English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Dio’s World, Part 2”

“ZA WARUDO!”

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

In the aftermath of Dio’s car crash, Kakyoin and Joseph swing from rooftop to rooftop with the help of their respective Stands Spider-Man-style, While Dio begins to pursue them by flying. It’s here where we get a random flashback on the events in Kakyoin’s past that come across as subtle but effective in terms of a semi-tragic backstory. For Kakyoin to set his plans into motion of exposing Dio’s Stand Powers, he proceeds to attack him head-on by using Hierophant Green’s ability to make itself invisible in an effort to force Dio into revealing the functionality of his Stand “The World”.

While this is going on, Jotaro and Polnareff find the car crash aftermath, While Kakyoin proceeds to ambush Dio’s ass with Hierophant Green’s invisible strings, Dio quickly figures out that he’s surrounded. Kakyoin’s battle against Dio is easily the highlight of this episode as his Hierophant Green attempts to unleash a volley of long-distance attacks, But given how powerful Dio is in terms of “Final Boss” status, it goes about as well as you’d expect… Knowing what little time Kakyoin has left after somehow being mortally wounded, Kakyoin decides to fire one last projectile attack and makes it count by firing at a nearby clock tower to send a message to Joseph before he collapses which is a moving scene that succeeds in terms of emotional weight.

As Joseph attempts to flee away from Dio with his Hermit Purple, Joseph begins to understand why Kakyoin did it, As it was a subtle message revealing that Dio’s stand has the ability to temporarily stop time. This suspicion is further confirmed in a flashback revealing the mechanics of Dio’s Stand powers with emphasized visuals that convey how the environment looks when time is stopped. When Dio finally confronts Joseph which you’d think he would instantly accomplish his goal of drinking someone of the Joestar Bloodline to augment his powers. But of course, Dio isn’t an idiot and can see easily see through whatever tricks Joseph has up his sleeve. When Dio proceeds to propel Joseph into the streets, Joseph barely manages to break his fall and that’s when shit gets real as Jotaro shows up out of happenstance and is warned him about Dio’s Stand Powers, but is interrupted when Dio stops time once more. In a mildly disturbing scene involving a stray cat, Dio throws a knife at Joseph’s throat which injures him from a distance. In response to this, the episode ends on an intense cliffhanger when Jotaro despite Joseph’s warnings, proceeds to approach Dio anyway and their intense battle begins!

Our Take

In terms of “Final Boss” status, Dio has pretty much shown to be both an evil & cunning bastard. Along with the stakes now being raised, we’re now down to 3 members left of Team Joestar. Every action and plot-point had a legit purpose during the proceedings and we the audience are given a level of understanding of the severity regarding Dio’s Stand powers. And for anyone who’s watched the previous episode, It’s easy to put the pieces together that Dio on a frequent basis would use his particular power to walk around or away from possible danger.

It also makes sense that the focus would be on Kakyoin who’s hardly done anything while his eyes were injured during the beginning of the Egypt arc, but his time wasn’t wasted here. It’s sad to see him go, but his death wasn’t in vain as the knowledge he attained while fighting Dio was essential information that he managed to convey to Joseph. I think what I was mildly annoyed by the most, was his death becoming the subject of jokes & memes during its original run in Japan.

The next episode should be awesomely brutal as Jotaro and Dio go mano e mano, Stand to Stand!