Joey Operetta

"Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk! Welcome to my Wonder Festival! It's nice of you to come all the way from Japan! 'Domo Arigato'! Actually, I followed you here all the way from Japan, too. Oh, but I can't harm your pretty face... I'll have to make this quick! C'mon, little Jodie!"

Joey Operetta

Introduction: So who's this creep?

Joey Operetta is a businessman, a closet otaku, and a mercenary stand user under the employ of DIO, the main overarching antagonist of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. He was hired to halt the Stardust Crusaders' trip to Egypt by any means necessary, and used his stand [Murderdolls] to send waves of animated dolls to attack them.

Fans of the series will no doubt be quick to point out that literally none of that happened in the manga, anime, OVAs, or any other official media. They are correct- Joey Operetta is a fan-made character who acts as a recurring antagonist for the first half of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: the 7th Stand User, a fan-made game following a what-if scenario of another character joining along the Stardust Crusaders in their quest to find and slay DIO and end his curse on the Joestar bloodline... at least, that's what it appears at first, but there's no need to go further in-depth for the sake of understanding Joey.

Joey sets his Muderdolls loose in search of stand users who oppose DIO, his initial assignment being to eliminate Avdol and Joseph while the fleshbud-controlled Kakyoin attempted to kill Jotaro. However, this specific wording meant the Murderdolls locked on to the player character due to being closer in proximity at the time and having just awoken to their own stand through unconventional means. After that point, he focuses his attention on them out of spite for destroying his dolls (and/or a desire to use them as materials for a new 'Murderdoll' if a female protagonist).

Joey Operetta himself is a lecher and a creep, something that is quickly apparent given the sorts of outfits his assorted Murderdolls take on- the 'Lv.2' being a schoolgirl outfit on an animated mannequin, 3 wearing a bunny girl outfit, 4 a bridal gown, and 5 a nurse outfit. His stand is more effective than it first appears, growing stronger with proximity to himself, and working better depending on what it's animating- 'Lv.1' Murderdolls as they're called by the game to distinguish them from the others are just Russian Nesting Dolls that can do little but hurl themselves at the player characters until they break, while the mannequins used for level 2 can move in jerky human-like motions to trip or strike their quarry, and the full-sized wax dolls that are 3, 4, and 5 are armed with increasingly dangerous munitions.

His stand is surprisingly flexible, Joey himself managing to craft convincing fakes even under scrutiny- modeling several after himself across his appearances to obscure his position and allow himself an easy escape route from nearby hiding places in the chaos to continue hounding the Crusaders. Official art shows him having crafted imitations of two of the player character's potential appearances, and in 'Chaos Mode' (an unlockable New Game + (run 6 and onward)-exclusive mode with some randomized events and plot threads) he can prove himself significantly more dangerous than his goofball pervert personality would imply by kidnapping the player character oc's family and attacking them with an amalgam of mannequins in their image twisted into some horror movie beast.

Capping it all off is Joey's final fight- combining a number of animated armors within spitting distance of himself to form what is effectively a freaking Gundam, dubbed "Murderdoll King Joey" and supported by stolen military hardware to try and  bring down the player one more time (which can lead to the Player OC countering in kind if they have the Pharaoh Sanders stand, a swarm stand made of electrical pharonic guard-like entities, as one of the stand-specific events littered across the game). When defeated, he is left battered and barely conscious in the desert, deciding a life of pacifism might be a better (I.E. less immensely painful) pursuit than mercenary work (though it's later confirmed he met his end at DIO's hands as punishment for one too many failures). Another Chaos Mode branch has him seek Enya's guidance for strengthening his stand, resulting in a harder fight where two 'repair bits' periodically heal Murderdoll King Joey, with the only repreive being that the added multitasking needed to control it all sometimes results in him or one of the bits losing its turn.

He's very protective and proud of 'his' dolls, claiming he'll punish the OC for breaking them or even outright being angered if (due to the assorted character traits that actions and dialogue choices can give the player character) he catches them gawking. If you face Ebony Devil in a fight before Joey, the player character assumes he's responsible for that stand's doll form, too- to which he reacts as if insulted and demands they not associate his "lovelies" with it.

The creator of 7th Stand User, Clayman, has gone into further detail about Joey's character; his stand can control anything that could qualify as a 'doll', and works by adhering one of his hairs to the desired puppet. Lv.3, 4, and 5 dolls are in fact improvised 'wax' dolls, made by coating corpses in wax collected from a spot infamous for suicides (or 'procured' when he runs short on 'materials'). Joey himself has a distorted view of people and does not distinguish them from dolls, viewing them as fleshy robots, the result of a strict and abusive upbringing that warped his mind to view others as 'philosophical zombies'.



