Maybe a reason for the unreasonably high rating is the fact that most people give their ratings early on, before they get to see how the anime ends. Another one is that manga readers would base their rating on how well this part was adapted, and not on the quality of the story itself. In any case, I’ll explain why this part was not bad, but definitely not as good as any of its predecessors.
First what this part got right, if you’re a fan of jojo you know David production always goes the extra mile to make sure they not only adapt the manga well, but even improve on it in many aspects. Animation, sound design and soundtracks are great.
The story being set in an Italian mafia gang is great, because it avoids many of the self-righteous themes about justice and morality. Different parties have specific objectives, and they’d do whatever brutal methods it takes to achieve them. In that sense it’s better that the sort of cartoonish tone that some parts of part 3 had. It also had basically no filler arcs, unlike parts 3 and 4, where you could basically take out a lot of arcs in them, and the story wouldn’t be impacted at all.
We follow the piss-drinking Muda-yelling Giorno Giovanna, on his dream to become a gangster. For his motivation we have the very generic “drugs are bad” reason, in that aspect Bruno was a better main character than him. As for his character, it’s pretty much non-existent, he’s just perfect in every way, every time he opens his mouth or does anything, everyone is amazed at how right and perceptive he is, to the point where he basically becomes a plot device instead of a character. His backstory, like many others in this part, feels irrelevant since it’s never explored or connects with anything back in the story. Hell, we don’t even know how he came into existence since Dio supposedly never cared about children and viewed the human race as his subjects. And finally his stand has the power to grant life to objects, which later means he can heal injuries and regenerate body parts. Yeah. Remember in part 4 when Josuke had the restriction that he can heal everyone except himself, because that would make him too OP? Apparently Araki changed his mind for this part, which very unsurprisingly meant there was very low tension in a lot of fights. It got to a point where they would basically lose limbs and receive near fatal wounds every single fight after that, and it always meant nothing to us.
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Following the trend of severe lack of characterization in this part, Diavolo definitely suffered from this as well, he was intimidating and had an OP stand as usual, but other than that there was nothing interesting about him. Sure the dynamic between him and Doppio was interesting, but that amounted to nothing at the end, Doppio died the lamest and most pointless death I’ve ever seen, and their backstory wasn’t explored again ever. I know the joke “Araki forgot” exists, but that was just ridiculous, it was like he literally forgot all about that weird backstory he gave them, and never explained anything again. Who was his father? Why did he torture his mother? Why did he keep her alive? When did he develop his second personality? Nothing answered.
The most disappointing aspect of this part was its lackluster ending. Araki always struggles with this, where he gives the villain a ridiculously overpowered ability, and then has to do an ass pull to figure out a way to beat it. In part 2 kars lost even after becoming a god because a detached hand impaled him into outer space. In part 3 we discover out of nowhere that jotaro could also stop time. In part 4 kira has to undo bites the dust and eventually lose basically because he literally always thinks out loud so josuke heard him say his name (that was hilarious). Noticing a trend here? It was always so ridiculous, it never made any sense, but we never cared, because the final fights always managed to deliver, they were always so damn entertaining. This is jojo’s after all, a show where cyborg Nazis fight liquefied vampires. But that was sadly not the case for the finale of part 5, it wasn’t even a fight. It was a confusing mess, where they were chasing an arrow after a rogue stand took it and kept walking like a zombie. Random rules were made up on the spot, and after the arrow inevitably falls into Giorno’s hands, it’s all over. Diavolo dies infinitely (why??), Bruno finally dies after destroying the little sun behind his head (what??), and Polnareff is now a turtle…… Definitely the worst ending of any previous part.
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This part is definitely overrated, and by overrated I don’t mean bad. I was really enjoying it, and maybe up to 4 or 5 episodes before the ending, I was sure it would be one of my favorite parts for me, but sadly the ending of a series either makes or breaks it, and unfortunately the ending disappoints.
Art 7/10
Sound 8/10
Plot 6/10
Characters 4/10
Enjoyment 9/10
Overall 7/10
