JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – “Stone Ocean” Episodes Ranked

I’ve finally watched all of the JoJo anime!

I knew going into “Stone Ocean” that it would be a controversial Part, and I even took a half year break in the middle to do other things … but after binging the last few episodes I can now say I’ve watched every episode.

I won’t lie to you and say this was the best season yet, but I will say it had some of the best episodes … but how would I rank them all?

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OK

30 – Prisoner FE40526: Jolyne Cujoh (Ep 2)

Due to the episodic nature of this season (and any JoJo season, for that matter), I could find some enjoyment in any of the mini stories they told. None of them were bad … but there was definitely one I liked much less than others.

A shrinking Stand is something we’ve already seen (and will see again later in the Part), but the annoying baby talk that Gwess gives throughout really got on my nerves.

The only positive from the second episode of the season was that Jolyne’s Stand Stone Ocean finally manifests as a humanoid being rather than just string, which made for a cool scene.

29 – Enter the Drake’s Dream (Ep 17)

I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion to say the Maximum Security Ward arc was the weakest part of the whole season.

The fight against the Feng Shui Stand was a real low point. The drowning mechanic was intriguing at first, but the Feng Shui fight itself was a lot of dodging and not much action.

28 – Ultra Security House Unit (Ep 15)

A lot goes on in “Ultra Security House Unit”, which sets up the Maximum Security Ward arc – Jolyne wants to find Dio’s bone, Pucci sends four Stand users to stop her, and the Stand “Survivor” (touted as the “weakest Stand” … so at least my expectations were low) makes everyone angry and feel no pain.

This is also our first proper introduction to Anastasia, one of the core members of the team moving forwards. His subplot of wanting to marry Jolyne is a bit odd but it leads to some fun dynamics in the future.

27 – Lock of the Jail! (Ep 23)

Pucci is reborn as a new man, but he has to wait until the new moon to fully activate his powers. “Lock of the Jail!” feels a lot like a cool-down episode as a result.

Miu Miu visits Jolyne with her “Jail House Lock” Stand, which has one of the most horrifying abilities in the season – amnesia. Jolyne can only remember three things at a time … a cool concept, but a bit repetitive in practice.

26 – The Secret of Guard Westwood (Ep 16)

Oh look, another of the Maximum Security Ward episodes near the bottom of my list. This time, “The Secret of Guard Westwood” has some action at least.

That being said, this was one of the worst one-on-one fights in the whole series. Westwood summons meteors to attack Jolyne but I never felt any palpable sense of danger or tension.

25 – F.F. – The Witness (Ep 20)

“F.F. – The Witness” is the end of Ya-Ya Ma’s pursuit … and it ends on a whimper.

Jolyne losing her voice adds a slightly tense dynamic, I guess, but when Anastasia fuses a frog brain to Ya-Ya Ma I lost interest. Pucci also resolves to extract D an G’s memories, but I didn’t really care about what happened to that guy.

24 – Bohemian Ecstatic, Part 1 & 2 (Ep 25/26)

“Bohemian Ecstatic” had the potential to be such a cool Stand – bringing cartoon characters to life and having people live out horrid fantasies is an intriguing idea, but it pitters out over the two-parter.

I like the scene where Dio’s children are drawn to Pucci, and I leant forward in my seat when Weather Forecast was revealed to have a Joestar birthmark. That was about it for my excitement over both parts.

Good

23 – Ermes’s Stickers (Ep 6)

For as morbid as it was, I really liked the idea of a suicidal janitor whose Stand power was inflicting those self-inflicted wounds on others. Dark, but creative.

This is also the debut of Ermes’ duplication Stand. It has some cool applications here, but it’s nothing crazy just yet.

22 – Enter the F.F. (Ep 18)

The “best” of the episodes set in the Maximum Security Ward, mainly due to the fabricated tension.

The electric chair and lack of water made for a tense F.F. fight, and the mirror of sweat was pretty clever. Anastasia’s Stand also turned Kenzo’s legs into springs … but I wasn’t sure how or why just yet.

