This review contains major spoilers for the second half of Stardust Crusaders 20https://bestanimations.com/SignsShapes/Arrows/Left/leftarrow15.gif https://anilist.co/review/12122 20https://bestanimations.com/SignsShapes/Arrows/Right/rightarrow29.gif https://anilist.co/review/13440 520https://i.pin.com/originals/8f/2a/aa/8f2aaad1bde4289312f6ab1d9f5de1ff.jpg Hello and welcome back to my review series on JoJos Bizarre Adventure Last time I delved into the first half of Stardust Crusaders. While the show wasnt perfect the camaraderie between the main characters the colorful cast of villains the imaginative fights and the highlighted adventure aspect all helped to make Stardust Crusaders my favorite JoJo part thus far. But Stardust Crusaders is only half the story. For its anime adaption David Production split the part into two halves. Simply titled JoJos Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders the first half chronicles the Stardust Crusaders long journey to Egypt in order to reach DIO. The second halfBattle in Egypt follows the group traveling two Cairo battling DIOs last remaining henchmen on their way to him. Battle in Egypt is an amazing continuation and conclusion to a great show. Battle in Egypt doesnt see too many notable changes to the formula. In fact its counterintuitive to think of this as a second season. Its just another set of episodes of the same show. For the most part praises I gave the first half simply grow in intensity and the minor gripes that I have become a bit more major. But make no mistake there are a few new tricks up Battle in Egypts sleeve and the things that return are still great. Battle in Egypt didnt show me much of anything new but it didnt really need to. Battle in the Egypt solidified Part 3 as my favorite part so far. 520http://1.bp.blogspot.com/hiIe5gY70Ss/VZWTW1eQ9sI/AAAAAAAAERM/fMkq9mOuPyo/s1600/Iggy2BThe2BFool2Banime.PNG Beginning a bit small the first thing youll notice about Battle in Egypt is the change in OP and ED with STAND PROUD being replaced with JoJo Sono Chi no Kioku end of THE WORLDhttps://www..com/watch?v=78NQn4Rg9Uo and Walk Like an Egyptian being replaced with Last Train Homehttps://www..com/watch?v=oG7jKUHsLfY. As someone who wasnt at all a fan of STAND PROUD it shouldnt come as a surprise that I was open to the change. What does come as a surprise to me was the fact that this may be my favorite JoJo OP thus far. I tried skipping at first still missing BLOODY STREAM and Sono Chi No Sadame but end of The WORLD is the type of OP you realize that you cant hate despite your best efforts. The quiet singing at the beginning sets up a feeling of dread before giving way to boisterous strings and guitars. Its really hard to not like this song when at the end of it all the singers shout ORAORAORA to emulate Star Platinums iconic battlecry its so much fun. And the song really epitomizes Battle in Egypt as the end of a saga. The song opens with images of Jonathan DIO Joseph and Jotaro tying them all together. Not to mention each of the three former OP singers TOMMY Coda and JIN form the group JOSTARS to perform the song leading to very sonically satisfying music via vocal diversity. The opening deserves a rewatch after finishing the show as it contains a lot of foreshadowing of events. The craziest thing about end of THE WORLD is that during the final two episodes DIO has a surprise appearance where he uses The World to interfere with the opening sequence and it blew my fucking mind. Last Train Home is a song I knew and loved prior to JoJo. With its chill soothing sitars its the perfect song to wind down tense cliffhangers. Like the opening the ending sequence also features foreshadowing and after Stardust Crusaders final episode the song becomes very bittersweet. Beautiful to be sure but bittersweet all the same. Im not sure I can listen to it the same way again. On the other side of the spectrum we have the two hilarious catchy special EDs which play during the episodes featuring the Oingo Boingo Brothershttps://www..com/watch?v=vhZKRb25s and the Boingo Hol Horse teamuphttps://www..com/watch?v=YhIDrA26laA. The rest of the OST largely remains the same thus is still quite good. Some notable tracks are Setting Offhttps://www..com/watch?v=IlgRXAGonLg Space of a Lone Godhttps://www..com/watch?v=f5Vm86dD3n0 Awakening Darkness of The Worldhttps://www..com/watch?v=7qJrFqzrgU4 and Requiemhttps://www..com/watch?v=KLmIVDR5jyo. The Stand users are even better here. Theyre all quite memorable and threatening with each sporting unique skillsets that force the Crusaders to think on their toes in order to defeat them. I think the nonDIO highlights are the battles against the Darby brothers. Darby the Elder is a professional gambler and cheat while Darby the Younger is a Gamer. When were introduced to them their creepiness and high skills are displayed thanks to the Elders collection of his bested opponents souls trapped in coins and the Youngers collection of defeated souls trapped in eerilyanimated dolls. Forced to fight on the brothers terms the group i.e. Jotaro cant just punch their way to victory. This makes for the most creative fights in the series in terms of logic used its actually more sound than that of the final battle. Its notable how tense these fights get without a single punch being thrown. 