Stats:

-

Despite letting his stand do much of the work for him, Joey is very athletic, able to run at a decent clip on land and in the air. His jumps are a bit underwhelming, and his weight a little on the lower end of middleweight, but he ends up being an excellent all-arounder. His hurtbox isn't as ideal as it could be- tall, and while it's lanky, his exaggerated motions when he runs or takes a leap (mirroring the 'Naruto run' or 'Girl Who Leapt Through Time' poses) and the way he half turns toward the screen for a few of his input animations means he does leave him vulnerable to pokes and juggles.

His good initial dash does help him with small surprise bursts of movement, helpful for slipping in and ambushing a foe on approach. His low traction is a more mixed bag; he has trouble punishing out of shield and it's possible to slide in further than intended when his bread and butter moves are somewhat spacing-dependent, but opponents hitting his shield can push him to safety, and his slippery nature can let him wind-up an attack mid-dash outside of the opponent's reach in some corner cases.


Neutral Special:

Stand aside, Joey is a bog standard human dealing with deities and monsters alike in Smash (and heaven knows what else in MYM), so like in the game he hails from, he uses some heavy ordinance to level the playing field. Joey slips one hand under his coat and slides one foot back, sneering at his foes as the button is held. The movement is very slight, not really dodging anything that wasn't going to hit by the very tip of its reach, more to emphasize the motion and add a little start up. These act as items, Joey's allies and enemies able to use them just the same as Joey himself, though Joey can force the foe to drop the item with any flinching hit.


On release, he whips out one of three limited use weapons. If the input was tapped or charged for less than half a second, he pulls out a grenade and quickly pops the pin. Joey has a few moments to throw the grenade with a tap of the A button or Grab input, as per a normal throwing item. When thrown, the grenade deals 4% on impact and lightly bounces off, flinching the foe. A particularly quick opponent can even pick it up and throw it back if thrown immediately and up close! After 2 seconds pass from the pin being pulled, no matter where it is, the grenade explodes; this is a round AoE 1.5 Training Stage Units in diameter (1 Unit being the roughly Kirby-sized blocks, hereon referred to as "Units") doing 14% and moderate low-angle knockback, capable of KOing later in the stock.

Joey can do some z-drop shenanigans with his grenade if he's feeling daring, but he'll need to be quick about it; aside from its short life span and the it takes to make in the first place, if Joey is holding the grenade when it detonates, he'll take the same damage and knockback from it his opponents would- far from ideal. He CAN use this as a desperate recovery method, flinging himself forward, but he'll have to be careful not to launch himself to his doom or into his opponent's waiting arms. The big benefit of the grenade is a deterrent, zoning off a small portion of the stage as it's mid-flight, or hurling it at reflector-using opponent trying to out-camp him. It can be used as a sort of suicide charge that damages Joey but resets the fight to neutral, but this normally not ideal. There's a trick to it that'll come up later.


Between half a second and a full second of charge, Joey instead pulls out a classic Jojo weapon- a tommy gun! The animation even resembles Joseph's movements from the fight he used it in, Joey shooting from the hip when the A button is pressed! This unleashes a thin cone of bullets, each a weak projectile but together doing significant damage if he can get the opponent in its line of fire! The bullets do 3% and flinching each, and are fired at a rate of 5 per second for a maximum 2 second spray (doing 3 shots over 36 frames if tapped by contrast)- 30% damage if he empties the entire drum into a foe!

However, each hit has a push back effect on them that will likely shove the foe free of the 4 Unit-long range before this ends- it requires optimal conditions to get the full damage on an opponent, this being better as a way to poke them into the desired range. Joey's dramatic pose as he lines up his shot and braces himself adds some hefty start lag to the input that allows the opponent to (barely) react, though the end lag is short if Joey ends the attack early. It's a good trick when facing someone who uses their shield too much, as the shots do little shield push and enough shield stun to keep them locked in. Be aware that Joey does suffer some longer lag if he empties the gun, tossing it over his shoulder after a couple of clicks, so ending it up close on the foe without breaking their shield is ill-advised.

