Why Did Funny Valentine Become Ripped

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure | Phantom Blood | Battle Tendency | Stardust Crusaders | Diamond Is Unbreakable | Golden Wind | Stone Ocean | Steel Ball Run | JoJolion

• Adorkable: Gyro's reaction to Johnny saying he likes his song is absolutely precious.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Valentine truly motivated by a desire to help his country? Or were his ideals just a self-righteous excuse to Take Over the World? His words at the end of the part suggest the former, but his speech about the "taking first napkin" heavily suggests the latter.
  • More importantly, did Johnny truly like Gyro's song, or was he being sarcastic when he said he liked it?
• Badass Decay: Alternate Universe Diego's Stand, THE WORLD, has the same powers and abilities it once had back in Stardust Crusaders. But it's gone from the unstoppable force it once was, that only Star Platinum could go toe to toe with in Part 3 to being rather underwhelming and lackluster. Diego only uses its signature Time Stop ability to set up traps for Johnny and nothing else. We never see it in direct combat and the only reason Diego even had a chance to beat Johnny with it was because of Funny Valentine telling him about Tusk's abilities. Ironically, he's the only iteration of Dio to actually defeat his opponent.
• Base-Breaking Character: Pocoloco. Depending on who you ask, he's either a boring fool with an absurd amount of luck who never grows as a person, or he's a fun Plucky Comic Relief who, like many of the racers, deserved more attention than he got. The fact that he wins 1st place in the Steel Ball Run instead of Johnny only deepened the divide.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Many of Gyro's jokes, typically preceeded by Gyro announcing he's about to tell one, and typically followed with Johnny looking very unimpressed shortly before showering Gyro's skits with praise. None of them have been treated kindly by fan translations — they rely on Japanese-only puns ^Example Gyro's "Let me pass" joke; he says "excuse me, let me pass", while holding up four fingers, then two fingers, then none. Four in Japanese is "Shi", zero is "rei", and two in English would be pronounced "tsu", thus "shitsurei", meaning "excuse me" in Japanese or references to Japanese culture ^Example The "days of the week" gag, where Gyro suddenly turns insane on Wednesday, references a skit by Atsumu Watanabe where the comedian turns silly in the presence of the number 3, with Wednesday being the third day of the week — and not a single one of the gags are mentioned ever again after they debut.
  • The most famous "gag" is Gyro's song about two different types of cheese, which doesn't use any words except "Pizza mozzarella" and "Gorgonzola". Unlike his recurring bizarre sense of humor, his desire to sing never gets brought up ever again.
• Broken Base:
  • Is the Art Evolution that took place a good thing? Fans are split between those who like the more detailed and realistic art, saying that it pushed JoJo to a level it's never been before, and others bemoan it due to it making Araki fall into Only Six Faces and stiffer facial expressions as the series went on.
  • Dio vs. Diego. While fans do agree to liking both characters, which one is the better character is up for debate. Was Dio better because of how unapologetic an antagonist he was which in turn made him one of the most memorable shounen villains, or was Diego the better character since he had his evil tendencies toned down, went through Character Development, and still kept the unapologetic charm of the original Dio?
  • The final battle being against an Alternate Universe Diego instead of Funny Valentine. A lot of fans were disappointed that Funny Valentine who is often regarded as one of the best antagonists in the series didn't get the grand finale he deserved and that Araki was just trying to pander to nostalgia. Others however thought it was a nice call back to Stardust Crusaders and that as good a final villain as Valentine was he wouldn't have made for an interesting final battle. There's also the fact that some fans were disappointed by the Stardust Crusaders final battle and feel as if this battle makes up for it. A third contingent argues that, while not the finale battle, Valentine's finale fight against Gyro and Johnny is still very much one of, if not the best in the part, maybe the whole series, and the battle against Diego was if anything a continuation of Valentine's battle given how he was only there because of him and leads to the Corpse not being able to be used against America, ensuring that Valentine's greatest fear wouldn't come to pass.
  • Steel Ball Run starting a new continuity in the franchise. Considering the acclaim this part has received, a lot of fans like the idea of Araki being able to revisit alternate versions of old plotlines as his writing skills have improved over time. Additionally, Funny Valentine's Stand opens up the possibility of a multiverse, which could potentially mean a crossover between the old parts is possible. Others, while fine with Steel Ball Run (and its direct sequel JoJolion) as a whole, aren't fond of the fact that Araki has abandoned the initial continuity, especially those who wanted to see sequels to Diamond is Unbreakable and Vento Aureo.
