A version of the song titled "Great Days -Units Ver.-" is performed by a group called JO☆UNITED, made up of vocalists from all of the anime's opening themes, and was released on December 24, 2016. This version was used as the ending theme of the final episode of Diamond is Unbreakable.
The opening begins on a bland background before several motifs bearing the image of, in order of appearance, Josuke and Okuyasu, Koichi's and the three stages of Echoes, Yukako and Love Deluxe, Joseph, Jotaro's and Shizuka flash by, forming the word "JOJO" as a direct reference to the B cover of Chapter 321. The scene quickly changes to a flashing of the word "Breakdown" in English bearing Killer Queen's face. The word explodes twice before reforming itself, each time revealing mechanical pieces underneath the word. The scene transitions to the ocean near the docks of Morioh. Within the water are four different colored stars bearing the words "JOJO DU 04" on them. The scene suddenly flashes back to "Breakdown" again, this time when exploding, Sheer Heart Attack is shown underneath. Amidst a red and black diamond-checkered background Yoshikage Kira, disguised as Kosaku Kawajiri, emerges from the darkness. The "Breakdown" sign reappears again, this time revealing an emblem with Stray Cat on it while exploding. Cutting back to Kira, the checkered background parts in the middle to reveal the streets of Morioh at night while Kira raises his thumb. The "Breakdown" sign appears for the final time, now revealing Kosaku's head stripped of its facial features. Zooming in on Kira's face, he readies his thumb as if pressing a detonator while Jotaro, Joseph, Josuke, Okuyasu, Rohan, Koichi, and Yukako have their backs to him; unaware of what's happening. As Kira detonates his bomb, the scene explodes into a flash of white, revealing the title card.
Against a simple backdrop with a giant, sun-shaped clock bearing the word "Justice" in the background, the silhouette of Josuke appears. As the hands on the clock begin to move (one of which being Arrow-shaped), Josuke walks throughout the scene while leaving afterimages of himself behind. As the silhouette of Josuke walks into the daylight of his town, his body is clearly visible now as he strikes a brief pose. After posing, Josuke continues to move, leaving behind more afterimages of himself as he walks away into the distance. Okuyasu walks into the scene in the opposite direction of Josuke, also leaving a trail of afterimages behind him as he walks with his father. Yukako appears, trying to hide from Koichi with a hat, but the hat is blown away by the wind and she tries to hide without it but is happily surprised when he's happy to see her. Both of them also leave afterimages behind as they meet up. In the background composed of the distorted Morioh, several street signs read "SC 1987" and a star symbol, "DU 1999" with the Morioh "M" and "GW 2001" and a ladybug, alluding to the adjacent parts Stardust Crusaders, Diamond is Unbreakable and Vento Aureo.
The scene shifts to Rohan's mansion, with the camera panning through the doorway into the patio as Rohan looks out towards the street with his cup of tea; a deformed shadow briefly appearing on his back. Another door opens with the camera panning through it again, showing Masazo Kinoto with his back pressed to Rohan's front door. As Rohan looks on curiously, Mikitaka Hazekura appears in the background, standing horizontally on the wall of Rohan's house. The final door opens as the scene transitions to a field in Morioh with a bird flying through the air, leaving afterimages behind. In the field below, the words Lucky Land are formed into the tall grass, above a collection of crop circles. The scene pans over to reveal a radio tower with an obscured man standing on one of the tower's lines.
Shadows retract over the landscape, transitioning to a shot of Shinobu Kawajiri leaning up as a spotlight focuses on her resting her head in her hands lazily. Shinobu remains motionless as afterimages of her travel down a long room, only illuminated by a lone television set bearing the image of a man. The television set disappears as afterimages of Yoshikage Kira appear, holding Tama travel in the opposite direction of Shinobu's. Fading into the scene from the middle of the room is Hayato Kawajiri sitting alone at a dining table with a sad expression on his face. The afterimages of both Shinobu and Kira disappear as the background changes to a gloomy and dark night with Hayato now wearing his rain hat. Images of Kira slowly fill the background in a manner reminiscent of the Belgian painting Golconda as Killer Queen's hands descend from above to grasp Hayato's head, causing Hayato to look downwards. As all images fade away, Reimi's hand appears from the bottom as she points upwards to the gloomy sky, causing an aura of light to radiate from her hand and illuminate the sky.
