JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind Episode 8 Review: Six Bullets Appears, Part 2

Thoughts on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind Episode 8

Japanese title: セックス・ピストルズ登場　その②

This episode starts off with a look at Mista before he joined Passione. He was a simple man who enjoyed the simple things and was living a peaceful life. However, one day he comes across a group of men attacking a woman and finds himself jumping in. The bullets shot at him seem to avoid him, and seemingly without thinking, he shoots each of the men with precision right in the faces. This is the beginning of his life with Passione.
Jumping back to current events, we get to see that Mista did not attack the driver but knew that Sale was on top of the truck. I guess I enjoyed watching Mista’s fight with Sale this episode because honestly I do not remember it all that much from the manga; perhaps proof that it is not exactly one of the more memorable events from Golden Wind. Although it takes up the majority of the episode, Mista vs Sale doesn’t feel too much of a drag (in part because of the adorable Sex Pistols. However, the use of color, animation (including CG), music and IshiKai’s great acting make the scene with the split bullet one of the more exciting little scenes so far!
Despite me not being all that excited about this episode, there really isn’t all that much negative to say. The animation was on good quality, the VAs were great, and it was a necessary episode to get us to learn about Mista and his Stand.

Highlights

Look at the past: Just like with Abbacchio’s episode, we get to see Mista’s past a lot earlier than in the manga. Again, this was a very good decision on the anime’s part, as it gives us a much better understanding of who Mista is. I personally felt in that manga that we were spending a lot of time with these guys without truly understanding them, so I’m personally very glad we are getting their backstories a lot earlier than in the original work. However, the manga does NOT show us how Mista became a free man or how he met Bruno. I guess this may be a story for another time.

Angry Giorno: When Giorno basically carjacks the truck at the end of the episode, it is one of the few times we see him very much lose his cool. One thing I really liked about this scene is that Giorno was shouting yet STILL was speaking in very polite language.

Trivia

Kraft Work: named after German industrial band Kraftwerk, Sales’s Stand has the ability to manipulate kinetic motion. This is actually a really powerful Stand, and I think Sale probably would have gotten a lot further if it weren’t for his overconfidence.

Guns on Point: One of the things I’ve noticed regarding the animation during Mista’s episodes is the detail put into Mista’s firearm. Despite being quite a fun purple color, the detailed shading and sharp lines really do make it look like a dangerous weapon. This is perhaps thanks to the fact that the gun had a whole animation director to itself. That’s true attention to detail.

‘It’s not meaningless’

As this episode focused almost entirely on two characters, it did feel a little bit lonely by the end. However, I do feel like we’ve become better friends with the assassin of the team thanks to the backstory. Mista’s Stand may not have the strength or power of some of the others in the series. but it does have something that I can’t get enough of- the comic relief. I really like those little guys. Unlike most of the other characters in the series, Mista doesn’t have a traumatic past, and even though his peaceful life was suddenly disrupted, it doesn’t seem like the incident with the gunmen has left him mentally scarred. This is why I believe that Mista is very much needed in the group in order to balance out the rest of the crazy.