One arc in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean was a copyrighting nightmare in the manga, but the anime is presenting a perfect solution to that.

Warning: Contains spoilers for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean

One of the newest episodes of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure reveals how its latest installment, Stone Ocean, might avoid a major copyright problem the story runs into in one of its later arcs. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has had pop culture references from day one, the vast majority of its characters being named after bands, songs, artists, and even fashion designers and labels. One story arc, however, went so far with the references that everyone knew it would be impossible for it to be animated without changes, and now there’s a good idea of what those changes will be.

One of the most infamous arcs in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's sixth installment, Stone Ocean has two of the main characters, Weather Report and Narciso Anasui, fighting off the effects of Bohemian Rhapsody, a powerful Stand that can bring fictional characters to life and forcibly drag people into their stories. Most of the characters involved in the arc were from stories that had long since been in the public domain such as Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but there are also cameos of, and references to, much bigger properties that would be harder to work around such as Fist of the North Star, Astro Boy, and Spider-Man; the arc even opens with Anasui wanting to go to Disneyland and giving the memetic declaration of “If there’s no Mickey, this s**t ain’t Disney!” Naturally, something like that would be a copyright nightmare, even if a lot of it would just be split-second cameos and references, and as a result, the arc has been the topic of discussion for years, with people repeatedly discussing how the anime would handle the less lawyer-friendly references, or if Jojo's Bizarre Adventure would even bother with them, at all.

The Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean anime gives an idea of how the references will be handled in the Bohemian Rhapsody arc: by replacing them with new references. Episode six of Stone Ocean has a scene where one of the main characters, Ermes Costello, recounts the birthday of Bugs Bunny of the Looney Tunes, but in the corresponding chapter of the manga, she recounted the birthday of Mickey Mouse. A Disney reference being replaced with a Warner Bros. reference doesn’t seem like much, but it could actually say a lot about what the series will do going forward.

Since JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime is produced by Warner Bros. Japan, they have free rein to make references to as many Warner Bros. properties as they want. As fun as it would be to see Mickey Mouse or Spider-Man show up in an anime, this way, the anime can have its pop culture references without worrying about getting into any legal trouble and copyright issues with Disney characters or from other companies. Additionally, it also means that they can have their own bit of fun with things if they so choose.

With the anime’s partnership with Warner Bros., a lot more could be done with the Bohemian Rhapsody arc in the anime. With all of the properties that are owned by Warner Bros., the arc could go all out with its references by bringing in as many shows and movies as possible, not unlike what was done in Space Jam: A New Legacy. Seeing something goofy like The Flintstones or as action-packed as The Matrix put into the stylings of an anime, especially one with as high quality as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, could be a visual treat for anyone watching, even if it only lasts a moment. Either way, it’s safe to say that the arc will go off without a hitch, and that’s all that matters.

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