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Last time, it turned out Abdul was alive all along and we were just gaslighting Polnareff for two weeks. This time, we’re taking a submarine!
We’ve had three mandatory story bits in a row without a chance to restock, so this is a nice get.
Polnareff: Hey, hurry up and make the coffee! I’m thirsty!
Kakyoin: Make it yourself!
Cascada: What kind of coffee is this thing stocked with anyway? My house mostly uses instant, so I don’t know much.
Jotaro: -frown- …Instant…?
Cascada: We ain’t all made of money, Jojo.
Joseph: Everywhere we’ve been so far has had their own way of preparing it. It’s so different from American coffee!
Abdul: Hmhm… I can teach you to use a dallah another time.
My weird coffee trivia here is that something like 95% of all Jamaican Blue Mountain is exported to Japan. It makes a damn fine cup of coffee.
On the manga’s pace, we’d flip the numbers and have only 19 days left. Having an extra party member really boosted the group’s action economy.
Joseph: There’s no time to waste. We’ve reached Egypt not a day too soon. We’ll have to hurry to Aswan and seek out the enemy as quickly as we can.
Polnareff: This might be the last time we get to kick back and enjoy a hot cup of coffee like this…
Cascada: So it’s the last stretch…
Polnareff: What’s left?
Abdul: I am sure you’ll find out soon enough…
Polnareff: You sure you didn’t just forget?
Abdul: It is called SUSPENSE!
A lot of information packed into one text box there. I’m impressed.
Kakyoin: Wha… Mr. Joestar!
Jotaro: What!? G-gramps!!
Cascada: Mr. Joestar!!
Abdul: Impossible! It’s a Stand! How did a Stand enter the submarine!?
Jotaro: No, that’s wrong!
Abdul: It transformed! It turned into one of the meters on the control panel! Just like the coffee cup!
Kakyoin: (It’s so nice to have someone else on exposition duty…)
Cascada: A transforming Stand…!?
Polnareff: Damn! Just 300 feet away from Egypt!
Cascada: Kakyoin, how’s Mr. Joestar!?
Abdul: There, Polnareff! Happy!?
Polnareff: I still say you should have just told me in the first place!
Jotaro: What do you know about it?
Abdul: I’ve heard stories… The user’s name is Midler.
I feel like “controlling inorganic matter” is one of those powers that would be way more interesting if it showed up in a later JoJo part rather than the slugfest section of Part 3. You just know Araki would get up to some shit.
Polnareff: …That… that makes sense… She just opened a hole and got in, plain and simple.
Cascada: We’re gonna sink if this keeps up!
Abdul: She broke the floatation mechanism! And the oxygen levels are decreasing! We’re going down! Everyone grab onto something! We’re gonna crash into the seafloor!
Cascada: That cable car in Singapore didn’t break.
Polnareff: That doesn’t count, I wasn’t there!
Kakyoin: Maybe YOU’RE the weak link, Polnareff…
Honestly this thing just reminds me of the mascot for Honeycomb cereal, which is upsetting not just because the mascot is upsetting but because I still remember completely useless information like this.
The Machine ain’t afraid of a fucked up little cereal monster. Time to start blasting.
Abdul: What are you doing, Cascada!? Hurry up and take shelter!
Cascada: Think about it, Abdul! The closer we get to the surface, the closer we get to its user… And the stronger it gets! If we try to fight it at full strength, the situation may get even worse! There’s still some time left before the oxygen runs out… Let’s take care of it before we leave the submarine!
Abdul: Don’t be stupid! We still don’t know where the user is hiding yet! And that said, if I use my flames, I’ll burn up whatever oxygen there is left! Do you plan to defeat it with just 4 people!?
Cascada: You really have been out of the loop… we’ve been getting almost everything done with only two people.
Abdul: Oh. In that case… carry on, my lily-white friends.
Kakyoin: We can’t do anything to her until we find out where she’s hiding! Be careful!
And we’ve got another one of those “the boss might just decide to be literally untargetable for an indefinite period of time” battles. At least CantFind status is barely an issue since everyone’s got some decent all-target attacks now.
Choosing to fight High Priestess right now gives Jotaro this new skill. It’s pretty situational, but this is the situation to use it in. When she appears, he’ll be ready with a big single-target OraOra.
