English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “D’Arby the Gambler, Part 1”

Is this episode worth the gamble?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Upon arriving in Cairo which is the Capital of Egypt, The Narrator talks about an age-old riddle that seems thematically relevant to the plot, while Team Joestar heads to a random café for info in regards to the spirit photo Joseph’s Stand Powers created in the last episode. As Team Joestar is lacking in any other leads outside of Joseph’s spirit photo, It doesn’t help that Cairo has a population of 6 million, Not to mention The Speedwagon Foundation lost track of Dio’s whereabouts as well. But it’s here where the episode begins to pick up when they encounter a dapper-looking individual who calls himself D’Arby (Dubbed by voice acting legend, Cam Clarke) who claims to know where Dio’s mansion is.

But unlike most normal people who wouldn’t pass up the chance for cash in exchange for info, D’Arby has a proverbial hard-on for gambling and isn’t the type who just gives up information so easily, and suggests they should instead gamble him for it with their souls on the line starting with Polnareff. The first wager the two make is which of two pieces of fish a cat would go for first, but it doesn’t go well in Polnareffs favor and D’Arby makes good on the bet by using his Stand “Osiris” to steal Polnareff’s soul and trap it inside a poker chip, with the cat soon revealed to be his pet. It’s at this point that Team Joestar realizes they have come across one of Dio’s assassins, so Joseph while proceeds to be snarky by purposely saying his name wrong, puts up his own soul in a wager against D’Arby next as they bet on a game called “Surface Tension” where you get to see who will cause a glass full to the brim to overflowing by dropping coins into it.

Knowing full well that this is a game D’Arby is unfamiliar with, Joseph tries to outcheat D’Arby by psychologically dicking with him, while dropping minuscule amounts of liquid into the glass in secret with Jotaro quietly keeping close-watch, predicting that D’Arby’s turn it will overflow the glass, D’Arby easily puts his coin in. And much to everyone’s shock, Joseph can’t figure out how his cheat didn’t work, and gives up in his mind, leaving D’Arby’s Stand to steal his soul as well. Much to everyone’s shock, Jotaro figures out afterward that D’Arby had used a small piece of chocolate to change the way the glass appeared to be full and let it melt using the hot weather. Having no other options and knowing that easily resorting to violence isn’t going to undo D’Arby’s bullshit, The episode ends on an intense cliffhanger as Jotaro decides to step in and face D’Arby next, by challenging the dapper bastard at his own game: poker.

Our Take

In terms of charismatic villains, D’Arby is quite an interesting antagonist, you definitely get a sense that he’s far more dangerous than some of the other stand users while putting on a charming southern facade. In terms of performance, I think it also helped that they got Cam Clarke to voice D’Arby in the dub since Cam is a longtime veteran in voice acting who was very big in the 80’s, though I doubt Jotaro challenging him to a game of Poker was a wise decision…

D’Arby had the best countermeasure and knew Joseph was going to cheat, so he did it first, can’t wait to see how Jotaro handles this menacing game of poker with D’Arby.