Overdrive (Episode)

Overdrive (波紋疾走（オーバードライブ）) is the fourth episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It is also the fourth episode of Phantom Blood. It covers Chapter 17 through Chapter 23 of the manga.

Summary
Three days after the battle between Jonathan and Dio, Speedwagon decides to visit Jonathan in the hospital. Outside the door of Jonathan's room, he peers inside to see a young woman caring to Jonathan's wounds. Speedwagon notices her hands are swollen and smeared with blood, as if she had been treating his burns thousands of times. Jonathan awakens and recognizes the woman to be his old childhood sweetheart, Erina Pendleton. The two begin conversing as Speedwagon coolly withdraws.

Elsewhere in London, Jack the Ripper is busy stabbing a young girl, but is interrupted when Dio appears in a wheelchair being pushed by a zombified Wang Chan. Dio has a cloak covering most of his body, but burns can be seen around his face and hands. Dio uses some type of mind control on Jack and proceeds to drain his blood, thus turning him into a zombie.

The next day, Jonathan is seen using a cane to walk around the debris of his house, trying to ensure that the mask and Dio were destroyed. He eventually gives up and decides to take a stroll with Erina. During their walk, a mysterious man appears on a nearby stone wall, eating a sandwich. The man suddenly jumps into the air while sitting and lunges at Jonathan. The man's pinky finger impales itself into Jonathan's lungs, temporarily disabling his breathing, but surprisingly heals his fractured arm. The man reveals himself to be William Anthonio Zeppeli, a martial artist master trained in the ways of the Ripple. He takes Jonathan and Erina to a nearby pond where he demonstrates the power of the Ripple by striking at a frog on a rock. Strangely enough, the shockwave from his strike goes through the frog and shatters the rock underneath it, leaving the frog unharmed. Zeppeli then reveals that Dio and the Stone Mask were not destroyed, and his purpose for coming is to finish the job. Jonathan is surprised and grabs the branch to a nearby tree. Zeppeli notices that the flowers begin to bud on the branch he is holding and he realizes that Jonathan may have great potential as a Ripple user.

Dio has taken refuge in a mansion and is draining humans of their blood to heal his wounds. He is seen draining a women of her blood and then throws the corpse to a zombified Jack the Ripper to eat.

For the next week, Jonathan trained under Zeppeli to master the power of the Ripple. The two takes a break and Zeppeli tells Jonathan for the reason why he is after the Stone Mask. When Zeppeli was young, he had joined his scholarly father's ruin excavation team and traveled the world. During one of their expeditions, they discovered the stone mask in an ancient ruins in Mexico. On the boat ride home, someone had donned the mask and killed all the men on the ship. Zeppeli is able to escape briefly by jumping into the water, but the person wearing the stone mask continued to pursue him. Just before he is killed however, the sun rises from the horizon; the man disintegrates from the sunlight, but not before Zeppeli realizes that the man was actually his father.

After Zeppeli teaches Jonathan a technique called Zoom Punch, Speedwagon appears and announces that Dio had been spotted in the town of Windknight's Lot. The group sets off immediately in a carriage. Apparently, the only way into the town is through a tunnel in the mountain, where once inside, the group is attacked by Jack the Ripper. At first, Jack unleashes a bunch of scalpels from inside his body, but Zeppeli is able to deflect them by infusing his wine with Ripple and launches it as projectiles. Zeppeli then uses a Ripple Kick on Jack and melts half his face. Jack jumps backwards and grabs hold of a sword stuck in the ceiling of the tunnel. It's true purpose is revealed as a lever which unlocks a passageway in the side of the tunnel, which Jack climbs through. Zeppeli hands Jonathan a glass of wine and tells him to defeat Jack without spilling a drop of it, lest he face the consequences.

