immediately after she escapes from joshu she tries to jump into a police car so they can take her to jail and she can avoid any further misunderstandings. however she was seeing the car and occupants as police when they were instead seemingly some generic thugs who thought she was offering herself to them, and they tear at her clothes and try to get her to strip before she escapes. She runs away clutching at the broken straps of her top. Following that is when she goes home with Tsurugi, where she is drugged by the stone man though pills in her glass of water, and then he waterboards her awake before putting her back to sleep again. While the last one is not sexual in motive, you honestly can't be telling me that drugging and torturing a woman as she sleeps doesn't have certain implications and is intended to give the reader an impression of what COULD happen, before they actually know the details of the situation.
Okay, I'll admit—I forgot about the interaction she had with the occupants of that car following her encounter with Joshu. That isn't great, yeah. I'm glad both incidents happen in the same chapter; it makes it easier to just assume Araki went off his meds that month and all the sick, perverse thoughts he had floating around his head came bursting out all at once in an uncontrolled stream of consciousness.
As for Yotsuyu's attack on Yasuho, I'm curious—at what point does he drug the water? I went back to check, but I couldn't find anything. Are you certain you're not mixing up certain aspects of the two incidents? When she got into the car with those strangers, they did attempt—unsuccessfully—to drug her by forcing her to swallow a pill. But I don't see anything like that with Yotsuyu; he just goes straight for the kill.
The face confusion sequence definitely not played for laughs, but it is not played deadly serious either. There are all sorts of misunderstandings that could come from Tsurugi's power, but Yasuho is gravitated towards a specific type of trouble at the climax of that arc, and the tone is inscrutable. Following that arc she sleeps through a fairly long fight where she is used as bait/a hostage.
She never is given a moment where she processes what she went through; her character seems to continue on as though all that happened was the typical sort of stuff that happens during a stand fight for most male characters. Her experience seems to have gone the way it did specifically because she was a woman, and there doesn't seem to be any real larger message in there about what that implies.
By "gone the way it did specifically because she was a woman," I'm not sure what you're trying to say—that because she was a woman, she was subjected to a rape attempt? That if it was Josuke, it would've played out differently (presumably because of some unconscious bias Araki has)? The very same Josuke who, when his memories were being plucked from his head thanks to California King Bed, was nearly raped by Daiya? (Though he was willing to humor her advances, as he was attracted to her, I'll remind you that it was not informed consent, due to his missing memories.) For that reason alone, your assertion—the notion that Yasuho was treated differently because of her sex—can be easily discarded.
More importantly, however, you correctly point out that there is never "a moment where she processes what she went through," but when does that ever happen in this series? There are characters in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure who have gone through far more traumatic events, who have experienced things that would "break" the human mind, but more often than not come out of it unscathed, completely unshaken by what they've experienced. Men, women, children—everyone. In fact, in this series, it's rare for a character to ever internalize their trauma—even when it's a part of their backstory—and when they do, it usually doesn't manifest in any meaningful way (either through their characterization, or their actions).
Why are characters who haven't murdered before, who take a life for the first time during the course of their journey, not held to the same standard (as a woman who's survived an attempted rape)? Are you suggesting that sexual assault is more traumatizing to a woman than killing (or a Stand battle) is to a man? What are your thoughts on the casual, almost entirely thoughtless murder that litters the series without so much as a moment of reflection from its main characters? What about how the characters routinely brush off existential threats that should leave them questioning the very nature of reality? Isn't all of that equally bothersome to you? (You don't have to answer any of those questions. I'm purposely being argumentative right now because I'm in a bad mood. Apologies.)
Admittedly, I don't disagree with you that Yasuho should've had a moment to reflect on what happened to her, but my point is that Araki has never treated trauma—physical or psychological—as significant, or long-lasting (except in rare occasions, when it's central to the narrative). It's one of the things that has always bothered me about his writing, though I understand why he doesn't linger on it. I'm sure that to Araki, it seems like it would "unnecessarily" complicate the storytelling process, and create bloat. That's unfortunate, because I think when he focuses on fleshing out his characters, that's when he really shines. (Thankfully, besides a few missteps—no more than any other part—I believe he's done a great job in that respect with JoJolion.)
Sexual assault is common, but nothing about what happened there besides what the stone man does is even close to accurately representing the power dynamics and circumstances of it. The Stone Man's attack on Yasuho feels coherent as both a metaphor and reality, but whatever teeth it might have had are dulled by the cartoonish and hyper-literal depictions that preceded it.
I want you to elaborate on this point, because it confuses me. How is it that what Yotsuyu does is more "accurately [representative of] the power dynamics and circumstances of [sexual assault]"? You say it "feels coherent as both a metaphor and reality," but what does that mean to you exactly? How are the depictions of sexual assault that precede it more "cartoonish and hyper-literal depictions"? I suspect I know what you're getting at—that because it's a more traditionally framed sexual assault (except it's not), with none of the absurdity from the previous arc, it's more valid—but I hope not.
I feel the same about Jobin's bully, who tries to get jobin to burn down the house of a girl who found out that they were tricking him into stealing his mom's underwear and taking pictures of her in the shower, and then threatens to rape and murder his mom. This is a child, somewhere around 10 years old I think, who is saying this.
I'm clearly supposed to be shocked, but instead I just feel like there's a total lack of subtlety and humanity in any of that. I don't believe it, and it doesn't feel earned.
It doesn't shock or scandalize me. It simply has no effect but confusing me, because I don't really understand what the point of overcommiting like this is.
I don't think you're supposed to be shocked. While that may be your interpretation, I don't think it's accurate. Kids, especially bullies, say comically evil things all the time. Were you never bullied growing up? I was. Not as mercilessly as Jobin, mind you, but enough to know firsthand how cruel children can be to their peers. What his bully tells him is just an intimidation tactic. It doesn't feel earned because it's not. That's the point. It's nothing more than the posturing of a cowardly fool. There's no "subtlety and humanity in any of that" because it's a child who's in over his head, who's desperate, and who's lashing out because they don't know what to do, and they're frustrated. That's all there is to it. (And when he threatens Jobin in front of his friends, it's to maintain his "tough guy" persona. It's all about keeping up appearances for him.)
I don't know. maybe that doesn't make much sense. If you're finding the part entertaining, I have to say that I am too! But there are just many things about it and its tone that I don't understand, even after 67 chapters, and those things can't be explained as simply as "bad things happen in the world". Other Jojo parts focus on that too, and do it in a much more narratively conventional and comprehensible way. Part 4, for example. So I'm just having trouble seeing what angle this part is coming at that from, though it is clear it is a different angle.
It makes sense, though I respectfully disagree with a fair bit of it, as I believe many of your issues are entirely subjective and rooted in your own interpretation of the events, and aren't representative of what Araki actually intended to convey. Your complaint about the bully, for example, is completely baffling to me. No offense, but you seem to be reading too deeply into things that have no "purpose." The kid was just being an edgy little prick, but you're here trying to divine some deeper meaning from it, and because you can't find it—because it doesn't exist—now you're convinced that Araki was merely trying to "shock" you or make the story seem more "mature," when all he was doing was writing a bully... being a bully.
Edit: You know what—we can carry on this discussion over PM if you want. I don't want to bog down this thread with a protracted back and forth.
