You got all that? Right, so… I guess I have to discuss the one of the obvious elephants in the room. You know how people complain about oft dubious American live action adaptations of anime, such as Ghost in the Shell or Death Note (both 2017) or Dragonball Evolution (2009)? So, Japan doesn’t have that good a track record when it comes to it either, or at least the fantasy-based stuff; I mean, low key drama-y stuff like Our Little Sister (2015) is pretty much fine. What I’m getting at is, what are your expectations for this film? While there’s a fair bit of talent involved, including Takashi Miike, I’d say it’s well worth having them muted.

The film covers the first nineteen or so chapters of the manga. Bear in mind there are over 170 in the fourth run, so ultimately it doesn’t get very far and ends on a cliffhanger that’s unlikely to be resolved as the film didn’t do so well at the box office. Well, I mean, obviously what happens is well established in other media, but the film’s mild drifting from the source material would suggest that things may have played out a bit differently. I don’t think the cliffhanger bit qualifies as a spoiler by the way, given as the thing does profess to be ‘Chapter I’. The nineteen chapters of the original comic comprise three short arcs, which are not translated well to film in terms of pacing, resulting in a disjointed feeling as it suddenly lurches from finishing one with plot to starting the next. While the second half does make reference to the first, it’s the same sort of acknowledgement as the manga and anime make, so it’s all pretty quick and to the point. Of course, those were serialised, with some fourteen odd pages or twenty-two minutes a week; the economy of space means they don’t have much time to dwell on this stuff, and similarly there’s the fact that they draw a clear line between these plot arcs. In a film, it instead seems like the thing’s building to its climax, has this climax, then carries on for another forty minutes with a load of different characters in focus, the major characters from the first hour or so being largely absent. It’s terrible in terms of film structure. Further compounding the problem is that when it does go off-piste, it doesn’t seem to manage particularly well. The most egregious example is the early introduction of resident bunny boiler Yukako (Nana Komatsu). This in and of itself isn’t a terrible idea. Hell, I’d argue it’s actually quite a good one, but it doesn’t actually do anything with her beyond vaguely hint at stuff that happens down the road in a couple of throwaway scenes. The thing is apparently so beholden to the structure of the source material it wouldn’t dare actually integrate her into plot of the bits their adapting. It’s just a nudge and a wink to the fanbase… the one that apparently didn’t turn out for the film. That one. If the film goes off on its own it tends to be to do some very contrived feeling foreshadowing. The scenes with Yukako are actually pretty decent, especially compared to, say, the nonsense linking Josuke’s grandfather (Jun Kunimura) to Reimi, the ghost from the manga, for no real reason beyond ‘ooh, grandpa knew a dead girl who won’t come up in this film’. In terms of stuff, that’s actually supposed to serve the film, it adds in a meeting of the preferred villains of the first and second halves of the film which doesn’t really go anywhere and that’s about it. Honestly, the change to the ending is probably the least aggravating bit; I won’t go into detail, but for all the controversy surrounding it, it at least shows some level of initiative.

I suppose it might seem like I’m being hard on this, and, yeah, I guess so. I mean, it’s not all bad. It’s certainly a valiant effort at rendering the series in live action. The production design’s pretty nice for the most part. The use of Sitges’ architecture gives the film a distinct look, and the use of rich colours certainly evokes a similar aesthetic quality to Araki’s artwork. However, the thing just doesn’t work as a whole. Even ignoring the writing problems, it’s lacking the camp quality of the source material, and that can’t all be blamed on the shift in medium (if we’re being honest, in some ways it should probably enhance it). Instead the film has this somewhat stiff and vaguely restrained seriousness that seems totally at odds with the aesthetic. Given the talent involved (I mean, really, Miike has pulled this kind of shit off before), I have to wonder if there was a ‘too many cooks’ thing going on. Seriously, the size of that production committee. Nineteen. Nineteen companies. I’m not even counting the ones listed as ‘supporting’ the production. How did they get any work done? It’s like a miracle there’s a film at all.

And, yeah, yeah, I know, it isn’t ‘Roundabout’ in Diamond is Unbreakable.

* From what I can tell from Japanese Wikipedia, the deal is that the issue it first appeared in was labelled as the first one of ’87, but was published at the beginning of December ’86. So… interpret all that as you will.

** A running bit is that many of the characters have names themed around musicians and bands and such, which has generally been treated in a leery manner due to legal shenanigans. Earlier parts of Viz’ translation of the manga and Crunchyroll’s translation of the anime dance around it by changing some of the more overt names of people/bands to less contentious seeming ones that still keep the theme going. Par exemple, the assassin in the third run is called ‘J. Geil’ in Japan after the J. Geils Band, but changed to ‘Centerfold’ after one of said band’s songs in the English translation. Changes weren’t necessarily consistent between media though; while ‘Midler’ survives Viz’ translation intact, Crunchyroll change it to ‘Rose’ (geddit?) to be on the safe side. Apparently at some point someone (Shueisha, I imagine) came up with a big list of official safe names however, apparently with Araki’s blessing, which most of which seem to be used for subsequent translations. Frankly quite a lot of them suck and don’t play nice with the theming, as well as arbitrarily changing ones that seem vague enough that I have a hard time believing would hold up to legal scrutiny if anything was tried, such as changing ‘Surface’ to ‘Showoff’. It is at least amusing in the anime to see the subtitles steadfastly use them when the voice actors are blatantly not.

*** In case you were wondering how they get ‘Jojo’ out of that, given as most of the time the protagonist does get two ‘Jo’s as part of their name, the kanji for ‘suke’ can alternatively be read as ‘jo’. The film does actually outright mention this, I suppose because it’s never written down in the film for (Japanese) audiences to connect the dots themselves.

At time of writing, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure – Diamond is Unbreakable: Chapter I is available to rent on Amazon, amongst other services. I recommend JustWatch for keeping up with where films are streaming (including this one!). Alternatively, physical copies are reportedly available for rent via Cinema Paradiso.

The film has a 15 rating, with the BBFC claiming "strong bloody violence" and "injury detail". It seems pretty tame compared to some of the stuff in the anime, which also appears to have mostly 15 ratings (and some 12s, surprisingly), but I guess it's because it's actual actors or something.