English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Silver Chariot”

“I’m looking for a man with two-right hands”

Spoilers Below

A stand-wielding Frenchman decides to single-handedly take-on Team Joestar and introduces himself as “Jean Pierre Polnareff” who is sent by Dio and has the “unrestrictive power” to cut through fire itself. After a brief demonstration of his stand powers through stabbing 5 coins at once with Silver Chariot’s Rapier. Polnareff decides out of principle to keep his battle with Avdol on even ground by leading the group to a location in Hong Kong called “Tiger Balm Garden” which allows Avdol’s stand to use its flame abilities without restraint. When they get to the Garden, The fight begins almost immediately though not before Polnareff predicting that Avdol will instantly lose by the very flames of his own stand. Silver Chariot starts the fight off with a flurry of sword strikes, most of which Magician’s Red quickly dodges and counters with several fire blasts. As Polnareff further displays his skills by using his Stand powers to carve out a statue of Magician’s Red in the garden’s surreal scenery, Avdol attacks Polnareff with his special technique, the “Crossfire Hurricane” which launches an Ankh-shaped flame-projectile at Polnareff, but it’s deflected back at Avdol himself and seemingly burnt by his own Stand, as predicted by Polnareff.

Avdol, while on fire, doesn’t give up and instead proceeds launch magician’s red at Chariot, fortunately, Polnareff is able to strike back upon contact when he quickly realizes the figure he lit on fire earlier was not magician’s red, but the statue his stand had carved a few mins ago which Avdol cleverly used as a distraction to melt the armored joints of silver chariot to prevent movement. Avdol then follows through with yet another crossfire hurricane with Polnareff taking the full force of the attack and is severely burnt. However, before the group declares this a victory, Polnareff has Silver Chariot shed off its armor to regain movement which further allows his stand to move even faster to the point that it can produce after images while attacking him from multiple angles. Avdol while overwhelmed at first by the stand’s onslaught of attacks, reveals a variation of his previous stand technique, the “crossfire hurricane special”, which is able to strike Polnareff by shooting several firey-shaped Ankh-symbols at once of which comes straight out of the ground. With Polnareff defeated and burning alive, Avdol throws him a knife to end his own life before the flames do. But out of principle, Polnareff turns it down and accepts his fate to die, but is immediately spared when Avdol recognizes this as a true act of chivalry. The group discovers another flesh bud on Polnareff’s forehead, And much like episode 3 with Kakyoin, Jotaro easily removes it.

As the group heads for their boat arranged by the Speedwagon Foundation, Polnareff introduces himself once more and after asking Joseph to take off his gloves to assure him that his “left hand isn’t a right-hand”, he shares his tragic backstory. It turns out that three years ago, Polnareff’s sister and a classmate of her’s fell victim to a killer, and while the classmate was only injured & survived to tell the tale, his sister, however, was unfortunately raped & murdered with the only clue to the killer’s identity is that the culprit was a man with “two right hands instead of one of each”. Joseph quickly deduces that the killer was possibly a stand user and Polnareff in an intense speech vows that he will use his Stand powers to deliver “righteous vengeance” on the killer responsible. He also reveals in a small flashback that he later met Dio in Cairo days before who had promised to help him find his sister’s killer but most likely lied and mind controlled him with a flesh bud instead. And Kakyoin quickly deduces that the killer is possibly working for Dio. And so the episode ends in cliffhanger fashion when Team Joestar lets Polnareff join them on their journey to Egypt and figures that if they find Dio, they’ll most likely find the reprehensible shit-bag rapist who killed his sister.

Our Take

An amazing episode which not only gave Avdol a moment to shine but an explanation to how Polnareff joined Team Joestar since the intro sort-of spoiled that he’d join them at some point. What’s easily one of my favorite moments in episode five is when they get to “Tiger Balm Garden” because the statues & scenery are some of the most colorful & psychedelic pieces of art the show has ever displayed so far, and from a monumental standpoint it’s a wonder to behold.