In episode 4, we finally meet Dio, the head bad guy. This is also when we start losing characters. JoJo's team also encounters the most powerful of all stand users: Vanilla Ice! Unshakably loyal to Dio, this dim-witted freak has the worst fashion sense and a stand called the Void. It inverts itself (it eats itself) with Vanilla inside. This creates a spherical area of null space, causing anything it touches to vanish forever into nothingness. There is absolutely no way to attack this stand. If you or your stand touch it, you'll lose body parts. Bullets, rocks, churches, whatever you throw at him, it will simply get blown away - he can't ever be harmed or even slowed down while the void is operating. Vanilla Ice should never lose a stand fight. How do they beat him? Well, he's rock stupid, basically, but I don't want to give away the details.

This week's episode also contains the most moving scenes in the entire series. It's between Iggy and Pontalef, of all characters. Even so, it's rather sad.

On a lighter note, I find it amusing (as you'll see) that JoJo gets thrown out a window early in this episode, not to return until late in episode five. At least eight hours pass in between; what's he doing all that time?

Hey, I think that's a bit harsh, Greg. Do we have a local high-story window I can throw you out of? We'll see how many episodes it takes you to come back. Vanilla Ice is radically powerful in my opinion. Able to survive such a bad career, I was certain I had seen the last of him when Third Base jumped him in their "Pop Goes the Weasel" video. Apparently, some men are just too menacing and evil to hold back.

While I can't agree with his choice of wardrobe either, Vanilla Ice is a perfect example of what I like about this series (my God, I can't believe I just typed that). All of the villains have unique and vastly powerful stands. Waiting to see what ingenious and disgusting way the writers will warp reality this time is part of the fun. It's hard to think of someone with a more easily abusive ability than good old V.I.

The main problem I have with episode 4, and this taints the whole series for me, is that Abdul doesn't show he is the actual power behind the entire group and take over the spotlight in the series like he really should. I realize that Abdul's Bizarre Adventure probably wouldn't have the proper ring to it, but why bother pretending that Abdul isn't the coolest character in the series when he is clearly so superior?

Haha, Dan you're a loony. Abdul showed a bit of brains here and there, like the ring toss game and knowing that he couldn't bet against Darby, but really now! Kakyouin - he's the real hero. He saves everyone in episode five because he's the only one smarter then Dio. The real gyp is that he's blinded in the first episode, so he doesn't have a chance to show his leadership and battle tactics. Maybe this was a trick of his; I think he wanted the team to learn to work without him so that they'd be even better with him. They needed to grow a bit instead of always whining to him about what their next move should be. He was probably tired of baby-sitting them all. It just happens that the anime coincides with the part of the manga when he does this, so you don't get a good picture of his true abilities. The only reason the show isn't called Kakyouin's Bizarre Adventure is that the writers wanted the audience to feel good about themselves when they figured out that Kakyouin was really the star.

Anyway, have a good time watching this one, and don't miss the last two episodes at the end of the Marathon!