In this episode, we learned Zeppeli's fate and why JoJo is related to it. Later, we meet new allies and Dio's nefarious scheme will slowly bear fruit as more citizens of Wind Knights Lot are becoming zombies.
The series keeps getting better and better as they expanded more details about Baron Will A. Zeppeli before showing us his finest moment in the series. To sum up his fate, a kid must free a young lion from his chains to open a path for his future. To put it simply, it's Poco and JoJo and the future has something to do Zeppeli's relationship with JoJo. Because of what he witnessed, he finally concluded that it is his time to fulfill his fate, to open a path for the young lion's future.
Zeppeli in this episode is fantastic, his fight with Tarkus is fun to watch and see him having the upper hand thanks to skill as a Ripple Master made me cheer him more even though I am aware how will this end up. Tarkus being Tarkus, he used some dirty trick to wrap Zeppeli in his chains and with his strength, cut his body into half. What made the scene really great is that they did minimal censorship on that scene just for us to see that Zeppeli's body is cut in half thanks to the chains. What I didn't expect is Zeppeli still breathing and with the remaining ounce of his strength, pass his remaining life energy to JoJo.
The said scene is a scene between master and student with the master giving his student a final lesson, or someone might say, his will to continue on his teachings. It's a touching scene and seeing Zeppeli struggling just to pass on his will to JoJo made the scene more special. With Zeppeli having little of his life force remaining in his body, his body deteriorated into his older state, something that made the concept about the Ripple go in full circle because the body becomes weak once he or she reaches an old age.
Because of Zeppeli's life energy, it strengthened JoJo that he ripped the metal collar that even Tarkus can't destroy. The first thing I notice is that JoJo's body glows intensely, like it is emitting a lot of heat from his body. Because he is now freed from the collar, the first thing I notice is his back, the Joestar birthmark is present, something that the original manga didn't include during this story arc but is later brought up in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Part III called "Stardust Crusaders".
JoJo's fight with Tarkus is a bit one side, JoJo just ripped his hand and later his arm, destroying it in the process and it's all thanks to a single hand chop attack filled with Ripple energy! The animation for this scene is fantastic, they made sure that the idea that JoJo ripped Tarkus' arm in one chop and made sure that it didn't pass any censorship because in the original manga, the said scene is so brutal that you can see Tarkus' fingers flying around in one panel! Another thing to note is that once again, they didn't hide the Joestar birthmark like what the original manga did.
After another of Tarkus' cheap trick, JoJo finally defeated Tarkus, with only his armor left in the process. JoJo indeed made sure that there is nothing left in Tarkus' body, not a single bone or muscle is scene on the aftermath of the battle. Zeppeli's final moments is really touching, just like the scene earlier in the episode were Zeppeli pass on his will to JoJo, it is yet another master and student moment that revealed more details about Zeppeli abandoning his family just to pursue the Stone Mask just to prevent more people from getting ensnared with its power.
He sacrificed his own happiness just to destroy the Stone Mask and with that, I salute Zeppeli. But he found happiness in training JoJo and that is something coming from a teacher, since it just shows the dedication of a teacher for his student and seeing his student grow as a person is a big achievement to a teacher. After burning Zeppeli's remains, JoJo, Speedwagon and Poco head to village to see if the townsfolk are now zombies thanks to Dio.
Along the way, they encountered a zombie and had a sudden color shift that made JoJo's hair and shirt green, similar to the color of the 4th manga volume more most of the contents of this episode are taken from. The fight with the zombie ended up quickly and it is then followed with his meeting with some guy who can fight really well. His fight with this guy is fun to watch and it ended with the said man introducing himself as Dire and we meet his colleague, Straits who handed JoJo a letter coming from Zeppeli that they are the backup that he called for.
We also met Tompeti, Zeppeli, Dire and Straits mentor who later learned Zeppeli's fate. Re-checking the 4th volume of the manga, I noticed that they changed the letter scene. Instead of Dire attaching the letter on JoJo's shoulder pad, Straits handed the letter to JoJo. Another thing I notice is that they redesigned Straits and I prefer the manga version since he looked more like someone who came from Tibet. After learning what happened to Zeppeli, our heroes proceed to the village to finally finish this.
As for Dio, after seeing how evil he is by turning a mother into a zombie who asked Dio to not kill her child, she ends up killing her child after she became a zombie. Another thing I notice in Dio's castle is that they retained the man-cat creatures that surround Dio in the original manga. Those creatures sum up how Dio thinks of humans as someone who is as low as animals. Aside from his zombies that are hanging in his castle, Poco's older sister is held captive inside the castle. Can JoJo and his companions defeat Dio and save Poco's sister?