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Let's Watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

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While it was touched upon somewhat in other posts and parts of my analysis are conjecture (as I don't have access to any of Araki's interviews and don't know if he has spoken of this) I believe Joseph's continued sexism towards and flirtation with Lisa Lisa is the result of Araki putting a new (at the time) spin on the Wise Mentor and Cheeky Brat dynamic where instead of the Cheeky Brat disrespects his mentor because he is "some weird old man" the Brat instead disrespects his mentor because he would rather be flirting with her. There is also the matter of contrasting Joseph "the Rogue" to Jonathon "the Paladin", where the previous JoJo would never show this level of disrespect to either his mentor or a woman our current JoJo has no problem doing either, this contrast means that Joseph is generally less boring than Jonathon but it also means that Joseph sometimes amuses, baffles, or infuriates the viewer as much as the characters he shares a stage with.

On an unrelated note: While Ceasar currently holds utmost respect towards Lisa Lisa, what does everyone think are the odds Ceasar flirted shamelessly with Lisa Lisa until he had his current level of respect beaten into him.
 
Ghoul King said:
The fact that such beliefs have a basis in physical fact is precisely why I call it debatably a sexist belief. There is a basic element of truth here, and agreeing to that truth is not itself a sexist belief.

But.

Different individuals interpret the implications and degree of that truth differently, both in terms of reality and in terms of fictional writing. Some stories will be willing to depict a woman overpowering a man in combat, but feel the need to emphasize that the woman is incredibly fit and the man is incredibly unfit, as if the author feels the gap between inherent male and female capabilities is so vast that a merely slightly slovenly man would, to their mind, automatically overpower a fitness nut woman. Other stories will treat it as 'all else being equal, a man is going to beat a woman in combat' but be perfectly happy to have a woman beat a man in physical combat on the basis of her fighting a bit smarter, or being willing to push herself a bit harder, or because he wasn't taking it seriously because she's a woman, or some other comparatively minor justification.

Those are two very different extremes, both of which agree 'men are generally stronger than women'. I'd tend to argue the first one is, nonetheless, pretty clearly sexist, even though theoretically it's rooted in the same belief as the second scenario, and even though said belief is in a general sense pretty concretely true.

In Araki's case, I'm calling his belief 'debatably sexist' because Part 1 looks an awful lot like one of those extreme interpretations in which All Men Are Way Stronger Than All Women to an unrealistic degree... but there's some ambiguity there, and Part 2 involves a shift.
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This is one of those situations where having solid data would be useful, but I can't find any, though there's plenty of anecdotes. So people rely on recorded fights, the most touted is Lucia Rijker vs Somchai Jaidee, where Lucia was knocked out in the 2nd round. Something I'll note is that people tend to play up Lucia's record(which I feel is deserved), while playing down Somchai's, calling him an "average" fighter, despite him being at that time the Australasian champion. And they never bring up the cases where the female won, like Sherisse Subero or Ediane Gomes.
 
firefossil said:
Yeah overall Araki's record for women so far as the Let's Read has gotten is pretty lousy. Their sole roles have been "progenitor" because he hasn't figured out a way to have the Joestars reproduce through muscle mitosis yet and "victim". They can be a spirited victim that slaps the villain but are still powerless and lacking agency. Lisa Lisa is the first female character we've seen that has any degree of agency.
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Lisa Lisa is the second female character we've seen who wasn't an extra written solely for a particular scene or as backstory, period. The other one being Erina. And as noted, Lisa Lisa's very existence is a marked departure from shonen conventions of the time, in which there would be zero female characters capable of displaying plot-relevant combat strength.

What we're seeing here is, I guess, sort of the grandmother of all future strong female characters in the genre. I'm braced for her to be a bit disappointingly incomplete about it. In the same sense that Susan B. Anthony might have been disappointing in some sense by being incompletely feminist by modern standards.
 
Leila Hann said:


Or...not a gas mask, apparently. A "breathing correction apparatus," possibly of Lisa's own invention, that makes breathing impossible unless you do it in perfect hamon rhythm. She rationalizes this with the assertion that if he can't keep his hamon breathing going for a month, then Wamuu is just going to kill him at the end of it anyway, so there's no reason to not risk his life in the interest of maximizing his training. She does tell him he can remove the mask to eat and sleep though, so that's nice of her.

She then says that JoJo isn't her only student at the moment; she's creating a crack squad of elite sendogis in the hopes of killing the pillarmen before they can do whatever they're planning to do. Interesting bit of reflection, here; putting painful masks on people in order to turn them into powerful servants. I wonder if Lisa might have been gazing into the abyss for a bit too long.

This isn't just a post-pillarmen thing either, according to Caesar. He seems to remember these masks from his own training with Lisa, although she wasn't nearly as aggressive about it. So, either she's been dealing with and (perhaps unconsciously) inspired by the stone masks for much longer than the pillarmen have been known about, or its just a rather spooky coincidence.

JoJo splashes into the water until he can regain control of his breathing, and then morosely pulls himself onto the dock as Lisa and Caesar do some friendly catching up. Eventually, Lisa turns to leave, and he makes dejectedly sexist comments at her back. Even Caesar is pissed off, though I think this is less because of JoJo's general sexism and more because he's turning it against someone who Caesar actually cares about.
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I'm surprised that no-one mentioned the obvious point about the mask slapped on Jojo. It's not related to the Stone Masks or anything so actually interesting, but instead it's rather more likely that they're based on Elevation Masks, which exist to simulate the similar breathing conditions that one would face at higher altitudes. Now, while whether they work or not in real life is up for pretty one-sided debate, this is the Jojo world, so a device like this pretty much works as advertised.
 
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SneakyWalrus said:
I'm surprised that no-one mentioned the obvious point about the mask slapped on Jojo. It's not related to the Stone Masks or anything so actually interesting, but instead it's rather more likely that they're based on Elevation Masks, which exist to simulate the similar breathing conditions that one would face at higher altitudes. Now, while whether they work or not in real life is up for pretty one-sided debate, this is the Jojo world, so a device like this pretty much works as advertised.
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Hah, I had no idea that was Araki drawing on yet more pseudoscience for inspiration for his magic-powered bullsh*t.
 
SneakyWalrus said:
I'm surprised that no-one mentioned the obvious point about the mask slapped on Jojo. It's not related to the Stone Masks or anything so actually interesting, but instead it's rather more likely that they're based on Elevation Masks, which exist to simulate the similar breathing conditions that one would face at higher altitudes. Now, while whether they work or not in real life is up for pretty one-sided debate, this is the Jojo world, so a device like this pretty much works as advertised.
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Lisa Lisa: Do you know how much money I've invested into those stupid elevation masks before finding out they don't work? I will find a use for them even if it kills you.
 
Oh yeah, I never even made that connection for why the Ripple Warriors train up in the Himalayas in Tibet. Seems so obvious in hindsight.
 
Leingod said:
Oh yeah, I never even made that connection for why the Ripple Warriors train up in the Himalayas in Tibet. Seems so obvious in hindsight.
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Well, no. The reason for that is that "Tibetan monks possessing ancient wisdom and supernatural powers" is a really old idea firmly entrenched in pulp fiction and early comics. You can probably blame theosophy for that.
 
illhousen said:
Well, no. The reason for that is that "Tibetan monks possessing ancient wisdom and supernatural powers" is a really old idea firmly entrenched in pulp fiction and early comics. You can probably blame theosophy for that.
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Well yeah, but on top of that there's an actual justification here that high mountains would make for a good place to train your lung capacity.
 
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