F.F. – The Witness
Episode 20 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Part II takes place where we last left off with Jolyne, Anastasia, and Yo-Yo Ma fleeing the prisoner ward and heading into the marshlands. F.F. stays behind and plans to murder D an’ G to get rid of Yo-Yo Ma. In the marshy terrain, Anastasia stops the boat. He hears other airboats full of guards coming their way. They arrive, and the guards are armed with heavy weapons. The guards heard the commotion and decided to head to the marshlands to investigate. Yo-Yo Ma gets entangled on the throttle lever and causes a stir. Anastasia rips Yo-Yo Ma out of the lever, but it managed to make ripples in the water. The guards notice the ripples and head toward Jolyne and the crew. Yo-Yo Ma helps the heroes by covering their boats and themselves in leaves to disguise them. Right as the guards are about to leave, one of the airboat fans blows their disguises away. Yo-Yo Ma releases a load of mosquitoes from his mouth and plans to sting Jolyne. However, the guards find them and start shooting. The bullets end up damaging their boat’s engine and surface. Anastasia decides to punch Yo-Yo Ma into their boat’s fan. He rebounds from the fan and into one of the guards. This ends up destroying one of the guard’s boats. Anastasia advances toward the other guard’s boat and uses Diver Down to beat up the guards on there. The heroes end up hijacking this boat and escaping. The trio heads further into the marshlands to escape detection and finally find the time to rest. Anastasia asks Jolyne to stop whistling, but she’s not doing it purposefully. Jolyne tries to speak but can’t. She realizes Yo-Yo Ma somehow attacked her and made holes in her tongue. Jolyne attempts to want Anastasia, but he mistakes her behavior to be flirtatious. She uppercuts him in frustration. She’s unsure about how Yo-Yo Ma attacks people, but she tries to let Anastasia know that it is a threat. She exposes herself to make Anastasia see through Yo-Yo Ma’s tricks. Yo-Yo Ma maintains his humble front to fool Anastasia. However, he doesn’t act well enough because Anastasia finally notices something wrong with Jolyne. As he takes notice, Jolyne summons some thread and catches several mosquitoes. She thinks these bugs are Yo-Yo Ma’s ways of attacking, but her face melts, pointing to her accusations being false. Jolyne falls on the floor and informs Anastasia through words (made by her thread) to act as her eyes and to never look away. Anastasia realizes they’re under attack and advances toward Yo-Yo Ma. Yo-Yo Ma proposes the two engage in a one-on-one fight. Anastasia punches Yo-Yo Ma and murders his next wave of mosquitoes. Jolyne knows that another method is at play but can’t warn Anastasia. Holes start forming on Anastasia’s face, but he continues his interrogation and beat down. He orders Yo-Yo Ma to move toward the far end of the boat as more holes appear on Anastasia’s body. Anastasia stomps on Yo-Yo Ma’s head and tells him to empty his pockets. He obeys and reveals all his items and critter minions. Anastasia asks Yo-Yo Ma if it is here to kill Jolyne, and Yo-Yo Ma confirms his suspicion. He says he will kill Anastasia too, leading Anastasia to chop Yo-Yo Ma’s head with Diver Down. Jolyne finds out that Yo-Yo Ma has poured some of his acid-centric saliva into the water. As the boat rocks, the ocean’s waves spray our protagonists with acidic water. Anastasia orders Yo-Yo Ma to speed up the boat, but he feels unwell. He starts mimicking the persona of a frog and has a craving for insects. We find out that Anastasia has sabotaged Yo-Yo Ma by inserting a frog into his brain, thus tampering with his tracking sensors. He’ll be too overwhelmed with his new frog instincts. Yo-Yo Ma begins to lose focus on his mission and is possibly neutralized, according to Anastasia. He tells Jolyne they shouldn’t need to worry about him and will wait patiently for F.F. to take down D an’ G, Yo-Yo Ma’s Stand user. Multiple guards are patrolling the Ultra Security House Unit. They take note of the giant dead tree in the middle of the unit and wonder what had occurred here. They recover D an’ G’s body as F.F. sneakily approaches them from above. She’s hiding and awaiting a chance to murder D an’ G. Before she shoots, Enrico Pucci catches her eye as she wonders why he’s here. The guards’ escort D an’ G to one of their medical vehicles and this alert F.F. to follow them. Meanwhile, Pucci tries to assess the situation. Due to D an’ G’s injuries, he proposes that Jolyne is still alive. He also speculates that the plant debris in the unit is a sign that his plan is going accordingly. This signals to him that it’s time to make his next move. Pucci plans to interrogate D an’ G about what occurred in this unit. He throws a music disc inside Guccio’s (Survivor’s Stand user) corpse and sings Handel’s Messiah to celebrate. The guards’ place D an’ G into the ambulance and decided to patrol the building. Pucci heads toward the ambulance but notices that one of the medical staff is F.F. in disguise. She plans to murder D an’ G and holds him at gunpoint. Pucci summons Whitesnake and rushes forward. Fortunately for him, a brainwashed guard grabs a hold of F.F.’s arm and makes her miss her shot. She knocks out the guard. F.F. finds out that Whitesnake brainwashed him and turned him into a Stand user after a disc pops out of his head. F.F. stops and looks around the area to find Whitesnake. Pucci ominously reveals himself while walking toward the ambulance. F.F. is bewildered that Pucci is Whitesnake’s Stand user. The episode concludes with Pucci asking F.F. to choose between killing D an’ G or contending with him first.
The Episode Review
I wouldn’t say Yo-Yo Ma fully redeemed D an’ G, but he served his purpose in the narrative and managed to immobilize our series’ protagonist. Weirdly, he came across as Dragon’s Dream’s opposite to some extent. He utilizes his dim-witted personality and actions to pull a fast one on our heroes, especially Anastasia. There were times when he could’ve sabotaged them sooner, but then we’d lose the hilarious antics that ensue between Anastasia, Jolyne, and Yo-Yo Ma himself. I’m a bit torn on Anastasia deeming him as less of a threat, though. While he manages to shift Yo-Yo Ma’s train of thought, he’s still with them on the boat. Yo-Yo Ma could easily hop and rock it in his frog-like state. He could also drop bits of his saliva into the water and splash it on Jolyne and Anastasia. This paints Anastasia as a foolish and overconfident individual, which I don’t like. Furthermore, there are many moments throughout this episode where problems could’ve been dealt with quicker. For example, Jolyne makes a fuss about Anastasia not understanding they’re in danger. She tries to find ways to let him know and throws herself at Yo-Yo Ma to get Anastasia to understand their situation. The whole scenario led to a hilarious gag, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t think to utilize her thread sooner in the episode. By making words from her thread sooner than she does in the episode, Jolyne could have warned Anastasia. There are other scenes like this that had me scratching my head. Furthermore, the scene with Pucci playing the music track from Guccio’s head was a bit over-the-top for me. He’s not the type who’d take part in something foolish like that. It feels less genuine and a bit naïve since it would have realistically alarmed the guards. Do you really think the guards didn’t hear the music when it was being played? I get the series is known for being bizarre and quirky, but there’s a time and place for these events to happen. Now is not that time. Other than those weird moments, I enjoyed what this episode offered. There were times when I laughed at the buffoonery and cheered during its more action-centric scenes. The animation and soundtrack have been on a winning streak for me as everything looks fluid, smooth, and beautiful. There’s certainly an exciting cliffhanger here to end on, and I’m curious to see what F.F. will do to escape or complete her mission. While she can choose to stay and fight Pucci, we all know how that will turn out. Hopefully, F.F. leans toward a more logical solution!
