Joseph and Stroheim thought that they have defeated Cars that is until he rose up from the magma. With the power of the planet not enough to defeat Cars, is there no hope to stop this creature?
This my friends, is how you make one awesome final episode. The sudden twist and turns, and the climax leading us to the final part of this episode are really well made. But before talking about that, I'll first talk about Cars' back story. What's interesting about it is that they expanded the back story from the original source material and made it feel like it is part on why Cars became like that. To be honest, after reading Cars' back story, I forgot about it after a few weeks. The way the anime present it gave me this impact that this story is relevant to the reason why he wanted to achieve immortality. He wants to show his critics that he can tame the sun, and he finally did with the end result being that he is the last man standing.
Now that I am done talking about it, let's talk about the main content of this episode. This is the only time in the entire series that Joseph feels completely powerless. During the times he is running away, he is actually thinking of a plan to overturn the situation into his own advantage. But in this case, Cars finally defeated the genius named Joseph Joestar. To make it more humiliating for Joseph, Cars cut his hand, causing Joseph to scream with all his might.
But there is one thing that made this situation more humiliating to Joseph, like Cars is trying to say it in front of his face that "Joseph, you suck!" Cars just made a Ripple attack. Seriously, the fact that his Ripple is stronger than Joseph is what made things worse for Joseph. His greatest enemy is using the Ripple just to kill him. But then, this scene made us remember that Joseph is once stuck in that situation. Aside from his brilliant mind, he is also one lucky person. Thankfully, he has the Red Stone of Aja in his hand, amplifying Cars' Ripple attack, which caused the Earth's magma to explode, sending the two in the sky while they are on top of a giant piece of rock!
One thing that I like about this scene is that it seems like the Earth is helping Joseph defeat Cars. All the Earth needs is the right push, and by the right push, I mean literally. Still can't believe that the strong push of magma blasted these two in the sky along with Joseph's severed hand, which is the cause of Cars banishment to outer space! What made this scene more epic is that the show's 1st opening theme is played while this is all happening! How cool was that! This show seriously knows how to keep your blood running in this show's most epic scenes.
So what happens to Cars now that he is floating around in space? He ends up becoming a giant rock floating around in space, and in one point, he stopped thinking. Guess immortality also comes with a price then. To be honest, it will be interesting if someone from space discovered Cars' solidified body and tries to study it. But considering how much trouble it took the Joseph to defeat him, I guess it is hard to bring Cars back. As for Joseph, he died at a very young age. But since this show is about generations of unknown heroes and their bizarre adventures, who will pass on the Joestar bloodline?
It is no surprise that Joseph still lives at the end, but the way the anime gives us this idea that he really died is kinda well done. Same goes with the buildup to the revelation that he is still alive. Another thing that I would like to praise about it is the mere fact that they expanded the show's epilogue scene. In the manga, we only have some text telling us their fates. Since this is anime and it is kinda boring just to have the narrator tell us their fates, they decided to expand it. The additional scenes are really well made, and I can't help but smile every time I see some nice additional bits.
Some of these nice additional bits include the pictures beside Erina's bed, the young Holly Joestar, an older Smokey and Stroheim's valiant death. Oh, and how Suzi Q took care of Joseph while he is injured. It seems that all is well that ends well... well, sort of. Years later, we meet an older Joseph who is about to visit his daughter Holly who is now living in Japan... and learned that he is now a racist towards Japanese thanks to Holly's husband. Wow, considering that his best friend is an Italian who likes to make bubbles and that his first mechanical hand is made by the Nazis, this is quite a surprise. Oh well, at least he liked their Walkman.
This how Part II: Battle Tendency ended. My only disappointment about the final episode is that they didn't play "Get Back" by The Beatles, the supposed song Joseph played in the manga in his Walkman. It makes sense considering that it is quite expensive to get the rights just to play that song. Also, Part III's featured that song at the end. Hopefully, once David Productions announced a Part III anime adaptation, the show's ending theme should be "Get Back".
Speaking of Part III, the show teased us about it. The final episode showed us Jotaro Kujo inside his jail cell, complete with his junk that he got thanks to his "evil spirit". Dio's coffin, which I have no idea why he had that considering that it was implied in the finale of Part I that Dio only had a single coffin boarded in the ship, unless by some miracle he has an extra coffin or that he was able to retrieve the same coffin Erina is on at one point during the time she was rescued. But hey, at least there is some assurance that we will have a new Part III anime in the near future, right?
