Why do I keep doing this to myself? I keep going “That’s the last time I will EVER see a ‘Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’ anime!” and the next time it comes around, I’m there. I know that it makes less sense than a presidential executive order, but I can’t help myself, and for this latest turn “Golden Wind” (“JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Ōgon no Kaze”), it makes even less sense as it goes along.

Now, it starts out pretty straight-ahead. The year is 2001 (or two years after all the wildness of ‘Diamond is Unbreakable’). Jojo has sent Koichi Hirose to Naples, Italy to search for Giorno Giovanna (far right), an aspiring Mafioso, who just happens to be a child of Dio Brando. Well, as least we’re not having to clean up after daddy Jonathan’s roving eye. Well, no, as Dio had possessed Jonathan’s body at the time of the tryst, so, technically, Giorno IS a Joestar and needs to come into the family.

While in Naples, Koichi is greased and fleeced by Giorno, who runs afoul of a capo that Giorno dispatches. But, as we come to learn, it appears that 25% of the residents of Naples have a Stand and nearly all of them are in the Mafia. It is at this time, after an incredible fight between him and Bruno Bucciarati (guy in white) on a funicula, that they discover a 13-year-old boy, hopelessly hooked on drugs, staggering about the Piazza. Drugs supplied by the local Mafia. Drugs dispensed with no care for the destruction they inflict on all around. Drugs that are probably overpriced as well and stepped on more than a hotel rug.

Giorno and Bruno decide to join forces and take down the boss of all bosses, so there will never be drug addiction like this again in Naples. However, loan-sharking, prostitution, hijacking, protection rackets and smuggling are still on the menu, boys. With the rest of Bruno’s crew (back row, left to right: Guido Mista, Pannacotta Fugo, Narancia Ghirga and Leone Abbacchio), they work towards this goal.

I am genuinely uncertain if I am to take this show with a grain of salt. On the one hand, it’s their looks. In fact, everyone appears to have stepped off the pages of L’Uomo Vogue or Amica, despite how absolutely ridiculous they look, but those fashions are out of step ANYWHERE. Yet, there are some very serious life-and-death situations where they are almost killed a dozen times over amid ankle-slopping lakes of blood. And the ante gets upped after every round to the point that The Boss could easily have taken over the world to become the Supreme Commander and High-and-Mighty Potentate and Extremely Well-Dressed Dictatorial Grand Pooh-Bah of the Fashion Universe.

And as to how quickly things move along (Two weeks? Three weeks?), the show and the peril come off as non-stop. The brakes get applied with the names of the people they encounter, like Risotto and Formaggio and Melone and Sorbet and Gelato. Where the hell is Alfredo and/or Bottarga? Again, what this done with deliberate intensity or are they trying to be cute?

It also seems that they can find a solution where none exist. I mean, I wouldn’t have come up with ANY of the ideas they have to protect themselves and deal a fatal blow to the enemy. (And I mean fatal. Every one they encounter who has been sent by the boss dies, with one exception, but they escape those clutches).

And I am not going to discuss the Turtle Incident. ‘Nuff said! It’s just as the series heads to the inevitable conclusion, it just gets more and more ridiculous. The thing that got to me? Major attractions in Italy, like Pompeii, Venice and St. Mark’s Square, even the Colosseum in Rome, have ZERO PEOPLE there! Rome itself has a population of about 3 million people and you’re telling me that no one is out and about?

Binging works in small doses, as there is just a lot to unpack and try to understand. Keep it to no more than four episodes, although twos and threes work better. It’s just that it comes off as both breakneck and reckless that you may find yourself slipping away from it all.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           5 (This ain’t art!)
Plot                  7 (Rather typical for Jojo)
Pacing              7 (Nothing, then frantic)
Effectiveness   6 (Too implausible to work well)
Conclusion      5 (It reaches a ‘coupler point’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service     2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)
Bingeability    4 (Too roller-coaster to be more effective)

Overall            6 (Too fragmented and episodic)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. We will protect her!