520https://i.yt.com/vi/iwZRHCyLuIE/maxresdefault.jpg Speaking of tense its really a testament to how well this series is crafted how invested I got considering the fact that I knew exactly how DIOs Stand the World worked. You see the mechanics of DIOs stand are a bit of a mystery and finding out what it actually does is a big part of the final arc wherein the Crusaders Jotaro dukes it out with DIO. Due to the prevalence of JoJo memeshttps://www..com/watch?v=7ePWNmLP0Z0 I already knew that The World had the power to stop time. I was surprised to find out that this really didnt impede my enjoyment of the anime at all. While I knew how his powers worked I was blissfully anywhere of how the fight would shake out. In my last review I detailed how I was okay with Avdols fakeout death since I knew that main characters can die in JoJos Bizarre Adventure. As if to prove it the bodies really hit the floor during this half of Stardust Crusaders. Thanks to DIO and his righthand man Vanilla Icehttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FluffyTheTerrible and his Stand Creamhttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Pun more than half of the Stardust Crusaders are wiped out by the end of the show. The ball really gets rolling with Avdols death which is quite shocking in its suddenness. One moment everythings fine then the next Avdol is pushing Polnareff from some unseen foe before his body is sucked into another dimension thanks to Creams powers. As they fall to the ground Avdols arms are the only proof that he ever existed. You might hold onto the hope that Avdol somehow survived that hell be able to return from whatever dimension hes been sent to. But in the pit of your stomach you know its unlikely Araki doesnt seem like hed employ a double fakeout. After the fight is won were treated to narration used prior to comedically state that an enemy has retired confirming that Avdol has in fact died. Kakyoin takes a bit longer to die but his fatal wound comes no less suddenly a brutal punch through his gut courtesy of DIO. As Kakyoin has seemingly ensured that DIO would be unable to attack him this death comes even more as a shock and will confound viewers who havent been spoiled as to the nature of DIOs Stand. Stardust Crusaders is easily the saddest most emotional part so far due to the deaths of these characters. Its not only enough that weve come to know and love them but as I outlined before we really buy their comradery. Stardust Crusaders can achieve sentimentality without dipping into hokiness. Ill admit that the framing of Kakyoins death begins to veer into the overwrought territory we get his backstory during the episode where he dies which feels a bit manufactured especially as it could have easily been added a few episodes prior where Kakyoin is the focus character. An example of sentimentality done beautifully right is the scene in which Iggy and Avdols spirits watch over Polnareff before they ascend to heaven. The ending with Holly knowing that her son and father are coming home is also welldone. 520https://animetree.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/jjbastardustcrusadersavdolandiggy.jpg On the other side of the spectrum both halves of Stardust Crusaders are quite funny. Ive heard some state that Battle Tendency is funnier but I have to disagree. Even when an arc is serious it will often end in a humorous way such as with Judgement and Death 13. In this half after the tense fight with Anubis the announcer states that it retires after a drawnout gag wherein the Stand keeps hoping in vain that something will stop its trajectory towards the Nile river. The equivalent of badumtiss chanchan is used several times in the series. The comedy is most notable in the situations Joseph and Avdol get into thanks to Mariahs magnetism as well as the episodes involving Boingo. The show is positively a riot and its really impressive that it manages to blend tension and comedy so well sometimes in the same scene such as Darby the Elder freaking out over Jotaro raising the stakes of their bet. 520https://tommyaphillips.