Yep, still pretty much zero point in attacking at all if she isn’t on the screen. You’re basically gambling that she’ll appear that turn and you’ll get a hit in.
This move has a solid chance of inflicting Blowback status and making High Priestess lose a turn from crashing into the wall. I think it got off one attack.
Abdul: You did it!
Joseph: Looks… like it…
Cascada: That’s, uh… that’s it?
Kakyoin: C’mon! Let’s hurry and get out of here!
Abdul: That’s Midler… High Priestess’s user.
Kakyoin: What should we do? I doubt she can fight anymore…
Polnareff: I’m gonna go see if she’s good-looking…
Cascada: And I’ll keep my gun trained on you so you don’t try anything.
Polnareff: I-I would never! A-hahahaahh…
Joseph: Well, Polnareff?
Time for a trivia detour! Midler was only ever seen from a distance in the manga and had no distinguishing features. When Capcom put out their JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fighting game in 1998 (released westward as JoJo’s Venture), they asked Araki to make a whole new design for her.
The left is her only appearance in the original, and the right is her fighting game design. You can decide for yourself if Polnareff’s got good taste.
That was fast. Maybe a little too fast! All we got out of it was a Starplatodine, which increases speed, and we clearly have no need for that. Roll it back!
Cascada: We need to make sure Mr. Joestar is okay first.
Kakyoin: I’ve got him!
Abdul: (T-this thing even cut through Mr. Joestar’s steel prosthetic… If I don’t let go…!)
Jotaro: ORA!!
Jotaro: Aye aye, sir…
Both: Too soon!
Jotaro: W-what the hell!?
Abdul: She’s no slouch!
Joseph: You’ve… got that right…
Kakyoin: She even gave Jotaro a handful… This isn’t gonna be easy…
The scene fades to black as the party books it to the other room.
Kakyoin: What are we gonna do!? She’s gotta get in here sooner or later! Feels like we’re the ones who are trapped…
Abdul: This place is full of machinery… That means she has a tactical advantage! We have to ditch the submarine! There’s no other choice! We’ll swim to Egypt if we have to!
Joseph: I was hoping to resell it, too…
Polnareff: Are you kidding!? We’re 130 feet under the sea! Sure, it’s not THAT deep, but how’ll we make it to the surface!?
Jotaro: Give me a break.
Joseph: It’s tough to put on with one hand… Does anyone here know how to scuba dive?
Cascada: Do YOU?
Joseph: I’m an old rich white man. If anyone here knows, it’s me!
Cascada: I’m not hearing a “yes”.
Polnareff: Nope.
Jotaro: Nah.
Kakyoin: I do not.
Cascada: Same here.
Some cursory research tells me that protocols to avoid decompression sickness are pretty complex. A reasonably-agreed-upon rate of ascent is about 30 feet (9 meters) per minute for any dives up to 1000 feet (300 meters). If you’re any deeper, you’re going to want to ascend even more slowly. You also ideally want access to a decompression chamber on the surface if possible.
A proposed but as-of-yet impractical method to avoid decompression problems is “liquid breathing”, where oxygen is supplied directly to the bloodstream via filling the lungs with an oxygen-rich fluid. It famously shows up in James Cameron’s The Abyss and in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
JoJo has a reputation for this kind of writing, where it feels like Araki maybe read a book about something last week and decided to throw all that information into the manga just because he thought it was neat.
Polnareff: What if you drool?
Joseph: That also comes out the left side. Also, we can’t talk in the water, of course… We’ll communicate with hand signals.
Abdul: Can’t we just talk with our Stands?
Joseph: Oh? You’re right, I forgot…
Cascada: My Stand is a gun and Mr. Joestar’s is a bundle of vines.
Joseph: Eh, we’ll figure it out.
Polnareff: I know a hand signal!
I’m obligated to include the anime’s incredible depiction of this scene here:
All: OK.
Jotaro: S-shit!!
Abdul: She’s in! He’ll be torn apart!!
Cascada: What do we do!?
Joseph: Hermit Purple!!
Kakyoin: Hierophant Green!!
Rough day for Polnareff. Finds out his friends have been gaslighting him for two weeks and then has an evil cereal mascot climb down his throat.
Polnareff: H-hey… Wait! Ack!!
Joseph: I caught her before she got close to his throat, Kakyoin!