21 – Sky Guy (Ep 27)

Rikiel’s power to control those sky rod creatures may just be the weirdest, most left-field ability in the series. Quite an achievement in a bizarre series like this.

He’s not an intimidating foe at all, so the episode is carried by the scenes of Jolyne setting herself on fire and Rikiel revealing that Weather Forecast is Pucci’s brother.

20 – Jailbreak… (Ep 24)

“Jailbreak…” is the continuation of the “Jolyne can only remember three things” idea, and I like how it’s taken to its extreme here by her only being able to perceive three threats at a time.

Miu Miu gets a solid comeuppance, Pucci teases his time acceleration ability, and the gang finally leaves the prison for good.

19 – Smack of Love and Revenge, Part 1 & 2 (Ep 13/14)

Ermes finally gets her revenge on Sports Maximum in “Smack of Love and Revenge”.

Sports Maximum dying early was a great twist, and the invisible taxidermy animal-thingies were a tame but serviceable threat. I’d argue that this is where Ermes peaked in the season, creatively and emotionally.

18 – Heaven is at Hand: Three Days Until the New Moon (Ep 28)

Some episodes serve as pure filler / set-up, and “Heaven is at Hand” is one of those episodes.

Versus discovers his powers while in hospital with Pucci, and Jolyne boards a plane that’s destined to crash. It might not sound exciting on paper but the episode does a good job of adding little details and tense moments throughout.

17 – Birth of the “Green” (Ep 19)

As soon as Anastasia turned that dude’s arm into a bone trap I knew he’d be one of my favourite characters from the season.

Jotaro “speaks” to Jolyne via her arm, all the corpses in the Maximum Security Ward get turned into trees, and Ya-Ya Ma eats the baby pod and travels with them. Definitely one of the weirder episodes.

16 – Operation Savage Guardian (Head to the Courtyard!), Part 1 & 2 (Ep 10/11)

Not since Okuyasu’s “The Hand” in Diamond Is Unbreakable has an ally’s Stand seemed so immediately overpowered as Weather Forecast.

The mission to get the disc to the courtyard sees Jolyne and Weather Forecast battle a zero gravity / vacuum Stand, and this is also the episode where Jolyne first meets Father Pucci.

15 – F.F. (Ep 8)

Jolyne battles F.F. in a very run-of-the-mill fight, but it’s the aftermath that made this episode interesting.

Jolyne chooses to spare F.F., who subsequently takes on the appearance of a dead inmate and joins the core cast. Definitely one of the weirder ally introductions in the series.

14 – There’s Six of Us! (Ep 7)

I thought “There’s Six of Us!”, the set-up episode to “F.F.”, was ever so slightly better.

Jolyne goes after the Stand discs hidden inside a tractor, but gets attacked by an imposter prisoner in the marshland. There’s a great tension when they’re working out who the Stand user is, and the reveal that it was actually many tiny Stands was a neat twist.

13 – AWAKEN (Ep 21)

F.F. manages to kill D and G straight away, so she’s immediately hunted by Pucci. The scene where she starts to boil under her skin is horrifying.

Meanwhile, Jolyne and Anastasia chase the green baby that has been birthed from the organic pod-thingy. It’s a neat Stand idea to have their size change relative to perspective … but this is at least the third size-changing Stand of the series so I got a bit bored.

12 – Stone Ocean (Ep 1)

Stone Ocean had one of the best season openers of the whole series.

Jolyne gets framed for murder by her lawyer and boyfriend, and her father Jotaro’s pendant awakens her odd string power. Her personality is immediately prevalent, and I was intrigued to see how the prison setting would pan out.

11 – Gravity of the New Moon (Ep 33)

The last breather before a string of high-octane episodes … and even then “Gravity of the New Moon” was hardly a walk in the park.

Pucci starts to affect the gravity of the world around him, causing an entire highway to fall sideways. Ermes gets lost in the chaos but I wasn’t exactly worried about her.

Great

10 – Debt Collector Mary Lynn Manson (Ep 9)

All of the “Great” episodes coming up are fantastic mainly due to some major event occurring. The exception to this is “Debt Collector Mary Lynn Manson”, the best filler episode of the season.

