Let's Go Eat Some Italian Food (Episode)

Let's Go Eat Some Italian Food (イタリア料理を食べに行こう) is the tenth episode of Diamond is Unbreakable and the eighty-fourth episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It covers Chapter 303 through part of Chapter 307 of the manga.

Summary
One night, a mysterious figure menacingly cuts up guts with a dog barking in the background. The next day, Josuke and Okuyasu notice a sign of a new restaurant being opened near the graveyard and Okuyasu pesters Josuke into going with him. The restaurant reveals itself to be unusual, being manned by the proprietor and chef, Tonio Trussardi, who also serves dishes according to the customer. He then proceeds to read Okuyasu's left palm, being able to diagnose several ailments with precision. Okuyasu is surprised and Tonio serves them water before leaving, but these strange methods make Josuke suspicious, who advises Okuyasu to be wary of Tonio. Okuyasu drinks the water and is amazed by how good it is and starts crying abnormal quantity of tears, but then announces he feels like he had 10 hours of sleep. Tonio brings out his first dish, a mozzarella and tomato appetizer, while explaining the tomato-cooking tradition of Italia. At first, Okuyasu finds the appetizer rather plain but Tonio advises he eat the mozzarella with the tomato, seemingly making the dish much more delicious. Soon Okuyasu's shoulder feels itchy and when he takes off his coat, he sees his dead skin being peeled off his shoulder. Despite the unnatural phenomenon, Okuyasu remarks that his stiff shoulder is completely cured, making Josuke even more suspicious.

Tonio brings out his next dish, a spicy spaghetti dish named Spaghetti alla Puttanesca. Tonio leaves, while Okuyasu, despite his aversion to spicy food and Josuke's warnings, cannot resist eating it. Soon his two bad teeth fly out and are replaced with brand new molars. Josuke decides to reduce the spaghetti to its core ingredients to investigate it and sees Pearl Jam flying into the kitchen.

Okuyasu's stomach begins to hurt, prompting Josuke to rush into the kitchen. He sees that the next dish, lamb with applesauce, is done and notices Tonio feeding a dog that same lamb. The dog suddenly spits out its intestines while Tonio sees Josuke and confronts him. Josuke then notices that Okuyasu is eating the lamb and his intestines begin to splatter out of his body too. Tonio menacingly approaches a distracted Josuke but then tells him to go wash his hands with the soap he is holding. Meanwhile, Okuyasu reveals his diarrhea is gone and Josuke notices that the dog is fine too. Tonio reveals that he is a well-meaning Stand user who only wishes to make the best food, but he is still angered at Josuke for entering the kitchen and bringing germs in. He has Josuke clean the kitchen while he feeds Okuyasu pudding to cure his athlete's foot, much to Okuyasu's happiness.

In the ending scene, Jotaro meets with a Speedwagon Foundation agent who reveals that Joseph Joestar is coming to Morioh.

Commentary
"The reaction shots for Okuyasu leave quite the impression, but behind each of them there was a team of animators giving it their all. Every face he makes is always drawn with heavy lines for a great result. In the second half of the episode, Tonio’s turnaround scene resembles a game of (laughs). We don't even know who started it. In any case, all of these panicking scenes and the rest of the meal interlaced perfectly.

Fumiaki Kouta was in charge of the storyboard for this episode despite working on another series at the same time. But since we had similar sensibilities, there was practically nothing to correct. Mr. Kouta is also very efficient when he’s in charge of the animation. If you see a scene with fluid animation, it was most likely him who drew the layout.

In terms of the plot, I think this episode was primarily intended to make us laugh, but the humor is balanced by all this gory horror imagery, like with Okuyasu's gut exploding out of his body. It's even more unpleasant when we look at the uncensored version without the black filters. But paradoxically, we still come out of the episode with this urge to try Tonio’s restaurant.

We paid particular attention to the colors of the food in order to make the dishes as appetizing as possible. It’s strange to say this, but I have the impression that these kinds of episodes where they're completely irrelevant to the plot actually boosts the team's morale. Who knows why (laughs)."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries

Trivia

 * Okuyasu makes several pop cultural references throughout the episode. He once states that he cried watching the 1979 film, . On another occasion, while enjoying eating Tonio's mozzarella and tomato appetizer, he compares it to a Duet,, and Asao Takamori's original  with the Ashita no Joe that Tetsuya Chiba directed.
 * The English dub of the episode replaces the aforementioned Ucchan and Nanchan reference with instead.
 * The English dub gives Tonio an authentic Italian accent as opposed to the general American English used throughout the dub. So far this is the first instance where regional accents were used again since the English dub of Battle Tendency.