YMMV / JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part Eight and a Half: Rainbow In The Dark

• Bizarro Episode: Aside from it begin the first partial awakening of Imagine All, the first true combat arc is this, being unusual even by the franchises' standards. You Yes-Eyes is a Humanoid Abomination with unusual powers both Stand and personal, that are weird even by the series' typical unusual powers, being based in an utterly alien location on top of this and it's resolved in an initial All Just a Dream explanation before it's revealed as Real After All that feels more like the author wrote himself into a corner before and used a convenient application of the heroine's power to undo the situation with no loose ends.
• Tear Jerker: This part continues the trend of tragedy following the Joestar lineage.
  • Josuke Higashikata/Gappy's fate as revealed through the narrative and dialogue of others. What was already a Bittersweet Ending with him losing a close ally, his only half-sibling, and the chance to cure his half-mother, but it's made much worse with the expansion of his life. Josuke wanting to destroy the source Locacaca/Rokakaka so it wouldn't ever be used again, is granted when the Wall Eyes cause New Guinea and the isles of Japan to merge into a larger landmass, allowing Josuke access to the location. He encounters more Rock Humans like before, including the Rock Human King, the father of Tooru, who is angry at Josuke for killing his son. At the end of their confrontations, the Rock Human King would use his Stand power to kill off the Higashikata members one by one as Josuke is physically overpowered whenever he attempts to do anything to prevent the massacre he's forced to witness including Tsurugi, but Joshu being left alive. The traumatized Josuke would evolve his Stand into Purple Rain: Go Beyond to defeat the Rock Human King, but lost all hope, cursing his wish to end the evils of the Rokakaka caused the family to die horribly. Enough to abandon his name as Josuke Higashikata and become a reclusive doctor in England named Jose Joestar, leaving Joshu as the new Norisuke.
    • Purple Rain: Go Beyond while cool, is a constant reminder of Josuke's inability to save his family.
  • Nilly's past. Her mother was attempting to remedy the rivalry between two houses, the Higashikata and the Floyds by combining the byproduct of the Rokakaka, the Eden's Fruit and the Floyd's equivalent, the Forbidden Legume into a new hybrid called Strange Fruit. Her adopted daughter, Erean, secretly a Rock Human descendants of one of Tooru's many affairs outside of his relationship with Yasuho, sold her out and Justiz, a man banking on the feuding families' rivalry, sent his most monstrous agent Kilin In The Name Of to rot to the bone while still alive as the young Nilly at the age of 4 was forced to watch. It's little reason to understand why she was such a Broken Bird by the time of the narrative.
  • In Chapter 12, Joanna's nightmarish unpleasant evolution of her Stand, Once Upon A Dream into Eidolon of Nightmare after being tricked by Dove Pale Will into consuming a new substance that allowed Stands to evolve during their initial meeting, with the latter intending her to die a horrific death For the Evulz. Said transformation involve a severe case of Mind Rape, enough for Joanna, the normally aloof and standoffish girl to become temporarily despairing. She had gone in thinking she could improve her Stand that indiscriminately could allow anyone to receive a dream to allow their success- including future corrupt mafia bosses or other criminals into a more selective power with a more elegant appearance. The revelation of its terrifying form was traumatic for her and Joan's tackless comment on how it looked cool in spite of causing her twin sister mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical anguish, made Joanna especially irate at this perceived Lack of Empathy.
  • Chapter 15- North Lane's death. In spite of having an impressive showing, managing to trounce the initial forces at Dove's research facility- Paradise, he is suddenly met with Karneval Carnage, one of Testa Raven's Praetorian Guard, who manages to easily defeat him in spite of the butler's valiant efforts to find a cure for Joanna's condition. Knowing his death is near, his soul goes back to the mansion to see how the young lady is doing. Seeing resolve in her eyes and managing to stabilize her Stand, his spirit feels satisfied and goes into the Heavens. The two Joestar twins spot this and spontaneously cry, realizing that North, who had essentially been their father figure had died trying to help Joanna. When one of the assassins witnessing the crying assumes this is Tears of Fear, Joanna notably snaps and activates her new Stand Eidolon of Nightmare's power onto the assailants, which is elaborated in the next chapter as a Mind Rape onto the said assassin as a means to vent out her anger.
  • Chapter 20 begins with Norisuke Higashikata stumbling upon his assassinated father's corpse, done in the act of stealing vital data to be used for Dove's For the Evulz experiments. After crying in despair, he is called by his family rival, Zap Floyd the C who has also suffered a similar tragedy to his father, initially blaming the Higashikata as a part of a political gambit to gain information. When this is refuted, Norisuke brings up the guilt he felt for being involved with Nilly's mother- Billy's forced execution by Justiz. And the background, Erean shows an immense Lack of Empathy by saying how lucky Zap is to be able to indulge his father's fortune, unconcerned over his clear anger and sadness of his father's death. Knowing their weaknesses, they seek out the Pussycat Dolls in order to help them avenge their families.
    • This retroactively becomes worse as it's implied that through Dove's involvement, Justiz was able to use the lack of father figure to slowly manipulate the young heirs into his line of thinking.
  • Chapter 21 after the intensely sensual initial half, Joanna and Joan encounter North's preserved corpse in a golden coffin. Jobeth is both angered that her butler was killed in order to cover up a conspiracy and for Joanna's impulsive decision to undertake the Stand surgery which led to his death. Joanna guilt-ridden, asks if he could be cloned, but Jobeth refuses on the grounds of his resolve being tarnished if he was technically revived- his efforts in vain- so she enforces the option of avenging him through another's request- which occurs when the Higashikata and Floyd families ask to target the assassins sent by Dove. Joanna, having been reduced to crying last night, readily accepts.
• Too Cool to Live: By Chapter 15, the full extent of North Lane's Time Master powers make it apparent he vastly outclass the heroines' current abilities as well as the majority of previous time using Stands by a wide margin and that he would've ended the plot in minutes had he continued demolishing Dove's organization, so he is suddenly killed off by one of the true main villain's minions who just happened to meeting with Dove on the same day North was assaulting the building just as he's made headway towards his goal- in order to show how dangerous Testa's group is, but not before inspiring Joanna to develop her Stand further.