The passageway opens up into a larger corridor, where Jonathan is attacked by Jack briefly. Jonathan focuses onto his wine glass and realizes he can draw out the power of the ripple using the ripples in the wine. He charges up a sendo ripple overdrive and punches a wall nearby. The shock wave travels through the wall and manages to hit Jack, who happened to be waiting for him around the corner. Jack is hit dead-on and flies backward into the opposite wall and disintegrates.

Manga/Anime Differences

 * The anime started with Speedwagon's second time entering the hospital. The first time was not shown, with Speedwagon in a wagon with his friends. When Speedwagon tried going to Jonathan's room the first time, he is coldly turned away by Erina and decides to return later.
 * In the manga, he sneaks in over a wall with his cane when he visits for the second time. He also attempts to enter the room after Jonathan awakens, only to change his mind after Erina says Jonathan's name.
 * In the manga, Jack is first seen conversing with the woman he kills, talking about Jack the Ripper and revealing that she's been talking to him before stabbing her.
 * In the manga, Dio was stabbed by Jack the Ripper multiple times before he decided to join him. In the anime, Dio used some type of mind control and Jack was instantly subdued.
 * The flashback explanation of how Dio escaped the mansion alive (the pillar near the statue broke and destroyed the statue Dio was impaled on) was not in the anime.
 * The arm that Jonathan heals is reversed in the anime.
 * Zeppeli's first appearance garments from the manga are replaced by his second usual ones.
 * Zeppeli's shaker breaking and causing him to sneeze more is cut from the anime.
 * Zeppeli does not explain the Zoom Punch after he hits Jonathan with it in the manga.
 * Zeppeli's flashback has slightly more detail in the manga, also showing how he attempted to escape with a crew member, only for the crew member to be killed.
 * In the manga, where Zeppeli compares the Ripple and the Stone Mask, he throws one pebble while Jonathan throws the other. In the anime, Zeppeli throws both.
 * The battle between Jonathan and Wang Chan a week after Jonathan is told about Zeppeli's past was not shown in the anime.
 * Since this battle is removed, Wang Chan does not tell Dio about how he fled, and Speedwagon does not flip into the carriage talking about how Wang Chan was seen at Windknights.
 * Two gossiping ladies talking about how someone's moved into the mansion by the graveyard is cut from the anime.
 * Zeppeli asking for a corkscrew is cut from the anime. Speedwagon also saying how he wouldn't want to see through the eyes of Jack the Ripper and Zeppeli quieting him is cut.
 * Jack does not cut off part of his thumb in the anime. Zeppeli is also much more surprised that Jack would throw the wagon at the entrance in the manga.
 * During the battle with Jack the Ripper, Jack launches a bunch of knives out of his body. In the manga, Jonathan and Speedwagon hide behind a rock. Speedwagon is also cut in the shoulder by one of the knives. In the anime, they do not hide, and Speedwagon is not harmed.
 * Zeppeli also gives an explanation as to how his Ripple Cutter works in the manga.
 * After Jack is hurt by Zeppeli's kick, one of his eyes is crying in the manga.
 * When Jonathan is injured by Jack, the device Jack uses is thought to be a remodeled torture instrument from the Middle Ages by Jonathan in the manga.
 * In the manga, Zeppeli told a story to Speedwagon about a fisherman who cut his own leg to attack a shark and kill it. In the anime he never told this story.

Commentary
"The Ripple is here! You also find the famous onomatopoeia "Memeta" when the frog is punched. The episode necessitated more effort for the photography and vector graphics than the animation; it was a small challenge for those who weren't used to them.

It's also the arrival of Zeppeli, conveying his eccentric side at best was necessary. More and more dangerous characters like Jack the Ripper make their appearance. Jonathan and Erina have again a languid scene (laughs). I also like the scene where Jonathan's arm is healed thanks to the Ripple... "I can even lift this rock!" It wasn't planned in the storyboard but honestly, it had to be here even at the risk of upsetting everything. The audience had to see how awesome the Ripple is. The voice acting was also a great moment, everyone was excited like in those overnight infomercials."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries