JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken Part 2: Sentou Chuuryuu Chapter 68 Discussion

gfsdfgsdgsdfgs said:
We got a brief glimpse at Cars’ past this chapter and it made me feel more bored of him.  His motivations may have been different and his demeanor much so, but the whole “I want to surpass my limits” cut throat goal was a bit too similar to Dio for my taste.  He obviously had nuance and I don’t want to undervalue him but he certainly felt underwhelming as the big bad for me.  Dio’s super villain actions only worked so well because of his origin and the humanizing way they pushed him to that limit, in other words the tragedy of Dio that we too felt.  With Cars I would have preferred him to stay in the camp I had initially assumed, that is, for the Pillar Men to be wholly unhateable and in a sense, necessary.  Instead Cars felt spiteful and arrogant and the narrator described him as “absolute evil”, yet he was an absolute evil I never felt too strongly about. 

That said, his apparent care for his allies to some degree and his care over life are to be kept in mind, as with his genius ability to keep this plan on track and be composed until it was time to strike.  And, his past was cool, the fact that he took two children with him and his companion ACDC especially.  The term companion here makes me think he was an ally that was okay with Cars mission and actions.  The two children may have been as simple as child soldiers to use as pawns for Cars and it seems assumed that they were Santana and Wham.  It definitely gives a feeling of a family that have been together for a long time which strengthens ACDC and Wham’s loyalty for sure.  However it leaves some confusion, for if the children were Santana and Wham, it seemed in the present that they were far different in age.  Cars described Santana as living 1/10th of “their” life earlier in the manga, though truthfully we don’t know their aging process.  Later Cars stated “ACDC and Wham were companions I had for more than a thousand years”, although, again, not necessarily going against the interpretation of Wham being the child.  This opens up two further questions, one is why was Santana separated from them if they all started together, and second with seeing there were Pillar Women, if Cars is gone for good which I do have to question, Santana is this the last remaining Pillar Man and I presume he won’t be able to reproduce.

The fight all in all did half of what I wanted, that is, for it to feel more unclear on what is and isn’t Joseph’s plan. It didn’t have Cars out-intellect him and start some killer mind games as I’d hoped but, it was still a subversion.  To have a battle genius who wins all of his battles through careful planning lose if not for a subconscious move with the stone and pure luck, and then to fake that it was all according to keikaku is perhaps the perfect way to end Joseph’s journey.  The frantic back and forth and teamwork with our bro Stroheim helped stop this from feeling too formulaic.  Outside of somehow Joseph not recognizing that the stone amplified ripple, I predicted that his cut off arm would definitely be used in the next trick paired with the stone to finish Cars off and send him to space.  That happened just absolutely not at all like I was speculating!

So, Cars can transform into anything living as far as I know, but can that adapt to freaking space?  I don’t think so… Either way, this kind of ends the Dio saga.  Cars created the mask which resulted in Dio killing Jonathan and his dad.  Later a zombie created in turn from the mask killed George sending Lisa Lisa into hiding.  And now the ramifications of the man that has haunted the Joestar’s since Phantom Blood may have been stopped.  Although, to be fair, there may still be stone masks in the world.