Now that we are entering the third stage of this Steel Ball Run we have left the dry desert behind us and are instead in the much more lush Rocky Mountains. But that doesn’t mean things are going to be easier for Johnny and Gyro. With winding paths and many differences in elevation, this place should bring a whole host of new challenges to our main characters. And the biggest problem they have is the fact that Gyro isn’t exactly close to the lead. Dio and Sandman are both ahead of Gyro and Johnny. But it looks like things are about to get much more dangerous. Dio has been thrown from his horse, or at least is making it seem like he has. It’s not surprising that someone called Dio is going to be a bad guy, and Johnny makes this clear to Gyro. Still, Gyro is a good guy so he decides to help out the stranded Dio. Refusing the help, Dio does show signs of something being seriously amiss. He is passed out between the bones of a dinosaur with some sort of scales appearing on his hand. This will either be a stand or a part of the body of Christ. Yes, don’t tell me you forgot about the point of this race. It’s to find the body of Jesus Christ for the president of the United States.
Leaving Dio to his own devices, the duo continues their way through the Rocky Mountain region towards the mountains themselves. They’re about to finish for the day when they’re caught up to by Dio. Something seems to be seriously wrong with Dio. His skin is still cracking with something seemingly trying to escape out of it and not to mention he’s making bad jokes and doing weird acrobatics on his horse. He’s clearly lost his mind. Not quite the intimidating Dio I expected. At the very least he doesn’t seem to be openly hostile to the duo, but that can just be a ploy. Now I know nothing about the manga for JoJo part 7 so every theory I have is purely conjunctive, but wouldn’t it be incredibly funny if Dio wasn’t actually a bad guy and he was just a total weirdo. Still, old habits die hard and Johnny can’t trust Dio. So despite being able to camp out inside a village, the two decide to make sure to keep an eye on their belongings and their horses while staying here.
While Johnny is making coffee, Dio is eating rocks and barging in on Johnny while behaving strangely animalistic. While talking, Dio still seems to be somewhat normal although he defends his habit of eating rocks as if it’s normal. He also has strangely raptor-like arms right now, but there’s no good reason for Johnny to decline him some coffee. Something does seem to be weirdly off with him. Not just that, his face seems to be turning very raptor-like. And to top it off, we see Dio turn into a raptor after seemingly eating a wild bear. What the hell is going on in part 7?
Man, Dio’s design here is so freaking cool. A multicolored dinosaur with large scars on his chest and symbols around his legs that form the word Dio. It at the very least doesn’t seem like Dio is in full control over what is happening as his animalistic senses seem to be taking over from his normal wits. If this is a stand ability, Dio will have some training to do. While they’re trying to fight off Dio, Gyro notices something about the tattoo on Johnny’s arm and the nearby mountains. He seems to see the exact location of the next part of the corpse. With the lack of movement from Gyro and Johnny, it looks like Dio is going back to his dinner, which is the remainder of the bear corpse.
After using some steel ball tricks to get rid of Dio, the duo wants to start talking about the corpse again before being interrupted by a second dinosaur. This time it’s the corpse of a bear that is turned into a living creature below them with the same stone scales that Dio showed at first. I wonder if this means that Dio is the owner of this power or that he was already dead or dying when the others found him and was brought back alive through some external power. As is tradition with JoJo, after watching a full episode I have more questions than answers, but it’s still very entertaining for sure.