The scene changes to the middle of Morioh, with posing silhouettes of Rohan and Yukako with their backs to the camera. As the shadows explode off their bodies, revealing their features with a "gyaan!" sound effect, the two turn around to strike a pose, with Rohan's being mirrored from one of his poses in Kishibe Rohan Meets Gucci. The scene pans over to another street, featuring Koichi, Okuyasu, and Jotaro; all turning to strike poses with a "zgyun" sound effect. Shifting back to Reimi's hand pointing upwards still, now having changed from night to day, the hands of all of Morioh's protectors rise up and join her to point towards the sky. The symbol for Morioh transitions the scene into a colorful yellow and green backdrop with the symbols of Crazy Diamond, The Hand, Echoes ACT3, Star Platinum, Heaven's Door and Hermit Purple forming a ring around the symbol. Inside the ring, we can also see symbols representing Pearl Jam, Bad Company, Earth Wind and Fire, Harvest, Highway Star, Surface, The Lock, Love Deluxe, Cinderella, and Achtung Baby. The ringed emblem of Morioh rotates like a clock to reveal the silhouette of Josuke pointing upwards before his features are revealed, showing him standing in a field with his comrades. As they all point towards the sky, the camera zooms upwards towards the sky, quickly passing by Reimi with her dog in the spirit world and the golden spirits of Shigechi, Aya and Keicho all pointing down towards Josuke and his allies below.
The scene transitions once again to a red and white diamond checkered background, with Yoshihiro Kira holding the Arrow. As he fades into the distance, a 9 representing Ken Oyanagi through the hole in his cheek, and the rock and paper from Janken comes into view, followed by another 9 representing Terunosuke Miyamoto and his Stand, Enigma. Followed by that is an image of Yuya Fungami with several feet placed over his body. The scene pans out to reveal all the enemy Stand users spelling out "1999" before transitioning into a dark room with the word "KILLA" on the ground. Standing in the room is Kira as he slowly turns to face a bright light, shielding his eyes as Killer Queen appears behind him. This transitions to the broken "JOJO" vine-entwined heart being restored by Crazy Diamond, who is standing on one of the rays of the sun-shaped Justice clock. The camera pans out as all the Stands of the protagonists are revealed one by one standing on different rays of the clock, pointing downwards to where all of Morioh's protectors stand against the "Justice" clock from the beginning, now wrapped with vines from Hermit Purple, as they all point upwards towards the heavens as the clock continues to tick on.
Original Version
Some changes were made to the opening animation after its original debut in Episode 27. These changes were also used starting with Episode 27 in the Blu-Ray versions. In the original version:
Hirohiko Araki's name has been moved downwards.
Kira's jacket has been redrawn to look more natural in some frames.
The spacing in the scene where Kira presses Killer Queen's switch has been adjusted to look more natural. Koichi, in particular, is much higher up.
The scene panning through Morioh has a more detailed background texture, the camera is adjusted slightly, and the sun, sky, and ocean are more detailed. The lighting also brightens more gradually.
In the scene with Rohan's house, the fisheye effect goes inwards instead of out, the shading has been adjusted, and the banister and doorknob have been redrawn slightly.
Rohan's face looks more detailed.
The chair in Rohan's house vibrates less in the scene with Masazo Kinoto.
At one point in the original, half of the chair vanishes. This is fixed.
The shadow originally moved away from the top left in the shot with the seagulls, crop circles, and Superfly, but it now encroaches upon the top left.
Shinobu and the background in her scene are colored to be more vibrant, while the red credits are less so.
Shinobu now splits up into multiple copies in sync with Kira as opposed to before him. This changes the timing of the animation as well.
