Monthly Boys’ Rohan-kun
What They Say:
Let’s Go To The Manga Artist’s House, Part 2
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Still in need of Koichi’s blend of a sensible personality and exciting life to influence his own manga, Rohan continues to use his Stand to literally take some pages out of him, Koichi being none the wiser due to Rohan’s Stand’s abilities. Koichi maintaining his horrific memories of Rohan only when inside the author’s house makes for a strange yet unique blend of psychological thriller and slapstick comedy. While you empathize with Koichi as he struggles to remember and tell Josuke and Okuyasu what he’s been going through, the sheer number of times he forgets and re-remembers reaches Looney Tunes levels of hilariously infuriating from a viewer’s standpoint. And in typical Jojo fashion, the cavalry doesn’t arrive until said frustration levels are brought to their maximum levels.
Once the punch-happy duo of Josuke and Okuyasu make their way into Rohan’s house, however, the gang isn’t out of the woods yet, as Rohan still uses his Stand to his advantage. During this showdown and episode as a whole, it should be pointed out that as dastardly as Rohan is, his acts are purely to benefit his own manga. He’s not necessarily evil in the same way that Dio or even Akira is—he’s just obsessed with making sure he does a good job as an author no matter the consequences. With this in mind, it makes sense that the main fight this episode is less focused on the fighting, and more focused on character analysis. Rohan bothering to explain the meta behind what Josuke should do next is something only his character can truly get away with doing, and Josuke’s own reaction completely disregarding what Rohan just said is the perfect (literal) punch in the face to the intentionally long-winded monologue.
Furthermore, the scene between Rohan and Josuke transitions perfectly into finally explaining why Josuke is so sensitive about others insulting his hair—something brought up way back in the first episode of Diamond is Unbreakable. Even with the flashback scene being uncharacteristically quiet and emotional, it’s those very factors breaking up the action of the episode that make it work in the first place.
In Summary:
The concluding episode to Rohan’s introduction is the perfect mix of horror, comedy, and heartstring-tugging—everything I’ve come to expect from the better Jojo episodes. Rohan using his Stand purely for self-centered non-world-dominating purposes falls in line perfectly with other Stand Users introduced in Morioh, and his final showdown with Josuke serves as the perfect means to finally get some well-needed backstory on Josuke himself, even sprinkling some mentionings of Part 3 continuity to better bring the episode home.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
