Our protagonist ladies and gentlemen!
50 years after the battle with Dio and 49 years after the death of Jonathan Joestar, a young Joseph Joestar has just moved to New York along with her Grandma Erina. Meanwhile, Speedwagon is now an oil tycoon and is on Mexico as he discovered ruins related to the Stone Mask, thus asking Strait's assistance to destroy the ruins.
Part I left quite a lot of impression on me, it ended on a high note so the big question is, what is best to follow up this tale? Why of course, to the origins of the Stone Mask that Dio wore to become a vampire! The decision of having the battle about the source of the Stone Mask can wrap up the tale of the Stone Mask that we witnessed in Part I.
Since Part II takes place 49 years after the end of Part I, a couple of characters from Part I are still alive. In the case of this episode, we have Speedwagon who is now an oil tycoon, Straits who is now the leader of the Ripple arts while as for Erina; she is now an old lady who decided not remarry after Jonathan's death. The first thing that bothered me with Part II is what happened to Jonathan and Erina's unborn child and the baby Erina saved at the end of Part I? Thankfully, this was explained as this episode progressed.
As it turns out, they were dead years ago and that Joseph is under the care of her grandma. Joseph Joestar or simply, JoJo kinda looks like his grandfather except that his hair is a bit more wilder, he is arrogant and that he knows how to use the Ripple without any proper training. Heck, he used his abilities to fight a couple of cops who is harassing Smokey, an African-American kid who stole JoJo's wallet! This made me conclude one thing, he is fine with thieves doing what they do best and he hates racism as he is one of those guys during that time that has the guts to protect this thief.
You might say it is a bit weird that the guy whose wallet was stolen by some African-American kid is helping him but I guess that's what makes the Joestars special. These guys can show kindness to almost anyone and that includes a lowly thief. Now to the highlight of this scene, JoJo using the Ripple to fight the cops; to sum it all up, aside that they retain the motion comic style of Part I, the animation of this scene is really fantastic. My only nitpick about it is the censorship and Coca-Cola having a new name just for this brief scene. Oh well, that scene with close-ups on Coke was very brief, I can just ignore it.
Back to Mexico, we saw a living man stuck on a giant pillar covered with Stone Masks and learned why Speedwagon needs Straits' assistance. It is because he wants him and his disciples to destroy the Stone Masks so that the tragedy that befell on the Joestars will not happen again. Instead of destroying the Stone Masks, Straits asked Speedwagon about Joseph's Ripple ability.
I am not sure what the relation is at first with Joseph's Ripple ability with destroying the Stone Masks since they can just do it right now but I at least the flashback related to it is interesting. To those who have read the manga (like me), instead of Superman, Joseph is reading some unknown comic book. Aside that it helped them fix problems about the timeline*; it also helped the animation company to have less copyright trouble as most characters in the series are named after musicians!
Joseph in his younger age doesn't mind if his Uncle Speedwagon or the plane that they are riding was hi-jacked just as long as he can finish reading his comic book! But everything changed when the clothes that his grandma gave were soiled thanks to the hijackers! Just like what happened to the Coke incident earlier in this episode, we see Joseph beat the crap out of them! What made it more impressive was that he was 13 when he fought those hijackers! The flashback ends with Joseph telling his Uncle Speedwagon that he and Grandma Erina are his only family. For once, Joseph sounded more like his grandfather.
After the flashback, we finally learn what the relation of this flashback is with Straits being hesitant to destroy the Stone Masks. Much to my surprise and Speedwagon's surprise, Straits wants to become immortal and becoming a vampire is one way to become one! His secret admiration to Dio makes a lot of sense, I mean, who doesn't want to live forever? Heck, we even learn that the reason why Straits decided to become a Ripple practitioner, to become immortal. At the end, he killed his disciples and by the looks of it, he left Speedwagon alive.
Meanwhile in New York, Smokey saw the bonding between Joseph and his grandma and even their kindness even though Joseph is a bit brash with some of his actions. This lead us to a restaurant scene featuring more racism thanks to some guy who doesn't want to see a black guy having a fine dinner with some of his friends. That is why I am fine with Joseph kicking his ass! Heck, even her grandma is fine with Joseph kicking his ass just as long as it will not disturb the customers!
Even though we barely see any Ripple action in this scene, we see more of Joseph's special abilities aside from shooting Coke bottle caps with the help of the Ripple. This special ability is Joseph's ability to predict his opponent's next move, heck he can even predict were his opponents place their weapons or items and even predict their next line! I am not sure how he did it but seriously, it is so cool that I can't help myself but laugh every time Joseph gets it right... and he did! Instead of the customers getting pissed with the fight in the restaurant, what they did is to clap with joy!
Here comes the fun part, the one that Joseph beat up is a member of the mafia! Instead of the mafia boss threatening Joseph, what he did is to apologize for what his subordinate did and learned what happened to his Uncle Speedwagon. According to his underground sources, Speedwagon is now dead. What I like about this scene is this shows how much Joseph cares for his grandma. He wants this news to broken to her gently and not immediately like what the mafia boss did.
After this, Joseph and Smokey hangs around on some cafe while they are talking about bra paddings. To put it simply, it's just boys being boys, so yeah. The highlight of this scene is appearance of vampire Straits that begins with Joseph's sarcasm. One thing that I like about Joseph is that he likes to play dumb just for the heck of it before attacking his opponent. In this case, he pulled a Tommy gun out of freakin' nowhere and shoots Straits like he is has unlimited ammo! Seriously that scene is so awesome that my eyes widen and like my smile reached my ears due to how awesome this scene is!
As for Straits, we see his body getting ripped by the bullets and since he is a vampire, I guess he might be alive after this. The episode ends with Joseph's promise to avenge the death of his Uncle Speedwagon by killing Straits with every trick that he can pull from his sleeve.
*The first comic book issue featuring Superman was released on June 1938, flashback takes place 3 years before the said issue was released.
