English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Guardian of Hell, Pet Shop, Part 1”

“Look who’s talking now?”

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

The episode comedically opens as Polnareff has an awkward moment with a “beggar” within the foreign lands of Cairo, only for the rest of Team Joestar to show up and much to the shock to most of Team Joestar (and by extension the audience) the beggar in a number of ways plays with our expectations as he’s part of a group called “the beggar’s association” where Avdol manages to get help from an informant to search for Dio’s hideout. Just when you think the episode will shift on two separate storylines, where the informant attempts to pin-point Dio’s location from Joseph’s Spirit-Photo, leaving Polnareff to question where the hell Iggy is.

This of course, leads to the real meat of this story as it now shifts the focus on, Team Joestar’s most rebellious & unpredictable member, Iggy the Dog who’s gone off on his own again and out of sheer happenstance, comes across the building himself, where a creepy looking falcon named Pet Shop watches over it, and according to the narration, Petshop is the wielder of the Stand “Horus”, and as another first for this series, Pet Shop’s Stand has Ice Powers which are demonstrated in some of most unflinchingly brutal & bloody ways imaginable. Upon noticing the beggar from earlier collecting info and finding the place in less than “2-hours”, Pet shop wastes no time and brutally kills the poor bastard in a jaw-dropping scene before he can report back to Team Joestar with its talons even ripping up the damn photo. It’s here is when it takes a more interesting direction as for the first time to the audience, Iggy’s thoughts are properly conveyed with a Brooklyn accent which helps add a touch of personality to the character.

Quickly realizing he will be targeted next for knowing the location of Dio’s hideout, Iggy tries not to get himself involved in a very long inner-monologue that makes some valid points about his current situation and tries to play it cool by behaving like an idiot dog. That is until one of the most well-paced and tension-filled scenes happens when a young boy comes looking for his dogs, who in an earlier scene learned the hard way not to fuck with Pet Shop. Iggy reluctantly decides to save the kid and helps him escape. The rest of the episode has Iggy running the fuck away from Pet Shop and his ice attacks in a scene that excels in terms of suspense & pacing. Iggy escapes into the sewers, using his “Fool” Stand in clever ways to counter against Pet Shop’s “Horus”. However, As Iggy attempts to negotiate with the ruthless Murder-Falcon, Pet Shop isn’t having it, and brings out Horus’ true form, using ice to stop his wound. (Is that even possible?) The episode ends on one hell of a cliffhanger when Iggy’s fate remains uncertain as Pet shop goes in for the kill after trapping one of his paws in ice.

Our Take

At first, when I saw this episode, I was hoping it would be silent with only Team Joestar or the narrator occasionally saying something, like Tom & Jerry only more horrific and less Itchy & Scratchy. Upon research, Iggy is dubbed by another accomplished voice actor, Derek Stephen Prince of “Bleach” and “Digimon” fame who nails the Dog’s rough-edged attitude while giving him a level of likability you wouldn’t expect from a character who’s usually a jerk.

For a pissed-off bird with Ice Powers, Pet Shop is fucking terrifying, and compared to Iggy’s inner-thoughts, Pet Shop has zero lines, but I find that it only reinforces the terror he envokes. And all the chase scenes with Iggy only show us he’s a resilient killing machine that’s equal to an unstoppable slasher-villain. Stand-User or not, Pet Shop sure as hell lives up to being a bird of prey, and whether or not Iggy survives remains to be seen in the next episode.

Score
9/10