Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure- Vento Aureo Episode 11: Blood and Fire

I’m pretty sure Formaggio being the introduction to the Assassination Squad led to this fight to be 3 episodes. With how the beginning of fights were bleeding into the ending of other episodes, I fully expected Illuso to actually show up when the select trio were assigned to go to Pompeii

Have to give to Formaggio’s seiyuu, his work was damn impressive given that he’s such a minor villain in the grand scheme of things. His Little Feet call-outs were excellent.

Narancia’s powers diminish as he grows smaller and Formaggio finds it right to confront the miniature gangster in his current state to finish him off. As Formaggio literally has Narancia under his foot, we’re given Narancia’s backstory of his childhood involving his late mother and his negligent father. After his mother’s death involving an ambiguous eye infection, Narancia rebuked his uncaring father and skipped school to hang out with his friends. Narancia and co. were led by an older blonde hoodlum who one day told Narancia that he could became more popular if he dyed his hair blonde like he did. Narancia did exactly this but was later arrested and accused of being the hoodlum he was friends with. Since he had blonde hair, the old lady that the hoodlum attacked accused Narancia of the crime and the latter spent a year in juvenile hall. Narancia suffered a bit further when an eye injury left on him by a guard was never treated and he ended up with an eye infection not dissimilar to his mother. As Narancia returned to the streets to where he and his friends used to play, they abandoned him after heard of his bad eye and Narancia was left without anyone to be with. A young Fugo happened upon Narancia and brought him to Buccellati at their restaurant where he requested for Narancia to be fed and treated. Buccellati agreed with no qualms but urged Narancia to return to his parents and go back to school, even getting angry at the thought of Narancia joining up with the gang when the latter asked him if he could join him. Narancia did as he was told yet the more time he spent thinking about it, he felt that Buccellati’s anger at him was out of genuine concern for his wellbeing and that inspiration led him to find Polpo, pass his test, and get into the gang without Buccellati knowing.

Back under Formaggio’s foot, Narancia has no intention of sharing any information about his crew even under the threat of being completely crushed underfoot. Formaggio has a little crazy break about himself and his squad’s ambitions to overthrow the boss and make a killing off the drug money as he pulls out a bottle with a spider inside. Narancia tries to retaliate with Aerosmith but the small size of it has it be captured by Little Feet and Narancia gets stuck in the bottle with the spider. Formaggio watches him struggle against the creature all the while he finds something Narancia dropped. He gleefully discovers that it’s a map with marks on it, letting him deduce that Buccellati’s crew is currently holed up a house in the vineyard and he announces that he has no need to continue questioning Narancia now. As the spider captures Narancia, he is just able to let Formaggio know that he wasn’t aiming for him with his Aerosmith just before and that he was aiming for the fuel tank of the car behind him. Just as that piece of knowledge is shared, the car erupts in fire and Formaggio is caught in it. Narancia returns to regular size while Formaggio is quickly able to act and cut himself with his stand, before shrinking himself to douse the fire on himself with his own blood.

Formaggio’s attempts to hide himself and make a getaway to share the knowledge about Trish and Buccellati’s gang is thwarted by Narancia’s rather dangerous decision to start shooting all the cars in the fuel tanks to light the entire street to a blaze. Formaggio is forced out of hiding in fear of the explosions getting to him and he confronts Narancia face to face and the two have a standoff before their blows exchange and Narancia is able to shoot Formaggio down faster. Formaggio falls to his death but mocks Narancia about his failed mission and warns him that his crew will know what happened to him. Narancia returns to the crew and met with harsh words about his decision to basically light a signal to the other assassination squad members. Giorno is the only one who believes that Narancia came out with a decent outcome given the situation and thinks that they should only relocate if that’s the boss’s orders. Abbacchio is skeptical of Giorno’s opinion as always but just as Abbacchio doubts the fact that the boss will contact them in such short notice, Mista tells Buccellati that an order from the boss came in on a private terminal. The message reads that the boss has hidden a key to a vehicle in Pompeii and Buccellati sends Fugo, Abbacchio, and Giorno to retrieve it.