JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind Episode 12 Review: The Second Mission from the Boss

Giorno, I’m pretty sure if somebody tells you to move because it’s dangerous, you should move first and THEN ask questions?!
Anyway, with the introduction of Fugo’s Purple Haze this week, we finally have seen the Stands and backstories of each member of Bucciarati’s team.

Plot

Giorno, Abbachio and Fugo head to Pompeii in order to reach the Beware the Dog mosaic. However, Fugo is attacked by a peculiar Stand that traps him inside a mirror world. He tries to attack the enemy with his Stand, Purple Haze, but instead almost ends up putting his teammates in serious danger. Is this message enough to get Abbachio and Giorno realize what situation Fugo is in?

Original Japanese title: ボスからの第二指令

Thoughts

The David Production adaptation has been pretty consistent so far in bringing the backstories of Bucciarati’s subordinates forward so that we can learn about the characters at the same time that we learn about their Stands. Fugo is a slight exception to this, though, as he never actually received a flashback in the manga. What we knew was pretty much what Illuso said- that he was genius who got kicked out of university for bludgeoning a teacher with an encyclopedia. It is never really expanded upon (unless you count the 2011 novel Purple Haze Feedback as canon), so a lot of the flashback we saw this episode is original to the David Production adaptation.
If I am going to be completely honest, I feel slightly differently towards the Fugo of the manga and the Fugo of the anime. This may be because the rage of anime!Fugo has almost been justified by the backstory he’s just been given. The pressure put on him by his parents no doubt triggered his severe anger issues, but we can see that his morals were able to suppress them. We also see this conflict between his unbridled rage and his morals when he frankly confides in Bucciarati that he does terrible things when angry, and warns that he could end up hurting even Bucciarati. When it comes to the incident with the teacher, well it turned out the professor that Fugo respected turned out to be a disgusting nonce, so I’m pretty sure most people would actually feel that the teacher got what was coming to him. Betrayed by his teacher and rejected by his family, Fugo is living on the streets until his usefulness is recognized by Bucciarati and he is invited as the first recruit to his team.
The anime episode certainly succeeded in evoking feelings of sympathy and even empathy towards Fugo, but you could also argue that it makes the manga and anime versions of this character slightly different. That’s up to you to decide.

Highlights

・The fear that Abbachio shows is not something we see very often, and it really shows just how deadly Fugo’s Stand is.
・The addition of an original scene where Fugo gets angry at Giorno both highlights Fugo’s short temper and Giorno’s coolness.
・Purple Haze is absolutely crazy. For a few seconds, just getting close enough to this Stand is a certain death sentence, and I was really glad to see him look so unnerving in the anime.

Trivia

・Man in the Mirror: The enemy Stand this week is called Man in the Mirror, which is of course named after a Michael Jackson song. I allllllways get the song in my head whenever the name pops up. If you’re watching with subs, the Stands name in the localization is ‘Mirror Man’

・Purple Haze: I’m a Hendrix fan, so the reference that Fugo’s Stand was pretty obvious to me from the start. Apart from being named after a Hendrix song (that may or may not be about drugs, although it was claimed to have been a love song…), I find a lot of parallels between Hendrix and Fugo. Both were no doubt geniuses, and prone to sudden spouts of rage and violence (Hendrix was famous for being violent when under the influence). The Stand physically represents the ‘purple haze’, with a purple-colored Stand and a deadly viral haze that surrounds it. Although Fugo’s Stand makes a criminally low number of appearances, I find it the most memorable because it both perfectly represents Fugo and lives up to its name. His name in the official English localization is ‘Purple Smoke’.

・Pompeii: I would be astounded if any of you guys don’t know about Pompeii. It was more-or-less destroyed by the powerful eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, but much of the town was preserved, including the bodies of the people who died their. The mosaic which the trio are heading for is over 2 thousand years old and is known as ‘Beware of the Dog’. It is located in the House of the Tragic Poet.

‘I’ll bring out the best in you. Including that fierce, impulsive rage of yours’

Fugo’s Stand really is one of the most terrifying Stands in the JoJoverse, so I’m glad it got a well-done introduction here. I liked the addition of Fugo’s flashback (although I imagine there are some people who are not as happy with it). I don’t think much will stick in my mind from this episode other than Fugo’s backstory, but I’m looking forward to seeing how and if Giorno is able to get his team members to trust him during this mission.