Kira's side of the scene with him and Shinobu is lit darker. This slightly bleeds over into Shinobu's side as well.
The credits are now spaced differently in some parts of the scene with the Kawajiri's, and at one point they fade in differently as well.
Some of the floating Kiras fade in slower in Hayato's scene.
In Hayato's scene, Kenta Mimuro's name has been added to the credits.
The scene with the posing main characters has drastically improved detail on the backgrounds, which also have a grittier texture to them.
In the original version, the scene with the posing main characters panned quickly towards their silhouettes before slowing down abruptly. These silhouettes showed the posing characters with colored highlights based on their color schemes, which then turned into full drawings of the same silhouettes. In the new version, there are multiple copies of the silhouette which is now completely dark, and once the full drawing is revealed, is animated to move into their final pose as opposed to being in that pose from the start.
The characters have been redrawn very slightly as well to look more shaded and defined, although in the original TV broadcast Rohan's and Yukako's faces were not updated until Episode 37.
The sound effect words for this scene are also much more vibrant.
A table has been added next to Koichi in the posing scene.
The background is moved in the scene where everyone points towards the sky.
Morioh's logo is shaded better and has a slightly grittier overlay.
The ghosts of Shigechi, Reimi, Arnold, Keicho, and Aya are now given a golden tint as opposed to being fully colored, whereas the clouds change from gold to white and the background is more focused.
The 1999 numbers now have holes cut out of them as opposed to flat black and white areas.
In the 1999 scene, the camera is slightly more zoomed-in.
The original last scenes used reused animation of attack animations for characters, whereas the new version features all-new animation with a redone background for Kira, who now summons his Stand, Crazy Diamond fixing a heart locket with "JOJO" written on it, and the Stands of the main characters being seen before it zooms out to the final Justice dial.
Almost every character in the final shot has been redrawn or readjusted in some way, and Surface can now be seen on the bottom right of the dial.
Bites the Dust Version
For Episode 36, a modified version of the opening animation has been broadcasted on TV as well as on Youtube on the official Warner Bros. anime channel in accordance with the advance of the anime into the Another One Bites the Dust story arc.
While the opening animation begins normally, once Kira is in view, it instead reverses backward, skips to the normal end and finishes with Kira activating his bomb, and the title card closes the opening.
Kira's appearance is now his updated one.
Several psychedelic visual effects punctuate the opening.
The second half of the song is used instead of the first half to accompany the animation.
Several scenes have their tint altered, such as the one showing a seagull flying over a field.
Hayato is now shown with a determined look on his face instead of the despair filled look in the previous versions.
The scene showing Rohan at his patio is not only reversed, making the camera pan backwards, but is also repeated more times than usual, being possibly a reference to how many times Bites the Dust looped time.
The reused Stand animations are featured once again, but Crazy Diamond's punch is reversed as images of Killer Queen flash on the screen.
In the penultimate scene where Kira activates his bomb, the main cast featured in the background now turns around to face Kira, some like with Koichi angrily, instead of their backs turned. This foreshadows Kira's approaching demise.
According to the opening director Yasufumi Soejima, the shining gadget "Justice" sun presented at the beginning and end of the opening animation is supposed to symbolize Jonathan Joestar.[2]
The last two openings were designed in reference to the Star Wars films with "chase" representing the feeling of The Empire Strikes Back, and "Great Days" as Return of the Jedi.[2]
The title of the song, "Great Days" is very similar to the Japanese romanization of Josuke's catchphrase, "Gurēto daze" (グレートだぜ).
Having been arranged by the series' composer, the intro to this song bears similarities to the tune of the Diamond is Unbreakable main theme, particularly with the repeated use of the word "Breakdown".
In the full version of the song, towards the end, the song is reversed back to the "Breakdown" lyrics momentarily; a clear reference to Killer Queen's third bomb, "Bites the Dust".
The font used throughout the beginning of the opening, most notable with Hirohiko Araki's name, bears an incredible similarity to the Yes album cover Close to the Edge.
