JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind Episode 26 Review: A Little Story from the Past: My Name Is Doppio

Doppio is here! He may technically be an enemy, but that doesn’t stop him from somehow being absolutely precious. In a bold move, the anime also decided to move what we know of the boss’ backstory very far forward, and it was definitely worth the risk.

Japanese tile: ほんの少し昔の物語〜ぼくの名はドッピオ〜

Plot

Back in 1967, a woman gave birth in an all-female prison despite being imprisoned for over two years. Not being able to raise a child in a prison, the baby is taken in by a kind priest on the island of Sardinia. The child grows into a kind and simple man, and decides to become a sailor instead of a priest, and even enjoys a summer fling with a woman on vacation from the mainland. The boy’s father, wanting to build him a garage, accidentally comes across a half-dead woman trapped in the concrete. That night, the entire village burns down, with the names of the priest and the boy included in the dead…

16 years later, a boy of similar appearance is walking through Sardinia, as he is called out to by a Romani fortune teller. The fortune teller is very excited by the boy, as he can tell that he has ‘two separate lives’. However, this fortune teller knows too much and the boy practically transforms into a completely different person, killing the fortuneteller in the alley with his Stand, King Crimson.

We later see the boy, Doppio, along the coast as he heads to the area in the photograph of Trish’s mother. It becomes clear that he can only communicate with the Boss via phone, even if there is no real phone in the vicinity. This boy holds the personality of the Boss without even realizing it.

Our cute little Doppio is attacked by assassin leader Risotto, who holds the boy in high suspicion. After the noise of Aerosmith gives away the fact that Doppio is a Stand user, the assassin somehow attacks the boy by forcing razorblades out of the boy’s own mouth! It seems that the boy has no way of defeating Risotto, that is until we learn that he actually holds a part of King Crimson’s abilities.

Highlights

– As the series has already done many times, we have an extended backstory in this episode. Not only has this backstory been brought way forward, we also get to see how the Boss met Trish’s mother. I love the fact that the creators were careful not to show the Boss’ face, and even gave him dialogues which was not present in the manga. It was quite a bold move bringing this forward to our meeting with Doppio, but I personally think it was a very good move.

– We got a great transition shot between the prison and Sardinia.

– The anime makes fantastic use of Doppio’s eyes, from seeing them change ever so slightly when he was a baby,to them swinging in opposite directions when the ‘phone’ is ringing. The eyes make it easy enough to know whether we are looking at Doppio or the Boss, which is helpful as there were a few instances when we had the Boss’ personality but the voice of Doppio (i.e. Soma Saito). Even the way Doppio’s eyes shifted around in nervousness as he was on the phone are worth paying attention to.

– We already had a hint a few episodes ago that Soma Saito would be playing Doppio. Now, I’m a bit of a Saito fangirl so I’m probably very biased here, but I think he is doing an amazing job. His TURURURU is pretty much the best TURURURU to have been recorded in the history of Golden Wind adaptations, and the little ‘beep’ when he ended the frog-call really sent me. My favorite part of his performance this episode was how he was able to give us so many sides to the character in such a short amount of time. The biggest props should go to how pathetic and scared he sounded after first getting attacked by Risotto. There is a reason Soma Saito is one of the most popular voice actors today.

Trivia

There are a few small changes in the dates, such as the Boss’ birth year changing from 1967 to 1965, making him 36 years old at the time of Golden Wind. It also seems that the Boss met Trish’s mother in June 1985, which clashes with the June 1985 birthdate that we were given for Trish in the manga. Trish must have been born in early spring 1986, making her 14/15 at the time of Golden Wind.

‘Hello, this is Doppio’

Yeeessss!! This is how you handle Doppio’s introduction! From all the tiny little additions such as an extended backstory, to Soma Saito’s absolutely stellar performance as Doppio, we got a great episode focusing on one of the series’ most beloved characters. although we can never know 100% what is going on with Doppio and the Boss, it does seem clear that he has no idea that he actually the Boss himself. The way his eyes swing outwards when he is ‘calling’ hint that he has truly does not understand that he is just imagining a phone call. How will our cute Doppio get out of this sticky situation with Risotto? And how does the Stand on his forehead work?