, but I'll try to be as unbiased as possible.
This season (or half season) of AOT has been everything a fan of the show could possibly ask for. Dare I say, it almost makes up for all the delays we've had between the 2 halves of the season. If we’re going to get quality content like that then it’s absolutely worth the wait.

Opening: 8/10
Stunning visuals as usual, the return of Linked Horizon is certainly a welcome one, even though the song is a shameless mash up of all the previous openings, I ... still loved it and have never skipped it. Although it was a weird choice to include so many spoilers in it, I guess the staff was just that proud of their animation. (Not in my top 2 Ops though)

Animation: 10/10
Maybe one of the best aspects about this season, there were some amazing sequences with the ODM, maybe the best in the entire show (which is saying a lot especially after that Levi sequence at the beginning of season 3), the Colossal titan has always divided opinion but honestly I was never really too bothered with the CGI, but I was happy to see they put some 2D transitions whenever they could with him in some shots, it was a nice call back to the OG Colossal from season 1.
There is a specific scene that stands out to me during the rock throwing, where the atmosphere slowly gets filled with a red mist during all the carnage. It really added a lot to the crushing and terrifying atmosphere they faced, and a very impressive attention to detail.

Sound: 9/10
I mean is it really surprising to anyone how good the soundtrack is? A couple of slightly changed versions of the very popular OST from seasons 1 and 2 did the trick for most of the scenes. Although I was a tiny bit disappointed there is not really any new ones, I guess when the old ones are that good you don’t have to constantly change it.

Plot/Characters: 10/10
This is really where the story of AOT matures a lot, and develops from just a zombie survival story with a couple of cool monster fights into something much more compelling.
I really loved the character development that Bertholt finally had, it really was long overdue. Erwin’s speech was just glorious (both writing and voice acting).

To sum up, this season has been the best anime I’ve watched in recent memory, and as a manga reader I’m just so excited to see if future seasons match this one in quality. I definitely have faith though.