The battle between JoJo and Bruford continues and later in the episode, we learned how Zeppeli discovered the Ripple and his fate. What is Zeppeli's fate? Can JoJo defeat Bruford and later, Tarkus?
I know it's a bit cliché but this is the best episode the series has the offer. For starters, the duel between Bruford and JoJo lasted for at least 5-7 minutes and I am at the edge of my seat while watching it! The fight between the two is really intense, the action is really good. Granted, there are some bad frames from time to time but you can easily ignore it since the fight is so darn good! What made the fight between these two really memorable is how hammy JoJo's lines are and I like it.
After a barrage of Overdrive attacks and one strong Ripple attack, Bruford's zombie body disintegrates, releasing his pure human soul. The first thing I observed is his eyes, from eyes of some warrior who wants revenge, his eyes suddenly became of that of a warrior who is loyal to her queen. What made it memorable is the sudden growth of flowers beneath his feet that gave this sort of impact that the Bruford we saw earlier in the episode is now a different man. He is much calmer and someone who is ready to face death.
Before he dies, he gives JoJo a sword with the word "Luck" engraved in it. With his blood, he put the letter "p" in it, turning the word into "Pluck". At first I find it really weird, I mean, what's the connection between Luck and Pluck? A little browsing online caused me to discover that it's an old phrase about hard work and being lucky. It's quite significant in the story in a sense that this phrase summarized JoJo's life. He is a lucky man at first but during the course of his life, he stops depending less on his luck and starts to work hard (pluck) to learn the Ripple so that he can fight Dio.
After his death, it's time for Tarkus to take stage. Since he is still a zombie, Bruford's final moments are really stupid for him. Stepping on his armor just showed how he loathed Bruford's final moments. Because of Tarkus' strength, they have no choice but to escape. One thing that I like about their escape scene is that they used the Ripple to gather all the leaves to create a glider and it is really cool but that did stop Tarkus from chasing them.
But before talking about Tarkus chasing our heroes, let's first talk about how Zeppeli discovered the Ripple and learn it from a man named Tompeti. To sum it all up, Zeppeli has a bright future ahead of him and learning the Ripple will change his fate to death. This just show that Zeppeli is will to risk his own life just for the Stone Mask to stop existing so that it can't create more tragedies like what happened to him years ago.
Back to the current scene, I am not surprised that Tarkus used his weight to create momentum for his jump that forced JoJo and his friends to land on a nearby castle where knights used to train. As for Tarkus, he landed inside the castle and I have expected he is still alive since hey, he is one strong zombie so I don't expect that a single crash will kill him! Since they are inside a castle and Tarkus is still alive, JoJo decided to investigate it only to be trapped in a fight that Tarkus is an expert on, it's a game where their necks are chained and to win the game, the player must defeat the opponent and press switch found in the collar of his opponent. It's brutal and I kinda like it.
Because Tarkus is an expert in this game, he has the advantage in this one. To make matters worse for JoJo, he can't flow the Ripple in the chains and according to Zeppeli, he and JoJo are not trained to use the Ripple for destruction. Seeing JoJo getting trashed by Tarkus is one bad sight to see, even though JoJo is quite a large guy, putting him aside with Tarkus made him look like a kid who is trying to fight back to some bully. That's how the scene looks like and Zeppeli and Speedwagon want to help JoJo but they can't find a way to enter the castle without pulling the lever found inside the castle.
This is when Poco evolved from that brat who just happened to be mind controlled by Dio, into a courageous boy who is willing to risk his life just to save his friends, his town and his only sister from a possible zombie attack. But this change didn't happen overnight, it's just that this is the only time he realized that he need to become a man to save everyone and it is all thanks to her sister encouraging him to become brave.
Seeing Poco getting beaten up by Tarkus while he is trying to reach the lever is one intense sight to see. This just shows how much he has grown as person while he is with JoJo and his friends. At the end, he succeeded in pulling the lever and Speedwagon and Zeppeli is now inside the castle. The episode ends with Zeppeli deciding to help JoJo but there is something wrong with Zeppeli in this scene, it seems that he is like saying his final message before he dies. It didn't help that the opening instrumental music of the ending theme starts playing when Zeppeli starts becoming more serious about helping JoJo!