English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “The Miasma of the Void, Cool Ice, Part 1 “

I was not expecting that…

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

Picking up from Jotaro’s declaration, It’s finally revealed that while challenging Jotaro to a baseball video game of Life & Death with Kakyoin’s soul on the line, Terrance’s Atum Stand has the ability to peer into Jotaro’s soul thereby predicting his opponent’s every move which explains why Terrance would openly proclaim out loud, or ask what his opponent is going to do next, as the accuracy of Atum’s predictions all hinge on direct yes/no questions that are answered in his inner thoughts, which he uses to determine whether or not Jotaro is dicking with him. However, contrary to his deduction that Jotaro was not lying about his next actions, his pitches turn out to be different from expected. This leads Terrance to suspect that Jotaro is cheating somehow, though in a way that isn’t detected by Atum’s reliance on yes/no questions.

As Terrance desperately tries to figure out how Jotaro isn’t losing his cool despite having an advantage over him, Jotaro begins to win several more home runs, resulting in Terrance subconsciously admitting defeat and releasing Kakyoin’s soul. At last, Terrance discovers that Joseph was the one cheating on Jotaro’s behalf the entire time, using his Hermit Purple Stand to control the video game while Jotaro handled Atum’s questions with Terrance is met with a hilarious yet satisfying defeat by Jotaro’s Star Platinum Stand unleashing his iconic hail of punches in rapid succession and quickly find the exit to Terrance’s room.

At first I wondered why this episode was never titled “part 3” of this particular D’Arby storyline as he’s in a good portion of this episode, but slowly we figure it out at the 11-min mark when we’re introduced to Dio’s devoted follower named “Cool Ice”(Voiced by Jalen K. Cassell) who demonstrates extreme amounts of devotion by offering his blood in the most unpredictably horrific way imaginable in an effort to help his master, but Dio turns it down, and rewards Ice with new powers while assuring him that he will get blood from someone else and sends him out to attack Team Joestar. Meanwhile, Polnareff, Avdol, and Iggy after waiting the 10 mins, decide venture inside the mansion, where Iggy manages to make quick work of a Stand user named “Billie Jean” to stop the illusions he was creating. Immediately afterward, Avdol encounters Ice and is caught off guard by the sinister presence of Ice and his grotesque stand, but the episode ends on an unexpected and shocking cliffhanger that leaves both Polnareff & Iggy horrified beyond measure.

Our Take

While I was put off at first by how Terrance’s arc became sort-of stretched into 3 episodes, I at least enjoyed the comedic moments with the way Atum answers questions in his mind, and Jotaro Kicking ass with his Star Platinum is always an entertaining spectacle.

As for Cool Ice (Who’s called “Vanilla Ice” in Japan but was obviously changed for copyright reasons) while having very little screentime, was hard to take seriously at first due to how he’s dressed, but he sure as hell knew how to leave a lasting impression. But I feel the cliffhanger will most likely set a serious tone for the proceeding episodes.

Shit just got real!