JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean – Episode 21 Recap & Review

AWAKEN

Episode 21 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Part II starts by recapping the conclusion events of episode 20. This involves F.F. finding out that Enrico Pucci is Whitesnake’s Stand user. He presents her the option to deal with D an’ G or fight him instead before the opening theme hits.

After the opening concludes, we receive a brief narration highlighting F.F.’s greatest fear of losing her mindset. Since entering the prison, F.F. has attained memories of her life in prison with her friends. She fears Whitesnake will take away those fond memories. She notes her time with Jolyne as one of her fondest memories.

In the present, F.F. hesitates to shoot D an’ G and Pucci. She ultimately chooses D an’ G. Before she shoots, Pucci sends Whitesnake after her, and he blocks her shots. Whitesnake chops F.F.’s head while D an’ G only receives a slight impact from the exchange.

Whitesnake tries to extract F.F.’s disc, but she reacts by shooting herself in the head. His disc pops out, but some of her plankton enter D an’ G’s body and tear him apart from the inside. He dies by decapitation, triggering Yo-Yo Ma’s disappearance. He leaves behind the empty cocoon.

Once he departs, dead fish rise from the surface and Jolyne and Anastasia note the baby hidden under the cocoon. Jolyne’s speechless as the plant mutation from her body fades away. She wonders if it’s because the baby had been born.

At the prison, F.F. sneaks into the ambulance’s driver area. Remember, she cannot survive long on dry land without water. F.F. spots a faucet outside the building and opens the door. Whitesnake stems out of the driving wheeler and grabs F.F. She tries punching him, but he deflects the blow.

He cuts F.F.’s arm and plunges his hand inside her head and attempts to tear her disc out. However, F.F. shoots plankton bullets at Whitesnake, forcing him to let her go.

F.F. ends up falling out of the ambulance. She is cut in half and on the ground. Pucci asks her questions about what happened inside the prison ward. F.F. tells him that something was born from the plants but says her companion murdered it. Whitesnake calls her bluff. He says Jotaro’s memory disc can help him control the creature.

Pucci notices F.F. was stalling for time as he sees the other half of her body running toward the faucet with her stand disc intact. F.F. reaches the faucet and turns it on. She plans to travel through the water, find Jolyne, and tell her about Whitesnake’s identity.

Unfortunately, F.F. didn’t account for Whitesnake having extra Stand discs in his possession. He inserts a disc into her other half (the one that was stalling). This Stand allows Whitesnake to boil the water inside their enemy remains. The main F.F. disintegrates due to her new boiling Stand power.

At the marshlands, the baby reaches land and crawls away. Apparently, it fell in the water and managed to survive. Jolyne stitches her tongue to allow herself to talk. She chases after the baby, but Anastasia tells her to stop.

Jolyne discovers she’s shrunk after comparing herself to the rock the baby threw her way. The baby throws another rock at Jolyne, and she tries running away. Anastasia grabs onto her shoulder to pull her, and they switch places. Now Anastasia is small instead of Jolyne.

He assesses the situation and comes up with a hypothesis about the Green Baby. He says the Green Baby’s size remains the same no matter how close they get to him. However, you will shrink in size by getting closer to him. He moves away from the toddler, and he returns to normal size.

He concludes that the baby’s Stand allows him to shrink things proportionally to their relative distance to it. This means the baby would be unreachable because his powers will hinder their size the closer they get to him. Jolyne’s taken aback by the whole thing. Nonetheless, she’s determined to reach the Green Baby. She advances toward him and doesn’t mind the shrinking.

Anastasia is bewildered by her determination and reiterates why he fell in love with Jolyne. He throws a bottle near the baby, and the toddler touches it out of curiosity. The bottle doesn’t shrink for some reason. Jolyne and Anastasia rush toward the baby but are shrinking the closer they get.

Jolyne summons some thread and hurls it at the Green Baby. As the string grows smaller and smaller, it begins unraveling Jolyne. Jolyne decides to climb a small planet. She plans to jump off of it and land toward the baby. Jolyne is confident she’ll eventually reach the ground. Before she can enact her plan, something pulls on her string.

Jolyne turns around and sees a Stand crawling on her string. It’s growing more and more as it gets near her. The Stand bites on Jolyne’s string and hurts her. Furthermore, she’s finding herself stuck in a midair loop and fears she’ll never hit the ground. This Stand grows in power and size and towers over Jolyne.