• "Common Knowledge": Pocoloco's Stand, Hey Ya!, is subject to two different widespread misconceptions. Some fans mistakenly attribute Pocoloco's immense luck to Hey Ya!'s ability: this is wrong, he was simply blessed with good luck for a few months according to a fortune teller. On the other hand, some claim that Hey Ya! is a completely useless Stand that doesn't do anything other than cheer for Pocoloco, which is also wrong as it is shown to be nearly omniscient, using its knowledge to give extremely useful advice.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Alternate Universe counterpart of Diego "Dio" Brando is completely devoid of his main counterpart's nobler qualities. Brought into the universe by the dying Funny Valentine, Alternate Diego agrees to secure the corpse parts solely so that all good fortune in the world would be centered on him, dooming most of the world to calamity. During his battle with Johnny, Alternate Diego tricks him into killing several of Diego's fans by using them as shields, mockingly blaming Johnny for their deaths. Upon being confronted by the young Lucy Steel, Alternate Diego attacks her, proudly claiming that he'll take his time raping and torturing Lucy before killing her.
  • The nameless soldier from Ringo Roadagain's backstory is a slavering, despicable presence who put Ringo on his path of villainy. Having apparently deserted from his army, the soldier breaks into Ringo's home and murders his mother and two young sisters with a knife before trying to rape the 10-year-old boy. Planning to keep and "raise" Ringo for more disgusting intentions, the soldier threatens to force the child to watch his family's corpses be butchered and Fed to Pigs if he resists the soldier's attempts to force himself on Ringo.
• Designated Villain: Quite a few fans consider Diego to be this, especially compared to his alternate world counterpart —both of them. Whereas Dio weasels his way into the Joestar family, taking Jonathan's father's love, killing his dog and ultimately ruining Jonathan's life (and by extension the lives of all his descendants), Diego is... a really good jockey who Johnny's dad just happens to like and is mildly antagonistic to Johnny as a competitor in the race, even eventually working towards Johnny and Gyro's goal of killing Valentine, albeit in his own way. He's searching after the Corpse Parts just like everyone else, but outside of some Jerkass moments, doesn't do anything that would cement him as significantly more evil than the rest; the closest he gets is leaving Wekapipo to die in order to understand D4C's ability as well as the unproven rumor that he married an old woman and poisoned her to inherit her fortune. One has to take into account Dio's father. One can point at his mistreatment of Dio and say that he's the reason why Dio is very evil. Diego was raised by his mother and, while having a hard life, grew up without having to get beaten to eat. While he is still "evil", he's no where near DIO's level, and fundamentally, a different character altogether.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Diego, Valentine, and Ringo Roadagain frequently undergo this treatment in the fandom. Being some of the best examples of Evil Is Cool and Evil Is Sexy in the entire franchise as well as lots of sympathetic traits probably have something to do with that. This hits Valentine especially hard, with some fans saying that he has noble goals and only wants what's best for his country, while ignoring that his plan, had it succeeded, would have turned every country except the United States into a living hell. Some people are also ignoring the fact that he attempted to force himself on Lucy, who's only 14.
• Ending Fatigue: After Valentine's death, you'd think the arc would have finally ended, right? Nope. It turns out had one more ace up his sleeve in the form of Alternate Universe Diego.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Ringo Roadagain is the most popular minor antagonist of the part, especially among Western fans, for his design and personality. He was even intended to be playable in Eyes of Heaven but was scrapped.
  • For appearing for only a very small amount of pages, D-I-S-C-O still has a fair amount of fans due to his relatively restrained yet attractive design, his very odd ability, and for being a reference to a particularly catchy Jpop song of all things.
  • Blackmore is quite popular as well for his cool design, unique personality, awesome fight and being an effective Knight of Cerebus and Hero Killer.
• Evil Is Cool: Funny Valentine is a fan favorite among readers for having one of the most powerful Stands in the series and being very charismatic and memorable.
• Evil Is Sexy:
  • Although whether him being evil is up to debate, Diego Brando still fits thanks to his Bishounen looks. He's even considered one of the most attractive villains in the entire franchise.
  • Funny Valentine fits this department as well, thanks to Art Evolution making him significantly more chiseled than in his initial appearance.
  • Out of all of Valentine's minions, D-I-S-C-O is by far the most attractive, thanks in no small part to his rugged facial features and steampunk fashion sense.
