English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Who Will Be the Judge?”

“Judgement Time!”

Even after Jotaro discovers the rude awakening that he’s in possession of a powerful “Stand” (in particular for him, a ghost-like entity with a strong propensity for violence) and is fated to fight a despicable vampire, who possessed his Ancestor’s corpse, he still heads out to school with some of his female admirers much to his mild annoyance towards them. Out of nowhere, a man with a paintbrush swipes a painting of Jotaro on his leg and a cut suddenly appears on Jotaro’s actual leg voodoo doll-style, causing him to fall down a flight of concrete steps, only managing to save himself by using his Stand to grab onto nearby tree branches and reduce his fall. Managing to land safely, Jotaro receives a handkerchief from a new transfer named Noriaki Kakyoin, unaware that he’s secretly the one responsible for his fall. Later, as Jotaro heads to the nurse’s office to treat his wound, he discovers the handkerchief he received from Kakyoin contains a death threat, stating he will kill him using his Stand.

At that moment, it starts to get forebodingly creepy as Jotaro notices the school nurse’s strange behavior when she randomly begins to eye-gouge one of the other students with a pen before going after Jotaro with inhuman strength and see’s a ghostly tentacle draping down the nurse’s leg. He surveys the room and spots Kakyoin by the window further revealing that he used his Stand, “Hierophant Green”, to possess the nurse’s body from the inside. Jotaro Attempts to use his Stand to pull Hierophant Green out of the nurse’s body, only to be attacked by its “Emerald Splash” projectile attack, whilst the nurse receives internal injuries as a result of Jotaro’s extraction attempt. And despite being further injured by Hierophant Green’s attack along with Kakyoin guilt-tripping Jotaro for his failed rescue attempt, Jotaro delivers an epic speech declaring that while a “bastard” like himself was “never a nice guy” to begin with, even he can spot “true evil” when he see’s it and vows to use his newfound Stand powers to judge & punish evil Stand users since the justice system can’t due to a Stand’s invisible nature to normal people. (In other words, Only Stand Users can see other Stands.)

Jotaro then shrugs off Kakyoin’s next attack and proceeds to use his Stand to brutally & intensely pummel the shit out of “Hierophant Green” until Kakyoin falls unconscious which also destroys the nurse’s office in the process. After leaving the injured & knocked out nurse to the school faculty, Jotaro decides to bring Kakyoin back home to Joseph & Avdol for interrogation while briefly expressing concern for his mother when he notices she’s gotten a bit pale. The episode ends in cliffhanger fashion when Joseph examines Kakyoin’s unconscious body and discovers that Kakyoin had been forced to become Dio’s pawn and will likely die in a few days, revealing the cause of his actions to be a pink parasite called a “Flesh Bud” implanted in Kakyoin’s forehead that was hidden in the bangs of his red hair.

 

Our Take.

Overall the 2nd episode was excellently handled. The last episode introduced the concept of “Stands” and who our protagonists are, episode 2 gave us our flashy opening with the Intro-song “Stand Proud” to get your adrenaline pumping while respectively displaying each protagonist’s Stand with crazy, dynamic and imaginative uses of color. The suspense and build-up towards the battle between Jotaro & Kakyoin kept the story moving at a good pace while showing that Jotaro as a character can carry a story on his own when the plot demands it.

SCORE
8/10