Kakyoin: Me too! Let’s force her out before she transforms!
The scene fades to black as metal clanks and tears, but the squad makes it out.
Cascada: Good thing we killed that Dark Blue Moon guy.
Jotaro: Yeah.
Cascada: Just 30 feet left to the surface…
The Red Sea sure has some wacky-looking coral reefs.
Joseph: Still, everyone keep a lookout… She might try to follow us as a propeller. Keep and eye out for moving rocks or pebbles.
Abdul: Look, everyone! The tunnel!
Joseph: That means there’s just 20 meters left…
Abdul: We’re finally at the Egyptian coast! Let’s swim along this rock until we reach land!
Abdul: How did it get this big!?
Polnareff: It’s been so tiny up until now!! Where is this strength coming from!?
Kakyoin: For the Stand to be this size, the user has to be somewhere extremely close!
Midler: You got that right! Just 20 feet above you, in fact! Unfortunately, I’ll crunch you up in my High Priestess’ mouth before you get a chance to even see what I look like!
Did you expect JoJo to have “inorganic gigantism vore” as a tag?
Kakyoin: Where inside her body are we?
Joseph: We’re still in her mouth… She hasn’t swallowed us yet.
Cascada: I could get absorbing, but it’d probably take too long for Quicksilver to eat through this.
Midler: Jotaro!
Jotaro: !
Jotaro: Give me a break… Do I really have to say it?
Polnareff: Yes! C’mon, go!
There’s a few unique interactions here depending on how high your FP is. If you’re playing as a male character, he’ll butt in with quips for each guy. Female player characters instead get jealous they aren’t being complimented, because of course that’s what they’d write in.
Regardless of that, The Machine must play her part in this hare-brained scheme.
7SU is now yuri.
Polnareff: Yeep!
Kakyoin: Wh… what is THAT?
Joseph: It’s a tongue! Her Stand’s tongue!
Abdul: Watch out! Get out of the way!
Jotaro: Augh!!
Joseph: J-Jotaro!
Cascada: The tongue sent him flying!
The first thing related to JoJo that I remember seeing was a blurb for the aforementioned fighting game in a random issue of GamePro magazine (I wasn’t subscribed or anything, sometimes you just accumulate random shit). I remember Polnareff’s wacky hairdo and a screenshot of Midler’s ultimate attack, where she crushes the opponent in-between giant teeth just like this.
Kakyoin: N-no…
Jotaro: So… powerful…
Midler: My teeth are hard as diamonds, Jotaro! I’ll crunch you to bits!
Abdul: We have to help him!
Joseph: Pull him out!
Jotaro: Did someone say “pull it out”?
Cascada: NO!
As much as Jotaro would probably prefer we pull him out, that’s the boring manga route. Cascada’s got a gun and she isn’t afraid to use it.
This fight is Cascada, Kakyoin, Abdul, and Polnareff up against The Teeth. The game doesn’t tell you that the Teeth recover each turn and there’s a 5-turn limit before the battle just ends and the event proceeds as normal. Time to start blasting!
The Teeth have enormous Defense, showing that Midler has impeccable dental hygiene. Cascada and Abdul (despite the above screenshot) do most of the work here with magic attacks.
Joseph: Are you all right, Jotaro!?
Jotaro: Yeah, somehow… Everyone, let’s make a break for it! We’ll break through the other teeth!!
A Badge of Honor beats out a stat-increaser any day of the week, and it’s not like I would have ever used Penetrating Glare again. Definitely the preferable option here.
And we’ve circled back around. Is Midler still hot?
Well, maybe not so preferable.
Joseph: Nevertheless… We’ve finally reached Egypt.
Abdul: It’s only 20 hours away by jet… Yet it took us 19 days!
Kakyoin: This journey sure has taken us places… The desert, the seafloor… Even inside the brain!
Polnareff: It’s a miracle we made it here alive!
Cascada: You all would have been completely screwed without me.
Jotaro: …
And with that, we’re approximately halfway through the game! There’s a clear divide between the “Tarot Assassins” portion of Part 3 and the “we finally made it to Egypt” part, even in the manga. The anime cut right here to take a season break, so I’ll be following suit and taking a while off to build a bit more buffer and deal with some real life stuff.
See you again! Eventually!
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