• Fanon:
  • Araki has yet to confirm if the Steel Ball Run universe is the one that was created at the end of Stone Ocean. Several statements made by him afterwards seem to suggest, that it exists in a completely different continuity to the first six parts. However, many fans believe that it is, since Johnny, Gyro, Lucy, and Diego are clear counterparts of characters in the first six parts, in a similar vein to the counterparts introduced at the end of Stone Ocean.
  • Mountain Tim being an alternate universe counterpart to Robert E.O. Speedwagon is also a common theory among fans. While "Speedwagon" is mentioned early on as one of the sponsors of the Steel Ball Run Race, Tim's facial scar and one-sided crush on Lucy as well as the fact that Johnny, Gyro, Lucy, and Diego were all explicitly based on the core cast members of Phantom Blood cause a lot of fans to come to this conclusion.
  • The exact species of Diego's Scary Monsters form is never given. When it comes up, fans have universally agreed on it being a Utahraptor.
  • Soundman being a parallel dimension counterpart of the original Sandman, having taken the place of the latter in the plot, heavily implied to be due to Funny's intervention is a theory amongst some fans. Some reasoning is due to the different applications of the Stand's power even by Araki's tendencies to display early hints of the Stand's powers that end up different by the final result, his stark personality shift, and that it would foreshadow how Alternate Diego comes into the plot.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Lucy Steel's temporary Stand is known as "Love Train"; however, it appears in chapters called "Ticket to Ride" and was later confirmed to be named as such in JOJOVELLER.
  • Pocoloco's Stand is sometimes called "Buckethead" due to the shape of its head. Its actual name is ''Hey Ya!".
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • In typical Jojo fashion, while Johnny meets Norisuke's daughter Rina in the final chapter, and Jojolion states that they got married and had children together, it's far more popular to ship him and Gyro due to the extremely close bond they form together.
• Fetish Retardant: Lucy Steel is one of the most attractive and cute female characters in the franchise. Yet in spite of her well-developed body, she's only 14 years old, which turns a lot of fans away from her.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • While Steel Ball Run is not unpopular in Japan, it's still not as popular as Stardust Crusaders and Vento Aureo over there. In the United States, however, Steel Ball Run is widely considered to be the best part of the entire franchise. It's probably the only part in the series that basically everyone unanimously loves with very few disliking it.
  • Funny Valentine is one of the most popular villains among the Western fandom for his patriotism and Gray-and-Grey Morality motives.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Many fans admit the beginning can be a little slow, but the appearance of Stands and especially the battle with Ringo Roadagain are cited as the point when SBR begins to truly shine.
  • Is often seen as another jump forward for the series itself much like Battle Tendency and Diamond is Unbreakable. The shift from Shonen to Seinen allowed Araki to write something he was more comfortable with, and when this part went monthly it allowed for more fleshed-out stories and fights. Needless to say, many fans were pleased with the more mature approach Araki took with the franchise.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Hot Pants is named after an album/song by James Brown, but if you're a Bob's Burgers fan, you might connect it instead with the Disco parody song "Hot Pants Rain Dance" that appears in one episode of the show and came out the year the Part ended.
• Ho Yay: To be expected, given the setting and focus on Johnny and Gyro's bond. It's hard to find moments between them that don't fall into this trope.
• Hype Backlash: Not since Diamond Is Unbreakable has a part received such praise, with a significant portion of fans considering Steel Ball Run to be the best part of the franchise. It's thus inevitable that some felt that it did not live up to the standards that fans made it out to be.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Hot Pants x Diego is referred to as "DinoPants."
• Iron Woobie:
  • Johnny has suffered through the death of his older brother, is largely ignored by his father, and lost the use of his legs. He does get better however as he adventures with Gyro and his father eventually comes to root for him in the final leg of the Steel Ball Run. But then again, Gyro ends up dying and he doesn't win the Steel Ball Run. Jojolion later reveals that he didn't live much longer after the events, as he dies trying to save his family from a disease.
  • Diego has a horrible case of Abusive Parents as his father tried to drown him when he was a baby in order to have one less mouth to feed. His mother saves him but later lived at a stable where she has to put her health on jeopardy in order feed him regularly.
