My Anxiety Towards the JoJo Part 4 Anime Explained

 
  As y'all may know, David Production's anime adaptation of Diamond is Unbreakable has been airing since April and has been pretty great in my opinion. Storyboards and overall direction are a huge step-up from previous Parts, and DP just seems a lot more confident about what it's doing now. However, I feel some of that confidence is misplaced because of one tiny detail they quietly announced before Part 4 started airing: it will be 39 episodes. This was a bit startling to hear at first as DP adapted Part 3 into 48 episodes, and Part 3 is twenty-two chapters shorter than Part 4 in the manga. That's a bit worrying, isn't it? I calmed myself by just thinking that as long as each episode adapted a little over 4 chapters at the least, David Pro would be safe. Well, here we are at 18 episodes aired and 72 chapters adapted. That's 4.0 chapters per episode on average by pure coincidence.

   Any reasonable person would realize that by episode 26, the end of the second cour, the anime will either be done with Sheer Heart Attack (ends at chapter 364) or Atom Heart Father (ends at chapter 369) if you wanna go by "Chase". That's because "Chase" is exclusive for the second cour like "Crazy Noisy Bizarre Town" was for the first cour.  Yoshihiro Kira is in the "Chase" OP visuals, so it does seem that AHF will be in the second cour. I'll cover both projections.

Episode 19: Shigechi's Harvest Part 2 (chapters 338-341)

Episode 20: Yoshikage Kira Wants A Quiet Life Part 1 (chapters 342-344)

Episode 21: Yoshikage Kira Wants A Quiet Life Part 2 (chapters 345-347)

Episode 22: Yukako Yamagishi's Vision of Cinderella Part 1 (chapters 348-350)

Episode 23: Yukako Yamagishi's Vision of Cinderella Part 2 (chapters 351-353)

Episode 24: Sheer Heart Attack Part 1 (chapters 354-357)

Episode 25: Sheer Heart Attack Part 2 (chapters 357-360)

Episode 26: Sheer Heart Attack Part 3 (chapters 361-364)


Here's how it would be if DP finished Atom Heart Attack on episode 26:

Episode 19: Shigechi's Harvest Part 2 (chapters 338-342)

Episode 20: Yoshikage Kira Wants A Quiet Life (chapters 343-347)

Episode 21: Yukako Yamagishi's Vision of Cinderella Part 1 (chapters 348-350)

Episode 22: Yukako Yamagishi's Vision of Cinderella Part 2 (chapters 351-353)

Episode 23: Sheer Heart Attack Part 1 (chapters 354-357)

Episode 24: Sheer Heart Attack Part 2 (chapters 357-360)

Episode 25: Sheer Heart Attack Part 3 (chapters 361-364)

Episode 26: Atom Heart Father (chapters 365-369)

  Either way, I'd say DP is screwed. Even if they paced 5 chapters per episode perfectly episode 27-39, it still wouldn't finish Part 4. They already have to cut dialogue and a few situations to even fit five chapters into one episode anyway. This was legitimately detrimental to the plot with episode 7 adapting the five chapters of Surface into one episode. DP cut out a crucial piece of how Josuke and Koichi even found Hazamada at the end by not showing or telling that they found the girls that saw Surface. This lead to anime-onlys being confused as to how Josuke and co. found Hazamada when in the manga, there are a few panels of Josuke speaking to the girls that saw the "other Josuke". Another episode that I felt was downgraded because of fitting five chapters into an episode was episode 16, Let's Go 'Hunting'! So much funny/interesting dialogue was cut out of the episode that you wouldn't even know that Josuke was actually scared of rats.

  Also, as an aside for those not in the know, each JoJo Part is pretty much divided into little mini-arcs that can be episodic at times. That means pacing has to accommodate for that by having the end of an episode be the end of that arc. The pacing usually doesn't overshoot by having the end of one story arc and the beginning of another in the same episode. That only happened in episode 3 in Part 4 from what I can remember. It happened very few times in Part 3 as well.

  Unless they decide to cut off whole pages from the manga, David Pro is flat-out not finishing Part 4 by episode 39 unless the pacing gets really screw-y, or there is a fair amount of content cut from the manga. DP seems confident too as 39 episodes is what's on the official website with the 13 BD volumes already listed (no episode titles listed sadly). They also already had a promotion from the beginning that if you ordered all 13 volumes, you get an OVA of Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe Episode 5: Millionaire Village. This is determined, and that is what makes me scared.

  So please David Pro, you'll get boos from the ignorant, but PLEASE stretch it to 48 episodes instead of 39 episodes. That just means Warner Bros will have to publish 16 volumes instead of 13. Do it for the hopeful.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Fan