English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Khnum’s Zenyatta and Thoth’s Mondatta”

Is the prediction of this episode a good one?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

As Team Joestar arrives in the village of Aswan to get Kakyoin & Avdol to a hospital, one of the two brothers Zenyatta, whose Stand Khnum has the ability to change his face, height and smell to appear like anyone else, while Mondatta’s Stand “Tohth” is a comic book that predicts a potential deaths & disastrous outcomes before they happen and currently in the process of fulfilling the job that was offered to them by DIO as they were two of the 9 people. Afterward, Team Joestar are told that Kakyoin will be out of the picture for a while due to his eye injuries, while Avdol’s neck injury isn’t as severe and will be getting out soon.

While the members of Team Joestar are usually the primary focus, the main focus of this particular episode has shifted on the two brothers hired by Dio to take them out, who come off as pretty strange in terms of Stand powers and appearance. The predictions that Mondatta’s “Tohth” Stand makes are frequently how their Wile E. Coyote-style shenanigans usually begin, and while the art style of these oddly specific predictions is colorful and grotesque, they attempt to accurately follow these by the letter. But much like the goofy & elaborate antics of Team Rocket, their attempts often end with varying degrees of failure as exemplified in one scene where Zenyatta’s Tohth Stand predicted Team Joestar would die in a cafe from drinking “poisoned tea”, so Zenyatta uses his stand powers to disguise himself as a cafe waiter to make sure it happens, but it’s thwarted out of dumb luck in comedic ways that not even their Mondatta’s Stand could predict.

After recovering from their first failed attempt, another prophecy draws itself in Mondatta’s book that foretells Zenyatta planting a bomb “disguised as an orange” in Team Joestar’s car, and when it detonates will supposedly kill Jotaro. As Zenyatta prepares this unusual trap, he’s caught off guard when Joseph & Polnareff leave the building which forces Zenyatta to disguise himself as Jotaro while the real Jotaro is absent which you’d think they’d immediately suspect it isn’t him. Despite Zenyatta being forced to join them while still in disguise, both brothers realize that the vagueness of Toth’s prediction could be a possible bad outcome for Zenyatta who proceeds to throw out the bomb. But hilariously, it finds its way back to him due to Iggy’s meddling and after later escaping the car, the orange gets thrown out which results in Zenyatta facing some hilarious yet devastating consequences. As Mondatta tries to cheer his brother up, fate isn’t so kind when some very bad karma starts to come their way with Mondatta vowing revenge against Team Joestar. Although the two brothers lost without their opponents even realizing their existence. The episode ends with a delicious twist of irony when Joseph & Polnareff return to the hospital where the real Jotaro was the whole time while the two brothers are being carried out by an Ambulance.

Compared to the calm & somber credits they’re using with the “Last Train Home” song, this episode uses different credits representing Mondatta’s Stand powers which are often drawn in its strange & disjointed art style while accompanied with a goofy tune which helps fit the comedic tone of this episode is going for.

Our Take

This episode was pretty damn hilarious! Part of me expected the two brothers to be an actual threat much in the same way all the others were, but instead, it felt like I was watching Jojo’s version of a Looney Tunes cartoon. I don’t know if that’s what Hirohiko Araki was going for, but it certainly wasn’t boring. This show’s style of humor along with its credits music might not be for everyone, but It was a nice break from the more serious episodes that delivered in horror & suspense and succeeded in giving a good laugh.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Score
8.5/10