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/jojosc27.jpg However as I alluded to before not all is well in Egypt. A lot of my gripes unfortunately remain. This makes sense because again this is essentially just one continuous show but that really doesnt do much to temper my annoyance. First of all the emphasis on Jotaro remains in full effect here. If Jotaro is present then he will invariably be the one to save the day even if other characters could logically shine. The only way for someone not named Jotaro to defeat the enemy stand is to not have him be present. As much as I enjoyed the arc I think Darby the Gambler is a pretty egregious example of this. DArbys a gambler so theres not much reason that Joseph couldnt have been the one to beat him since the conflict doesnt rely on physical strength. Hell its been noted by fans that Joseph shouldnt have lost the game involving dropping coins into the drink since Hamon has been shown to be able to manipulate liquids. With Jotaro and Avdol the only Crusaders remaining I thought it would finally be Avdols time to shine before this possibility was promptly shot down by Avdol stating that hes too noble to gamble. When DArby the Younger is fought Kakyoin is revealed to be a Gamer whilst Jotaro is implied to not have played video games before. Naturally Kakyoin loses while Jotaro is the one to win to show how smart he is. Its really annoying because it can start to feel like this is less about a team of allies and more about showing how cool Jotaro is with everyone else there just to make him look better. Polnareff also gets the spotlight a lot but it feels a bit different since hes squarely characterized as an underdog and he bumbles into his fights. Avdol is probably the biggest victim of underutilization as he never really has time to shine by himself. A part of this boils down to Araki considering fire too OP for a protagonist Stand. 520https://i.yt.com/vi/OuCzcoEy3tc/maxresdefault.jpg I stand by Stardust Crusaders being great but having seen the whole thing through I can acknowledge some of the growing pains fans talk about. From what I can tell Araki had trouble balancing a large group of heroes. The interactions between them all are great but in addition to some spotlight hogging theres not much synergy in terms of fights. The powers of the heroes are seldom used in tandem in order to defeat their foes. There certainly are examples of teamups like Joseph and Avdol working together to defeat Mariah and Joseph and Jotaro outwitting Darby the Younger but these moments are few and far between. And again theres never a moment when the six Stardust Crusaders are fighting as one which feels like a missed opportunity. Nothing more exemplifies the dichotomy of Stardust Crusaders its strengths and witnesses than the fight against DIO during his eponymous arc DIOs World. 520https://64.media.tumblr.com/9301194a15181a9d281c89153b8fc47b/tumblrntndnr1cEG1ux08w0o1500.gifv The fight against DIO is in a word messy. The more I think about it the more I find things wrong with it. First and foremost the underuse of the Crusaders as a whole a problem the entire Part struggled with isnt rectified here. Theres still a heavy emphasis on Jotaro to the detriment of the other characters. Instead of them all fighting him at once the Stardust Crusaders fight DIO one by one. I put fight in scare quotes because the remaining Stardust Crusaders notnamedJotaro simply get bodied by DIO. I know that the show states that the group would have most likely lost if they attacked him all at once but I still cant help but feel disappointed that Araki went with the formula that he stuck to since the beginning of Stardust Crusaders. And yeah on paper DIO was defeated through The Power of Teamwork: in his dying breath Kakyoin revealed the secret of The World Joseph warned Jotaro of the ability right before being fatally stabbed by DIO and Polnareff was able to distract DIO long enough to save Jotaros life. On paper this shows how great of a team they are but in practice this is really just another example of this being Jotaros show. The team feels a bit hollow when their contribution is getting mercd all so Jotaro can get a oneliner in the end. To quote a terrible movie in regards to The World and Star Platinums sudden flashy movement abilities I have to ask they fly now? To which Araki responds they fly now. 520https://preview.redd.it/xi1uab7tkz631.jpg?width=1280format=pjpgauto=webps=b13ba03482db1ca8bc57fa6317f4e55170e1ce05 And Star Platinums powers good God Star Platinums powers. As stated before DIOs The World has the power to stop time. In most works of fiction the power to control time in any way shape or form is a devastating ability and Stardust Crusaders is no exception. Despite only having six seconds of stopped time DIO can do a lot with that time and its all the Stardust Crusaders i.e. Jotaro can do just to survive his onslaught. How in the