Joey can aim and move as the button is held; players can move the control stick up or down to have him adjust the aim accordingly, able to center the spray anywhere in a 90 degree cone centered in front of himself. Moving the stick left or right will have him slowly shuffle forward or back at his walk speed, and can let him slip out of range of retaliation from a shielding foe, or move toward a foe being peppered by the shot to keep them in the spray a little longer- used at point blank and moving toward the foe, Joey can pepper them with the full spray, barring outside circumstances like a foe in the air or pushed off a ledge falling out of the attack. If airborne, Joey can move at his air speed as normal while unloading, and enter fastfall without exiting the attack if he wishes- perfect for keeping pace with the foe more easily. A short-hopped and tapped spray aimed downward is a viable approach option and can situationally gimp foes with very poor vertical recovery.

Tapping B allows Joey to discard this gun, which disappears if dropped this way, a quality shared with his final weapon.


If charged for a full second, Joey turns fully from the camera and begins to chuckle- procuring a large rocket launcher with a hair more lag! This is a one-shot heavy item, Joey taking aim and being able to walk back or forward like normal, with the same aiming range and move speeds as for his tommy gun.

()


Notably, Joey can cancel out of his charge state by jumping or using his shield. He even stores the charge by doing so! ...sort of. Charging Neutral Special again will replace his 'stored' charge, and tapping it just produces a Grenade as normal. This instead ties into his Side Special and Down Special.


Side Special:

(Joey Rangers? Takes from the boss fight where Joey has a large number of fakes of himself that attack in a group. Might make DSpec more of a normal minion on summon, while Side Special has the Nana-like qualities. Joey Rangers respond to inputs as Joey himself would in their situation- if mid-flinch or lag, they take no action, while they can act if not in flinch or lag even if Jodie himself is. If A and a direction is held with a tommy gun in hand, they'll shuffle along while unloading, to give a few examples. This can lead to major desyncs. Joey can hold Side Special and a direction to give them a more specific command, too- down and held has them stay put and attack in place, shuffling forward or back to get foes in range when needed, up and held has Joey stay put while players take direct control of the Joey Rangers (which can do any of his non-special inputs), and forward and held has them try to return to Joey's side between receiving commands. If Joey has a stored NSpec charge, the Ranger is spawned with the held weapon. Note this as the best means to utilize the suicide charge Grenade trick- sacrificing a Ranger to rush the foe while Joey himself is safe and can react to their escape plan is very useful.)


Down Special:

(Storable charge, can effectively 'upgrade' own attacks to produce a higher level Murderdoll instead of a Lv.1 Murderdoll/doing an attack himself (depending on the move). Summoned Murderdolls will move ahead of Joey with slightly higher speed but very delicate stamina, and will ape his attacks for him. Triggers when he performs an affected input. Laggy charge stance. Higher levels results in a slightly bigger, faster, and stronger Murderdoll as the difference between Lv.2~5. Like Rangers, Murderdolls will spawn in with his stored NSpec charge's associated item? Can repeat to create a 'chain' of Murderdolls?)


Up Special:

(Smoke bomb leap/semi-counter. Hitting Joey during the brief wind-up causes him to fall to pieces- revealing it was just another Doll under his control and leaving the foe stunned briefly when the smoke bomb goes off.)





[Going from the fights:

-Muderdoll Lv.1 can attack from medium range where it starts, but will close to short range before using an attack 'exepnding its energy' (I.E. destroying itself to do damage). Murderdoll Lv. 2 can 'stick its leg out to trip' you for damage and potentially wasting an action, stays at short range. Murderdoll Lv. 3 can shoot or smack you with its weapon, or throw a hand grenade, and stays at short range.

-Joey fight 1 has him summon his Murderdolls without losing a turn (3 Murderdoll Lv.3s accompany him in the fight, used if any are dead he spawns extras to bring himself back up to 3), can heal a murderdoll slightly, can 'rest out of sight' to slightly recover hp and sp, 'laugh uproariously' to inflict Berserk status, slightly buff a Murderdoll ("I can make you stronger!"), and can shoot at one target. He starts at Long range behind his dolls, and can move to '?' range to temporarily render himself almost immune to harm (presumably hiding among a crowd of dolls). At low hp, his fear causes him to have trouble controlling his Murderdolls, effectively giving them the Confusion status, though he can use the Loud Yell skill that the player can learn to remove the status from them.]


Additional thoughts

Joey’s stand summons get weaker the further they go from him? Lv 2 thus has more range than 3, 3 than 4, etc, and try to stay in that band of influence. Weapon attacks from NSpec are unaffected?