• Les Yay: Scarlet Valentine is openly infatuated with Lucy and many of her interactions with her lean on this trope.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Diego "Dio" Brando, while ruthless, is completely devoid of his original counterpart's viler qualities. A genius jockey who swore revenge on society for his mother's death, Diego entered the Steel Ball Run, analyzing the competition's horses and adapting to their condition. After stealing a Holy Corpse Part and Dr. Ferdinand's Stand Scary Monsters, Diego got involved in the search for the Holy Corpse Parts, working for himself, then for Funny Valentine and finally with the heroes, switching sides as it suited his interests. Whether good, evil or neutral, Diego proved to be as good with Scary Monsters as he was with horses, using it offensively, as support — in tandem with Sandman's Stand – or even for infiltration purposes. Ultimately teaming up with Johnny Joestar, Wekapipo and later on Hot Pants against Valentine, Diego, despite Valentine's efforts to lure and outsmart him, saw through the latter's strategies, adapting to them and figuring out Valentine's Stand ability, later on doing his best with Hot Pants to prevent Valentine from using it, nearly killing him and only losing due to bad luck.
  • The ever-calm, infinitely polite Ringo Roadagain discovered his Stand Mandom after killing a burglar that had slaughtered his family. With this action Ringo came to the realization that fighting and near-death experiences harden one's willpower and make them a "true man," and made it his life's goal to both spread this message, and strengthen himself. Sent by President Funny Valentine to track down parts of the Holy Corpse, Ringo lays a trap for any racers of the Steel Ball Run who venture too close to his shack, trapping them in an infinite time loop until they fight him. In one of these fights, Ringo gives his opponent pointers on how to better combat him, only for his opponent to ignore them and get easily taken down by Ringo, who nonetheless thanks his fallen foe for a good fight. Upon confronting Gyro Zeppeli, Hot Pants and Johnny Joester, Ringo duels the trio, outsmarting Hot Pants's attempted sneak attack before capturing Johnny, offering Gyro a chance to walk away unharmed. When Gyro refuses, Ringo gives Gyro one of the hardest fights of his life, culminating in Ringo forcing Gyro to kill him, proclaiming that Gyro has now gained willpower he will need for his coming fights and welcoming him to "the true man's world."
• Moe:
  • Lucy Steel is a rare female example of this trope in the franchise. Especially gets such portrayals in fanart.
  • A lot of fans would describe Johnny as this, at least until he Took a Level in Badass, due to his emotional vulnerability.
• Memetic Molester: Tusk ACT 4. No matter what doors or walls you put up to protect yourself, it will break them down trying to get you while crying "chumimi~in".
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Look, I Know We Have To Win This Race, But Jesus Told Me We Have To Kill The President. ^note The premise of Part 7 is a meme itself, given that involves a cross country race to stop the American President from screwing with Jesus Christ's corpse for his own motives.
  • All rise for the national anthem ^note D4C's namesake song is often used as a replacement for the actual nstional anthem, seeing that its owner is the American president. This often comes up around American Independence Day
  • Funny Valentine wants to "Make America Great Again!" ^note Donald Trump used the phrase "Make America Great Again" for his 2016 presidential campaign. Fans often use this term in reference to the parallels between Trump and Valentine's rhetoric and visions for the US. Their prominent blond hair helps comparisons.
  • Pizza Mozzarella ^note At one point in the story, Gyro randomly starts singing a song he titles Pizza Mozzarella.
  • "Filthy Acts at a Reasonable Price" ^note Another casualty of the series' Writing Around Trademarks problems, where Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap's Great Heat Attack got changed in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle. Fans had an absolute field day with this one, especially considering you can hear Valentine say his Stand's proper name in English in the game.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Dario crosses it when he attempts to murder his son, Diego by drowning him. Even the Dario from the original timeline never stooped that low.
  • Benjamin Boom-Boom purposely shooting at his son Andre to get his magnetic blood on the heroes and showing zero empathy as he's literally dying.
  • Funny Valentine crosses it when he tries to force himself on Lucy, stopping only because she became host to the Holy Corpse.
  • Alternate Diego Brando crosses it when he uses his female fans as Human Shields against Johnny, and having the audacity to blame Johnny for killing them. Trying to have his way with Lucy does not help either.
• Narm:
  • Johnny Joestar's scream of "I MUST KNOW THE SECRET OF THE BAAAAALLLLSSSS" is more hilarious (or ridiculous — take your pick) than the serious and emotionally impacting line it's supposed to be.
