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

We conclude the two-parter.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

As Team Joestar suits up into some scuba equipment, It leads to a scene where Joseph gives a quick lesson before everyone prepares to exit the submarine. As someone who’s never gone Scuba diving, it does get the point across the detailed mechanics of how scuba gear works and even has a moment of comedic levity between Polnareff & Kakyoin. However, they discover High Priestess has already caught up to them in secret by disguising itself as Polnareff’s regulator, with Joseph and Kakyoin narrowly managing to save him from certain death. When Team Joestar manages to exit the sub, they start swimming across its rocks leading “seven meters below” Egyptian shore, only to discover those rocks were the High Priestess Stand disguising itself as the seabed, and using it’s power to manipulate minerals, sucks them inside its mouth and finally speaks to them.

As the Stand’s user, Rose, gloats from the surface, she comments on how much of a shame it would be for her to eat Jotaro as she expresses attraction for him, which gives Polnareff an idea to the group as they attempt to play to Rose’s femininity but this only serves to piss her off even further, leading her to knock Jotaro into her Stand’s teeth to crush him. Just when all hope seems lost, Jotaro manages to break her teeth with Star Platinum and they all break free from High Priestess’ mouth, escaping to the surface, where Rose is not only incapacitated but possibly disfigured from Jotaro’s unleashing hell on her giant-ass teeth and helping them get the hell out.

In the third act, after finally making it on Egyptian soil, Joseph comments that their entire journey to Egypt, during the course of episodes 4-24, took it them “30 days” but it’s further emphasized with a random scene of narration that reminds the audience about the hardships of their journey and enemies they fought which is a well-done scene with the show’s theme song “Stand Proud” playing in the background. Jotaro & Joseph eventually contact Joseph’s wife Suzy before she leaves for Japan and updates them of their safety before the two rejoin Team Joestar in their pursuit of Dio. But the episode ends on a series of cliffhanger-like montage scenes that lay out the proper groundwork for the next wave of episodes, as this was originally intended to be a mid-season finale during its original run in Japan, including a post-credits scene involving the Speedwagon foundation carrying an unusual passenger via-helicopter.

 

Our Take

Damn this was a solid episode and a great way to end the first half of their journey. Kakyoin and Polnareff’s moment was hilarious with the “hand signs” scene that helped bring levity to their desperate situation. The action scenes with Jotaro also breaking High Priestess’ teeth were also just as hard-hitting as they were entertaining.

While Dio had very little screen time as the main antagonist, the scenes within the montage near the end reveal a number of things such as nine people visiting Dio with a Job offer to take out Team Joestar in Egypt which isn’t much of a spoiler because much to my surprise, Toonami announced during the airing of this episode that it’ll immediately continue next week with the “Battle in Egypt Arc” in the form of a trailer, so I can’t wait!