Polpo

Polpo is an enormous, grotesquely overweight figure who dwarfs the people around him, his head swollen far out of proportion with his frame. Bright pupils set against dark eyes and a sharply pointed nose define his face. He tops himself with a cap sprouting mushroom-like bumps, wraps a band around his right wrist, and drapes himself in a two-layer tunic laced along the hem; the anime swaps that lacing for a repeating crest emblem across both sides of his chest.

On the surface Polpo plays the classic mafia boss, genial and cultured, name-dropping philosophers and fine food and admiring art, though his crude eating betrays how thin that polish really is. He preaches endlessly that trust is the single most vital trait in a gangster, yet in truth he regards his underlings as disposable and is already scheming to exploit Giorno the moment the lighter comes back.

He insists respect is sacred, arguing that not even God would fault killing a man over an insult, and a few in Passione still admired his loyalty. His perceptiveness runs sharp enough to spot Giorno's wound in the marks across his hands, though he concedes that snacking leaves him foggy, as if all his blood drains toward his stomach.

Polpo's early life is mostly a blank. At some stage he joined Passione and climbed to capo, earning a reputation for reliability and taking charge of the gang's Stand-related affairs. A crime that is never specified lands him in prison, yet his clout lets him convert his cell into near-luxury, from which he keeps running his territory and vetting fresh blood into Stand Users. Bucciarati answered to him, and Narancia cleared his trial. His tool for that vetting is Black Sabbath, a long-range automatic Stand that slips through shadows and injects candidates with an Arrow.

By the time Giorno arrives declaring his wish to enter Passione, Polpo has spent fifteen years locked up. He sets the usual initiation, handing over a lighter that must stay lit for twenty-four hours. Later Polpo bites into what he believes is a banana, unaware Giorno has shaped a loaded gun into that fruit, and shoots himself through the mouth; the blast also wrecks the Arrow held in Black Sabbath's jaws. It is payback for the Stand having thoughtlessly killed a harmless old man. Nowhere near the prison at that moment, Giorno had already told him to relish his final meal.

Rumors of Polpo's hidden fortune spread afterward, drawing Zucchero and Sale to attack Bucciarati's team; once the money is recovered, Bucciarati pays Pericolo to be promoted to capo and inherits the job Polpo never finished, delivering Trish Una to the Boss.