Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean Ep 1-12 Review: The Jailhouse Rocks

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure returns with Part 6: Stone Ocean. Unlike previous seasons, Jojo Part 6 is a Netflix licensed anime meaning that the first twelve episodes of the series have premiered together at the start of December before broadcasting later in January of 2022. As you can expect for such a critical beloved series, Jojo Part 6 is very much worth your time.

For the first time in the series, we have a female Jojo, Jolyne Kujo, daughter of Part 3 protagonist Jotaro Kujo. She’s been sentenced to Green Dolphin Prison for a crime she didn’t commit and soon finds herself trapped in a more devious plot as her father’s memories and stand are stolen by the elusive new villain White Snake (or Pale Snake according to the subtitles). Jolyne and her allies will have to find Jotaro’s memory, beat the various stand users inhabiting the prison, and eventually escape the Stone Ocean.

Welcome To Green Dolphin Prison

The opening ‘Stone Ocean’ by Ichigo once again returns to the CGI openings of parts 1-3 and it looks and sounds amazing. I love the girl punk band feel of the song, it perfectly suits Jolyne’s character.

In general, the already stellar animation seems to have been taken up a notch. The character’s facial expressions and backgrounds seem even more detailed and the fight scenes are flared with more color and dynamic camera angles. It’s amazing just how they were able to make a place as dreary as a prison seem to pop with style.

Speaking of the prison, I often hear Stone Ocean get criticized for being stuck in one location but I don’t mind this too much. A big part of what makes Jojo interesting is the strange characters and enemies the cast meet on their adventure and this prison is filled with a bunch of weirdos. There’s no escape from them. The claustrophobic feel of the prison where enemies can literally be around any corner makes for a thrilling ride across each episode.

Like Father, Like Daughter

I really enjoyed Jolyne as a protagonist. She has a wide range of emotions and reactions which make her fun to watch and easy to route for. She seems hotheaded and brash but she can also be very kind, thoughtful, and even kinda dorky at times. You buy that she’s a teenage girl who’s trying to come to grips with her life going completely out of control and all the pent-up anger that comes with it.

With the supporting cast, Ermes Costello makes for a cool big sister figure to Jolyne with a really interesting stand in Kiss (Smack). F.F is just adorable and that’s all I’ll say about her due to spoilers and the mysterious young boy Emporio makes for an enduring kid that manages to come off as believably idealistic without being annoying.

Like with many Jojo casts, Jolyne and her allies play off each other well, both in terms of some witty comedy but also more in dire scenes, presenting a great sense of comradery that sells the viewer on their friendship. I’d hang out with these guys, they’re a blast.

Jotaro also returns and he’s in good form. While Jotaro has often been criticized for not having much personality (something I don’t agree with), we see in Stone Ocean that his stoicism has led to trouble connecting with his daughter. Their interactions together have a sense of uneasiness but underneath the fire and ice dynamic, it is easy to see that both Kujos truly care about each other even if neither are very good at expressing it.

Yare Yare Dawa

Finally, there are the action scenes. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean continues to refine and build on the traditional stand battles. The stands here feel incredibly creative, they bring some new unorthodox ideas that in turn lead to innovative uses of the different prison facilities and well-planned strategies from both heroes and antagonists to overcome each other.

All of this while still making use of the usual Jojo style of finding an everyday activity or object and turning it into a deadly confrontation. Seriously, they managed to make a game of catch into the deadly mind game. That’s Jojo for you.

The minor stands user villains causing these fights, while not super developed, made for fun opponents. Mostly in how creepy a lot of them are. You can tell Araki had fun writing a bunch of unhinged criminals with character-appropriate superpowers.

The main villain, White Snake (I won’t spoil his real identity) is a shady, menacing figure whose presence is made known early on. I really like how hands-on he is, personally finding more stand users to attack the heroes and going out of his way to get rid of Jolyne as opposed to the more wait-and-see approach of previous villains. You can tell he’s going to keep the Jojo team on their toes.

Stone Ocean

At the end of the day, Stone Ocean is still Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. If you’ve liked the previous Jojo parts, you’ll like this one. If you didn’t then most of the common criticisms of the series will still apply. It’s still incredibly over the top, and is very liberal with its use of physics which I know can rub some people the wrong way but that’s just the kind of series Jojo is, you either get into it or you don’t.

I feel these first twelve episodes are off to a good start with a strong main lead, a fun supporting cast, and the wildest stands battles we’ve seen in the series yet. I binged the series in less than a day and I have no regrets in doing so. The only problem now is that I have to wait for the rest of the series to come out.