will_cherico's reviews
443 reviews

This is primarily Jonathan’s first proper battles with Dio before and after his Hamon training, and it’s really cool how Araki is able to make both fights feel unique and shows off Jojo’s different abilities. William Zeppeli and Speedwagon are both introduced and/or further fleshed out here, which I was delighted by (two of my favorite JoBros). The manga format gives a lot more opportunity for these characters to show off and monologue, two things integral to any good Jojo story, and it ends on a good cliffhanger. 

This is easily one of the best successors to the spirit that Lovecraft created in his stories a hundred years ago. Talley tells four stories to the main character, Carter Weston, that are compelling horror tales on their own that dip their toes into folk horror, gothic horror, and classic cult terror that we expect from Lovecraft. As a complete unit, they wind up being so effective because of all the little consistencies in them. They don't start to feel truly connected until the very end, and when they do it works so effectively. Talley pulls from real world folklore and the strange consistencies in those stories to make Cthulhu feel like a very real myth. I also greatly admire his restraint in not getting super deep into the mythos stuff until the very last section, and just as it threatens to get too August Derleth-y it ends pretty pessimistically.