JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind Episode 17 Review: Baby Head

Do you remember those anti-piracy advertisements that used to play on VHS tapes? ‘You wouldn’t steal a car, so why would you steal a movie?’. Well, Giorno wouldn’t just steal a car- he’d steal a hundred! This week’s episode introduces us to Melone and his Stand Baby Face, who gets in the way of the Bucciarati Team’s journey to Venice.

Japanese title: ベイビィ・フェイス

Plot

Hitman team member Melone uses a sample of Bucciarati’s blood with his Stand Baby Face to create a sort of homunculus which will hunt down its target. Due to being born from a woman filled with rage, the homunculus very quickly understands the meaning of murderous intent, and doesn’t hesitate to head straight to where Bucciarati is. It makes its way to the tortoise without Giorno noticing, and it attacks Trish and Bucciarati with its ability to transform humans into inanimate objects. It tries this ability on Giorno, taking his throat and eye. Unfortunately for Baby Face, this gives Giorno the idea to create his own body parts using Gold Experience. Despite the rough start, Giorno is able to use Golden Experience in a new way to defeat the enemy Stand.

Highlights

– Melone’s rainbow tongue was unexpected and made me quite uncomfortable. It was great.
– Bucciarati making a hole in the closet with Sticky Fingers for Trish to use as a toilet and then to actually say that the tortoise might even benefit from it had me in stitches. Bucciarati may be awesome but that was such a ‘man’ thing to say. Poor Trish.
– Melone’s classes for the newly-born homunculus were highly educational.
– Melone’s poses this whole episode were perfect; from the sexy way he draped himself on the train seat to his ‘invisible chair’ pose outside.

Trivia

– Trish’s language: It’s probably very interesting to note that the Japanese that Trish was using is quite lady-like. Although she was obviously quite annoyed at Bucciarati in the Turtle, her language was extremely (if not overly) polite and feminine.
– Di molto: Melone has a habit of saying ‘di molto!’ whenever he is excited. Apparently this means ‘very’ in Italian, but apparently can’t be used as a phrase in itself.

‘Because of you, my Golden Experience was able to grow’

Melone is my favorite member of the Assassin Squad and this episode certainly gave him justice. To be very frank, he is visually very, very attractive. I am also personally a big fan of the color scheme the anime decided to use for him. I love his ever so slightly erotic poses, which go well with his revealing outfit and beautiful face (I’m sorry). It’s a shame we don’t get to see much more of this character. Melone and Baby Face also brought us some much-needed black humor in a quintessentially JoJo way.

Baby Face is also quite a unique Stand, taking the form of a sturdy old-fashioned computer that can create remote Stands using the DNA of a man and a woman. What’s also very fun to watch is that Stand’s ‘son’ not only has this interesting ability to pull apart living objects, but it also has its own distinct personality (similar to Koichi’s Echoes Act. 3).

The episode was a visual treat as always, and I especially liked how the color scheme used during Giorno’s beating up of the enemy was in golden hues- perfect for our golden boy. I’m also quite impressed by how well Baby Face’s ability was animated! The mix of 2D and 3D animation blended perfectly to show what probably would have been very difficult to make using traditional methods.

Anyway, that’s enough of me thirsting for Melone. Ciao for now!