Koichi Hirose (Reverb) (Episode)

Koichi Hirose (Echoes) (広瀬康一（エコーズ）) is the sixth episode of Diamond is Unbreakable and the eightieth episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It covers Chapter 284 through Chapter 288 of the manga.

Summary
Koichi is gleefully riding on his new bike to school when suddenly he runs over a strange bag then hears faint meows and sees a dark liquid oozing from the bag. Koichi understands that he has just run over a cat and a stranger named Tamami Kobayashi tries to extort 500,000 yen out of Koichi with his Stand, The Lock, which works on guilt, and will automatically grow when the victim feels guilty. Suddenly, Josuke and Okuyasu who have seen the two from afar appear to rescue Koichi. While Tamami manages to make Okuyasu feel guilty after punching him, Josuke uncovers a toy cat from the bag and heals Tamami with Crazy Diamond, exposing his schemes and making The Locks disappear from Koichi and Okuyasu's chests. However, Tamami flees and steals Koichi's 7,000 yen. Around 4:07 PM, Koichi comes back home and sees with shock that Tamami is massaging his mother's shoulder and chatting with her. Screaming at Tamami what he is doing here, Koichi is presented the 7,000 yen Tamami stole from him and is now pretending to return. Tamami adds that when Koichi bumped into him with his bicycle, they exchanged their wallet, and Tamami claims that his contained over 500,000 yen. Tamami successfully makes Koichi's mother feel guilty and The Lock appears on her. When Koichi's sister appears with The Lock on her chest too, this enrages Koichi who pushes his mother and sister out of the room and summons his Stand, which hatches Echoes. Echoes is incredibly weak, but instead creates several loud noises by planting sounds on Tamami, which drive him crazy. However, Tamami refuses to surrender and stabs himself, throwing the knife toward Koichi. When Koichi's family barges into the family room, they see Koichi having seemingly stabbed Tamami. The guilt makes Koichi's sister faint and his mother try to kill herself, but Koichi uses the sound "Believe me!" to relieve his mother of the guilt. His Stand defeated, Tamami yields and begs a more confident and assertive Koichi to spare him.

The next day, Josuke and Okuyasu see Tamami sucking up to Koichi and wonder what happened between them.

Commentary
"This is the episode where Koichi really shines on his own. The storyboard and directing were in the hands of Mr. Yasufumi Soejima, who portrays Tamami Kobayashi as a very interesting antagonist.

Echoes Act 1 enters the scene for the first time and with it comes the difficulty of showing a Stand that fights with sounds. Tamami’s own power, The Lock, doesn’t directly kill its targets and isn’t made for face-to-face combat. I think in that regard, this particular battle nicely represents Part 4 and what will be following. The fights until episode 5 were some kind of introduction and here we are in the development phase.

In regards to the animation, we decided to shrink Tamami’s proportions from the get-go. He's much smaller, but this also reflects his personality.

The second half of the episode happens at the Hirose’s. The house is quite small compared to other residences in Morioh and we had this information in mind when directing the battle in this rather cramped space. We also remember from this episode that Koichi’s sister is also very beautiful (laughs)."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries

Trivia

 * In the official English subs and dub, this episode's title is changed to "Koichi Hirose (Reverb)" to match Echoes' name change to "Reverb".
 * On Morioh Town Radio, Kai Harada can be heard reading a write-in letter from the alias "RIP Big Bro" and then wondering how his brother died. This letter is most likely from Okuyasu.