This is the live-action Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable movie, and I watched this mainly I guess because I’m curious about Takashi Miike’s varous live action adaptation movies – like there’s that Like a Dragon one, that Ace Attorney one, etc. I guess technically Ichi the Killer and Blade of the Immortal (which I’ve seen) are adaptations too, but not of something I’ve read before. Anyway, not having gigantic expectations that this would stand meaningfully apart from the original, I feel like it was pretty much just what I expected. It’s a competent, generally faithful but maybe a little soulless-feeling adaptation. I had a pretty good time watching it for the most part, but it’s kinda long and I ended up going to bed rather than stay up to finish it, and when I did come back to it a few days later – I did feel markedly less on board with the whole thing. Where at first I was pleasantly surprised at how directly a lot of the designs were brought in (they’re even gamely trying to have Jotaro’s hair become his hat in that way that it does) and happy to enjoy a few silly stand battles I only vaguely remembered from the series (in general the plot seems like it was more faithful than I would have guessed from my memory? I would have read the beginning of Diamond is Unbreakable some years ago and in English, before eventually finishing relatively recently in Japanese – so it makes sense my memory would be scattered), once I came back to it I was struck a lot more by the drabness of the movie. I think it’s probably an impossible ask to expect a live action movie to feel like a Hirohiko Araki drawing, but there’s something… that just doesn’t feel like it meshes here. Like the characters look silly, and they’ve got stands that look like the manga, but apart from those elements… the style of the movie isn’t so out of place from a Marvel movie or more closely – some other Takashi Miike movie. The vibe feels “standard, with Jojo elements” I guess is maybe what I mean, in a way where the manga never really feels standard at any point. For the characterizations too – the policeman grandpa feels like he’s emphasized way more here as a character motivation, and the over the top tough guy posturing and taking the weird stuff at face value is preserved here… but I don’t know if that alone makes a Jojo character. Jojo characters feel to me like they’re always off on their own inscrutable wavelength, and there’s glimpses of that here (Yukako I think is pretty strong although that doesn’t go anywhere since this is supposed to be the start of a series) but I’m not sure it’s completely sold. I dunno – hard to know what to do with the whole thing, and I suppose that may be inevitable. I also don’t think the 第一章 business serves the movie at all. Maybe just since I hardly remember anything from the material covered by the movie in the original manga, but I have got to think it would have been wiser in retrospect to go big or go home and pull in Rohan and Kira and stuff right out of the gate. It would have felt for better or for worse like more of a complete movie, at least. As it is it feels like a somewhat interesting curio.