”Why am I trying to humor a cat?”
What They Say:
“Cats Love Yoshikage Kira”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Seeing Josuke and co. take on the new wave of Stand Users created by Kira’s father has been interesting enough, but it’s nice to finally get an episode solely dedicated to Kira and just exactly what he’s been up to post face-stealing and identity-theft. We’ve already gotten small snippets of his new life in previous episodes, so some time dedicated solely to him and his newfound family was definitely overdue.
The intrigue to seeing Kira take on this entirely new lifestyle works on so many levels. Since Kira has essentially stolen another person’s life, we get to witness the numerous challenges that come with this territory, keeping in mind that these are the ridiculous lengths he’s willing to go to just to live a peaceful, normal life—Kira himself failing to see how paradoxical his actions are. He’s been dropped into a suburban family stuck in a rut consisting of a loveless marriage and uncommunicative child. The premise alone compliments Diamond is Unbreakable’s modern horror themes, focusing on the pristine image associated with the concept of a Nuclear Family, only to immediately pervert them through Kira’s deeds.
This episode’s first half is dedicated to the introductory of a stray cat (who Kira appropriately nicknames “Stray Cat”)—a Stand User and all-around annoyance to Kira, who’s only been hit with a string of annoyances throughout the series. Unlike having to learn the idiosyncrasies of a person he’s killed in order to assume his identity, Stray Cat acts as a more immediate threat. While Kira practicing how to match his victim’s handwriting, and switching out his shoes for bigger sizes are done in secret, Stray Cat is as in-your-face and needy as can be, attacking anyone to the point of near death if it doesn’t take a liking to them. The dynamic between the two is practically sitcommy in execution, with the normally cool and collected Kira having to walk on eggshells when it comes to dealing with this otherwise unassuming cat. And while Kira ultimately gains control of the situation, you know that no good can come from keeping the cat shelved for too long.
The latter half of the episode focuses on Hayato—the son of the man whose identity Kira has stolen. Hayato is an innately interesting character not only because the show usually doesn’t focus on children, but just in how much more modern the series feels whenever he’s brought into the spotlight. Unlike children in previous Jojo iterations that are bratty with zero redeeming qualities, Hayato embodies the modern child in that he rebels against his parents in tiny, subtle ways—mainly in that he typically doesn’t talk to them. This, in a series where characters are notorious for their blown-out over-explanations is a huge deviation from our normal Jojo character archetypes (though that’s not to say we still don’t get an over-explanation about Stray Cat’s powers… twice in the same episode, no less). His growing suspicion of his father, but inability to have anybody believe him simply because he’s a child feels like something out of a Goosebumps book, and I say that in the best way possible. It’s just the right amount of modern twist applied to old Jojo standards.
In Summary:
Having an episode solely dedicated to Kira and his new family was something that’s been a long time coming. The introduction of Stray Cat as well as better fleshing out Hayato’s character provide two very different flavors of foils to Kira, both serving as a means to keep the series from falling into its standard tropes in a direction that feels natural for a series that relishes in warping the mundane.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
