Joseph finally meets Santana and instead of fighting him like we expect him to do, he pokes his nose. Wow. Guess their fight might be interesting in a way I guess. But the question is, can Joseph's knowledge of the Ripple enough to defeat the Ultimate Lifeform named Santana?
This episode is seriously fantastic. Aside that Joseph pointed out that the possibility why Santana attacked them is because they provoked him to attack makes sense. In addition, I just love that Joseph has plans on trying to resolve their problem with Santana by talking, since hey, the reason why he is here in the first place is to save Speedwagon and bring him back to New York for crying out loud. But everything changed when Santana started talking, giving us a general idea about his personality. To sum it up, he thinks highly of himself and sees Joseph and the rest as primitive human beings.
For a primitive human, he thinks that Joseph is more primitive than he is. This is when the fight between Joseph and Santana finally begins. What interests me is Santana's move of using his ribs as his weapons. It's kinda creepy at first but slowly, I am starting to like it, especially how flexible it is. If Joseph doesn't know the Ripple, he is dead by now but nope, thanks to the Ripple, he continues to live thanks to how it protected him in battle.
This made Santana realize that maybe humans have evolved just a bit and checks Speedwagon's head after Joseph fainted. But nope, he is not right, it is just Joseph. Speaking of which, Joseph stands and again attacks Santana. What made it interesting is that Joseph finally realized that his Ripple is ineffective to this creature. It's ineffective in a sense that we didn't see Santana feel any pain if I will base it in his face! What's more, it seems that Joseph's arm was absorbed by Santana... or not. Sometimes, I am not sure if I will be pissed or I will laugh every time Joseph starts joking in a middle of a really serious fight. But then I realize it is hard not to hate a cool guy such as Joseph who likes to break the serious mood just to crack a hand joke!
Speaking of the said joke, it helps us breath for a moment after seeing how ineffective Joseph's Ripple attack is. Joseph's plan to defeat Santana is really great. If punches won't work, why not try and defeat him with something sharp like a knife? It's a smart move considering that guns and fists didn't work at all. But nope, bladed objects also don't work in this rubber man. I am not sure how the heck Joseph can continue on fighting this guy even though the odds are not in his favor.
At the end, he is absorbed by Santana now that he is defenseless but what I didn't expect is that he turned his difficulty into an opportunity! Now that he is inside his body, he used it to pass Ripple inside it, cutting Santana's body into half! It's seriously amazing and I didn't expect that Joseph will do such a thing! Now that Santana's body is cut in half, he ties the head till the torso in some chain so that he can drag him out in the sunlight. Thankfully, just like the Stone Mask vampires, his weakness is also sunlight, making this task easier to Joseph... that's what we thought.
Joseph having breathing problems is something I sort of expected. The guy fought some ancient lifeform that is stronger than the average Stone Mask vampire and that his breathing is a bit labored because of it. Santana using this opportunity to use his flesh as a weapon to chew on Joseph's body is really impressive. But what stunned me is not this scene but Stroheim ignoring his hatred on the Brits thanks to World War II and helps Joseph to beat Santana! It's so amazing that I can't believe a German is willing to lose an arm and leg just to kill Santana.
By lose an arm and a leg; Joseph followed Stroheim's orders to cut his leg while he is being restrained by Santana's tentacles (?). This just shows his dedication as a soldier and made me realize that maybe, not all German soldiers during World War II are bad after all. As expected, Santana's body is being burned by the sunlight. But there is one thing that we have forgotten about him, he is smarter than an average human being and that he can go inside a human's body as long as it has holes in it. That's what he did in this situation as he entered Stroheim's body.
This is then lead to one scene that I until now, stunned me. That is Stroheim killing himself at the end with the use of a bomb. His dedication for Germany is outstanding that it is hard not to hate the guy. His death made me respect the guy more. To top it all off, he revealed the purpose why they revived Santana. After learning the reason that they want to defeat three other Pillar Men found in Europe, it caused me to respect the World War II Germans in fiction a bit more. What's more, we don't know if these Pillar Men are weaker or stronger than Santana!
But at the end, his sacrifice is not enough to defeat Santana. Seriously, how can you kill this creature?! If Joseph's Ripple is not strong enough to kill the guy and some strong explosion and sunlight can't kill it, what method is best to kill this guy?! Thankfully, Joseph's quick thinking saved him as Santana's attempt to jump a well also caused his death. The sun's reflection in the water roasted Santana's body until his body became stone, killing him for good. This scenario reminded me a bit of Jonathan's first fight with Dio and if there is one thing I learned from this one is that this generation's JoJo will begin training to defeat the 3 Pillar Men.
