This week's
JoJoRadio's guest was Toru Okawa, who is the narrator of the series. He analyzed that Okitsu (Jonathan) did well among all the veterans such as Koyasu (Dio) and Shioya (Will.A.Zeppeli) in the part I. With a similar set, Sugita (Joseph) struggled at first among another set of veterans like Inoue (Cars), Wham (Otsuka) and ACDC (Fujiwara), eventually managing to establish his version of Joseph. Unfortunately for Sugita, however, it's always Imaruoka (Stroheim), who ends up stealing the show. I think this episode turned out another such example. His ability to be able to act even in falsetto seems to be quite a rare trait as a voice actor.
Another aspect of this animalization is how the chemistry between the scriptwriter Yasuko Kobayashi and Araki would work. Kobayashi is known for well-themed characterization while they tend to be so-called emo while the characters in JoJo series tend to be decisive either they are considered as good or evil. At the same time, I also wondered how much Kobayashi could add to the few female characters in the earlier JoJo series (Kawasumi (Elena) did a remarkable job so far partly because she is another great fan of JoJo series. Okawa even describes her as a "mother" of this adaptation, by constantly encouraging and/or putting pressure on other voice actors). As I expected, Kobayashi tried to wrap some odds ends by adding more to Lisa Lisa related episode while making the story bit sentimental. The reason why she did it through the interaction between Speedwagon and Smokey is, probably, that, in Araki's works, there are almost always a certain characters who play as narratives and add emotional content to the main characters who are engaged in actions rather than looking back.
In any case, Lisa Lisa's DNA of liking bluffing and being unstoppable when enraged, seem to run steadily in blood of her descendants. :lol: