Episode 4

"The harsh wind blowing down over the Arctic Ocean birthed the fearsome Vikings. Only when we are tossed headlong into the crucible of adversity do we rise to the challenge. What will a glass of vino create this night?"

- Will Anthonio Zeppeli, stating the nature of Jonathan's final lesson to Speedwagon

Overdrive 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.

Jonathan is victorious but Dio escapes. Jonathan then meets Will Anthonio Zeppeli, a mysterious Italian who teaches him how to use the Ripple, a power made to fight Vampires.

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 Will 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 woman of her blood and then throws the corpse to a zombified Jack the Ripper to eat.

For the next week, Jonathan trains under Zeppeli to master the power of the Ripple. The two take a break and Zeppeli tells Jonathan 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. Its 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 on 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, disintegrating.

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