English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “A Man Possessed by an Evil Spirit”

Do we need an exorcism for this episode?

The story begins in the year 1983, Where a small salvage crew off the coast of the Canary Islands, discover a coffin with the letters “DIO” engraved on the front of it. Out of curiosity, the crew attempts to open it up but realize that it’s locked from the inside. Later, their ship is found, mysteriously abandoned and unscathed. We cut to four years later in 1987 Japan, Where we meet a tough delinquent teen named Jotaro Kujo (Jojo for short) who’s locked himself in a jail cell, refusing to leave for fear that he’s “possessed by an evil spirit”. Jotaro further proves this by mysteriously taking a cop’s gun and firing a bullet at his own head, only for said bullet to be intercepted by a ghostly purple hand. Taking notice of the purple hand herself when others can’t, Jotaro’s mother, Holly, calls her father/Jotaro’s grandfather, Joseph Joestar, to travel from New York to Japan alongside his acquaintance from Egypt, named Avdol to investigate.

Shortly after Joseph shows up and Jotaro turns down Joseph’s demands to leave, Joseph entrusts Avdol who summons an “evil spirit” of his own, a bird-headed creature with fire-pants that he calls “Magician’s Red”. A Magician’s Red uses force against Jotaro, whose own spirit tries to protect him, Joseph explains these “spirits” are actually “manifestations of the user’s own life force”, which have come to be known as “Stands”. Jotaro eventually retaliates with his Stand also with brute force and breaks apart the prison bars in the process. At which point Avdol abruptly stops, saying that his entire purpose the whole time was to bait Jotaro into leaving his cell. Later at a cafe, Joseph explains to Jotaro & Holly that the “Speedwagon Foundation” (Supporting characters from Season 1) were investigating the disappearance of the salvage crew and their discovery of the coffin from earlier. Joseph further reveals that inside the coffin was a Vampire who’s evil incarnate known as “Dio Brando” that was imprisoned inside of it for 100 years, until it was discovered.

Joseph then shows his Stand power which resembles purple thorny plant-vines from his hand, and Karate-chops a Polaroid camera in half from which a photograph appears and claims that his stand powers show him “far-away visions” through this unusual method. After explaining how people of the Joestar bloodline are usually born with “star-shaped birthmarks behind their necks”, Joseph then shows the photo to be an image of Dio possessing that same exact birthmark, explaining that Dio is using the stolen corpse of Joseph & Jotaro’s ancestor Jonathan Joestar as his own, and is lead to believe that Dio’s revival triggered an emergence of Stand Powers in both himself & Jotaro, though Holly claims she’s unaffected, whilst Avdol states he has had his Stand since birth. As the group decides to rest before tracking down Dio, Jotaro tries to comprehend this massive info-dump, along with knowing that Joseph & Avdol will be crashing with them for some time. The Episode ends in cliffhanger fashion when Dio in a dark temple somewhere senses that he’s being watched by the Joestar’s and cements his resolve to destroy them.

Our Take.

For the voice cast, Matthew Mercer does a great job capturing Jotaro’s gritty demeanor in the Dub while Richard Epcar does an equally great performance as an older version of Joseph but I’m sure the biggest complaint fans will have is that fact that Epcar isn’t speaking with an English accent since Joseph is supposed to be an English immigrant , Julie Ann Taylor’s performance as Holly Joestar comically nails the gleefully lighthearted attitude of Jotaro’s mother even while her own son calls her a “Bitch”. And finally, Patrick Seitz is back reprising the awesomely sinister Dio Brando from Jojo Season 1. The only other negative I can think of is that if you’re going into this blind, there’s a lot that isn’t properly explained in “Stardust Crusaders” such as Dio’s history with the Joestar Family or why Vampires exist because the story heavily relies on the viewer having already watched Season 1 to connect the dots.