  • Likely just a quirk of translation, but Hot Pants' tragic and genuinely disturbing backstory (in which she unconsciously pushed her brother into the maw of a hungry grizzly bear to save herself) culminates with her telling Johnny to wash his knife with pure water before his heart tells him that he "can't bear it".
• Never Live It Down: Fans who don't side with Funny Valentine often like to bring up his Attempted Rape on the 14-year old Lucy, saying that it's hard to sympathize with him when attempting to pull such an act.
• No Yay: Mountain Tim's, both the Valentines', and alternate Diego's advances on Lucy, especially taking into consideration the fact that Lucy is only 14 years old.
• Rooting for the Empire: Gray morality is a common theme in Steel Ball Run as Johnny, Diego, and Funny Valentine all have understandable motivations and all do things that aren't necessarily justified. In spite of all of this, Johnny and Gyro are still undeniably the protagonists, but some fans choosing to side with Diego or Valentine instead. Then again there are fans who chose to root for all three sides.
• Self-Fanservice: Hot Pants. A lot of fanart like to depict her as far more feminine-looking than she actually does.
  • In a hopefully non-sexual variant, Diego's Scary Monsters form is often drawn as cuter or just sleeker than it actually is, sometimes giving him feathers.
• Shocking Moments: During the fight against Civil War, none other than Jesus Christ himself shows up to give Johnny some pointers.
• Signature Scene:
  • Gyro telling Hot Pants off by saying "Eat shit, asshole! Fall off your horse!"
  • Johnny activating Tuck ACT4 for the first time, which then proceeds to hold open D4C: Love Train and deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Valentine.
• Squick: Mrs. Robinson has a nest of insects stored in his hollow eye socket.
• Spiritual Licensee: A lot of fans have called this part Japan's take on Wacky Races.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Of sorts. A lot of fans thought a Steel Ball Run contestant based on Hol Horse would have fit perfectly, given the Western setting and the presence of other Expies based off of characters like Avdol and Stroheim. Though some felt that Mountain Tim is an expy of Hol Horse due to their similar designs.
  • A complaint for the supporting cast established early on in general. The first few chapters barely treat Johnny and Gyro as much more important than any other racer with an established personality, in particular the first stretch of the race and sections immediately after focusing quite a bit on the likes of Pocoloco, Mountain Tim, and Sandman. Mountain Tim is almost killed and exits the plot before too long, ultimately coming Back for the Dead midway through, Sandman is hyped up a lot as someone with a lot to gain from winning the race, a potential sympathetic Stand user at that, only to, again, drop off the map for a little while only to come back later as an enemy and die, and Pocoloco, despite winning the entire race on a technicality, barely does anything after the opening of note. Of the characters we're introduced to in the very beginning of the story, only Johnny, Gyro, and Diego really get to be as relevant as they seemed to be, potential core cast members sort of sidelined for the growing buddy dynamic of Johnny and Gyro.
  • Norisuke becomes a retroactive example of this after Part 8. We learn that Johnny marries his daughter and that the Higashikata family descended from him. And yet, he has a relatively small role in the story.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • An alternate version of Dio with a dinosaur Stand, now on the heroes' side? Wait, never mind, he's dead.
  • Gyro's Stand, Ball Breaker, only manifests at the very end of Gyro's life and only launches one attack, which comes very close to instantly killing Valentine, only failing because the Steel Ball Gyro used was cracked.
• Ugly Cute: Tusk ACT1 is a tiny pink creature with sad Black Bead Eyes and a beak that makes a "Chumimi~n" noise.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • Oyecomova has one of the tackiest character designs in the entire franchise with what appears to be a net covering his entire face and conspicuously white skin.
  • The more realistic art style leans into this towards the end of the series, particularly the colored lipstick and accusations of sameface. Made even more apparent when Araki draws his older characters in this style as seen on the Jojonium covers.
• Unexpected Character: No one really expected the appearance of an alternate universe Diego Brando, with THE WORLD as his Stand instead of Scary Monsters.
• The Woobie: Lucy. As much as she's able to kick ass, it feels like fate has it out for her. She's had to fight to survive against Stand users before she even got a Stand, she was nearly raped by both Funny Valentine and Alternate Universe Diego, lost control of her bodily functions when she became pregnant with the Holy Corpse's head, and is slowly dying as a result of it peeling away her skin and making it metallic. It almost feels symbolic that her Stand can turn her tears into knives. It doesn't help that she suffers all this at the age of 14.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/JoJosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun

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