Father Pucci converts a woman into a Stand user, and the resulting ball game between her and Jolyne’s crew is a highlight of the prison arc.

9 – Netherworld (Ep 29)

Like with Mary Lynn Manson, Netherworld provided one of the best one-off Stand fights in the season.

Versus’s backstory and his hatred of Pucci were entertaining, and the fight on the crashing plane – including the dilemma of saving the three children – kept escalating in fantastic ways.

The real kicker was the ending, which saw Weather Forecast finally restoring his memories. I’ve never clicked on the “Next Episode” button faster.

8 – The Visitor, Part 1 & 2 (Ep 3/4)

“The Visitor” was when Stone Ocean started getting serious.

Jolyne meets with her father Jotaro, despite a mysterious little boy’s warnings, and a prisoner in the men’s wing tries to kill them from afar. The “it was all a dream” trope is a little cliché but it worked in the context.

7 – Torrential Downpour Warning (Ep 12)

Ah yes, the “raining poison frogs” episode.

“Torrential Downpour Warning” is when Pucci, not just his Stand, becomes a real menace. He allows Jolyne to get shot and lets a guard die to save his own life, and the backstory reveal that he was close to Dio had me on the edge of my seat – and it established his villainous motivation of reaching heaven.

6 – Heavy Forecast, Part 1-3 (Ep 30-32)

You know what’s weirder than a poison frog rainstorm? An invasion of horny snails and rainbows that turn humans into more snails.

Lots happens in “Heavy Forecast”, from Pucci and Weather’s backstory to their ultimate battle, and the ending where Weather dies and gives up his disc was a real tear-jerker …

… Why Ermes was crying, however, I’ll never know. One thing Stone Ocean failed miserably at was establishing the friendships between the core cast. Ermes and Weather never spoke together in a scene, as far as I remember, so her tears seemed so forced.

5 – Prisoner of Love (Ep 5)

One of the minor issues I had with Diamond Is Unbreakable and Golden Wind is that their villains took far too long to make a statement. Stone Ocean had no such problem.

Palesnake stealing Jotaro’s discs is a defining moment from the series, and it spurred Jolyne’s actions for the rest of the Part.

Amazing

4 – Time for Heaven! New Moon! New Priest! (Ep 22)

Weather Forecast saves F.F. with rain in a climactic scene – and that was only in the first few minutes of the episode.

Palesnake impersonating Weather Forecast genuinely took me by surprise, and F.F.’s ultimate sacrifice was the emotional peak of the prison arc.

3 – Maiden Heaven, Part 1 & 2 (Ep 36/37)

I’d heard lots of things about Stone Ocean and how it ended before I watched it, and after finishing “Maiden Heaven” I can see why it’s so controversial.

Everyone dies unceremoniously, the world accelerates and decays and restarts, and Emporio resets back to prison. Part of me thought this was too unbelievable as a concept, but the other part of me was entranced by the intense action and drama on screen.

2 – See Moon, Part 1 & 2 (Ep 34/35)

Strangely, it was was the fight against “See Moon” right before the climactic battle that I enjoyed even more.

Pucci’s Stand inverting everything it touches is such a cool ability, and Jolyne’s idea to use mobius strips to counter it was even cooler. Jotaro’s appearance was the icing on the cake – and the cliffhanger ending of Pucci moving during a time-stop and reaching the fated coordinates got me unbelievably hyped for the next episode.

1 – It’s a Wonderful World (Ep 38)

Fun fact – all of the finales to the Parts have ranked highly, but not since “Phantom Blood” has the very final episode been my favourite of the whole season.

The universe has restarted, and everything has changed (even the intro sequence!). Pucci has attained “heaven” by having everyone vaguely remember their fates, but he gets his comeuppance from Emporio – with help from Weather Report – in the best scene of Stone Ocean.

What really tugged on my heartstrings, however, was the ending. Everyone is alive again and living their best life, and Emporio breaks down when he introduces himself. And “Roundabout” plays over the credits! What an ending. What a series.

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