Jolyne summons Stone Ocean to deploy a string net to tie it up. However, the enemy Stand snaps the net due to its size. Stone Ocean tries to punch it, but the Stand evades her attack and grabs Jolyne’s leg. The Stand tries to drag Jolyne toward the Green Baby. She’s afraid she’ll be erased if she gets to close to it. Lucky for Jolyne, Anastasia intervenes, grabs the enemy Stand, and pulls Jolyne out.

One of Jolyne’s shoes falls near the Green Baby. Anastasia and Jolyne land on a strange rocky landscape. They observe the Green Baby and the Stand from atop the cliff. Anastasia suggests they retreat but Jolyne remains adamant about capturing that child.

The Stand locates a pebble on the ground and throws it at Jolyne. The pebble turns into a large rock and almost crushes her and Anastasia. The Stand heads their way as the two struggle to free themselves.

They manage to escape and make a run for it. The Stand pursues them. They all end up inside the bottle Anastasia threw earlier. Anastasia inserted Diver Down inside the bottle’s walls. He orders his Stand to grab the bottle’s neck and bring it closer to them.

This allows Anastasia and Jolyne to escape, leaving the Stand trapped inside. Unknowingly, the Green Baby kicks the bottle and makes it roll on top of our heroes. This crushes Anastasia’s leg, causing him to yell in pain. Jolyne uses Stone Ocean to punch the bottle, but Anastasia tells her to stop since he doesn’t want the enemy’s Stand to escape.

The Green Baby touches Jolyne for some reason. She and Anastasia end up returning to normal size, as the toddler ends up crawling on her. Jolyne questions Anastasia if he knows what’s going on. Anastasia argues that the child has taken interest in Jolyne and forcefully deactivated the Stand. This confirms that the Stand that was after them was the Green Baby’s.

Jolyne’s Joestar Birthmark on her shoulder attracts the Green Baby. The episode ends with the baby and Jolyne sharing a wholesome moment together as Anastasia stares at the toddler. He believes it’s not safe for the child to be around and will likely be an enemy they will need to defeat.

The Episode Review

Like they always say, whenever you get a character’s backstory in an anime, there’s a good chance this may be their final time in the spotlight. While I’m glad F.F. made the right choice and tried her best to escape, it hurts to see such a great character go.

However, there’s a slight chance she can still be alive since she didn’t get any “tagline” following her demise. For the time being, we’ll assume that Whitesnake was victorious in taking her out. The whole skirmish between Whitesnake and F.F. was fun to see, and I loved that the anime spent some time highlighting F.F.’s development into a better being.

Although she’s not necessarily human, she’s obtained some good human qualities since she switched to the “heroic side.” I found it impressive that she pulled a few fast ones over Pucci, the supposed main villain of this arc, too. It’s rather humorous, considering he’s the one who bestowed her with her Stand power.

However, I can’t knock the guy considering he acts as the overseer of multiple users. He can also pull out multiple Stand discs from his pocket. It feels too convenient for Pucci to have a Stand in his possession that can neutralize F.F.’s Stand though.

He was shocked by her appearance, so it feels illogical for Pucci to have a Stand ready to subdue her powers. I argue the scene would’ve been better if Pucci and Whitesnake defeated F.F. in a more logical manner. I can let his music disc from episode 20 slide, but this was way too convenient.

The Green Baby shenanigans could’ve been shorter too. I didn’t mind the explanation of its Stand ability, but the back-and-forth chase sequence dragged on for far too long. It would’ve been better if Jolyne and Anastasia were to stop the toddler’s curious rampage a bit quicker. I had trouble following along with the episode’s content as soon as Anastasia stopped explaining the toddler’s powers to Jolyne.

The CGI elements in this episode were also a mixed bag. While I can look past Whitesnake’s computer-generated model, I can’t look past the bland textures and designs used for this episode’s rocks and mountainous landscapes. It didn’t look too impressive as some elements stood out like an eyesore. It feels like a step-down compared to past episodes, where they manage to capture computer-generated objects more fluidly.

Otherwise, this episode was heartbreaking and intriguing. I’m unsure if F.F. is down for the count. It will hurt to see Jolyne’s reaction to losing her. This will only fuel her hatred toward Whitesnake further as we’re nearing the conclusion of this second batch of episodes.