world will Jotaro beat him you may ask. Surely theres some weakness that Jotaro can exploit? Nah Jotaro just gets the ability to stop time too. You see its revealed that Star Platinum and The World being the same type of Stand an inference made by the fact that the two of them both punch really fasthttps://www..com/watch?v=0GtWoCt3UE. Is this foreshadowed or hinted at at all? Sure isnt save for a brief frame of the OP wherein Jotaro moves his finger while time is stoppedhttps://i.kymcdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/971/560/505.gif but as I said before this is really only something youd notice in hindsight and it wouldnt have been in the manga where this story originated. I really dont buy Star Platinums rapid fisticuffs being proof of timestopping capabilities because it happens in realtime and The Worlds use of it is framed as independent from its time stop. I think its mainly hearsay but Ive heard that Araki intended DIO to have the power of all of the other Major Arcana stands. Since time stopping would have had to come from somewhere the group would have then been able to deduce the power originated from Star Platinum. Without much foreshadowing/hinting it still wouldnt have been great but it would have at least been much more solid of a reveal. The point is moot of course. Its said that Araki thought this would make DIO too powerful so either way this is nothing more than a neat trivia point. 520https://www.lessreal.com/imagevault/uploaded/images/part6/DioBrando29599.jpg In short DIOs defeat came in the form of an asspull a deus ex machina. Oh sure DIOs hubris played a part of it but without Star Platinum inexplicably being revealed as being the same type of stand as The World Jotaro would have taken the L. Araki wrote himself in a corner for the second time now. Its clear that at least as of Star Dust Crusaders Araki struggles to write compelling conclusions to his climactic fights because of how powerful he makes his antagonists. Its really hard to logically beat The Ultimate Lifeform or someone who can stop time. Kars fight wasnt great what with him being able to survive the one thing that could have logically and creatively killed him and him only being defeated because Josephs body moved on its own but at least it wasnt hyped up the way DIOs fight was. The frustrating thing is that DIOs fight didnt need to be this way. Araki could have easily given him some weakness for Jotaro to exploit such as overutilization of the world tiring him out. 520https://i.redd.it/v1uu9n8vo2821.jpg Those are just the main things the more I think about it the more little nitpicks I can think up. I mean youre telling me that the guy who survived as a disembodied head was completely destroyed because of a punch? Really? But what a glorious punch that was. Because at the end of the day I acknowledge that the fight with DIO is far from perfect. But I ultimately dont care because goddamn if it isnt cool. For the better part of fortyeight episodes Stardust Crusaders was hyping up an epic rematch with DIO always obscuring his face always showing his immense influence through his sheer charisma. And what can I say except that DIOs World delivered? The fight might not have been that satisfying narratively but I was promised an epic showdown and I wasnt left hanging. DIO was sorely missed and I was very happy that his cockiness and hamminess came back in full force. Its the type of fight that annoys me if I think about it but is a damn good time if I just let it wash over me enjoy the spectacle of it all. Does flying make sense? Not really. Is it cool? Hell yes. Would it have been more impactful if somehow Jonathans body was able to stop DIO from hurting his descendant? Yeah. Is the fight still good without it? Yes. The Stardust Crusaders got bodied in the service of a oneliner? Pretty much. But Id be lying if I said it wasnt a great oneliner. Rule of coolhttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool can hold sway over my opinions more than Id care to admit. The fight shouldnt work and I should be annoyed about it. I am annoyed if I think about it but then I cant help but smile. Its like my brain is going https://www..com/watch?v=XlVOJg23QZ0 but my heart is going https://www..com/watch?v=sqFm7qfRQk Thats probably a good summary as any of my feelings towards Stardust Crusaders. I might have thought it was nighperfect come the end of the first half. The second half has made it pretty clear that it has some notable problems. But at the end of the day those problems dont impede my enjoyment too much. Its too cool its too funny too tense too heartfelt to stay mad at for too long. Im still happy to say that this is my favorite JoJo Part thus far and I feel it deserve its notoriety deserves being as iconic as it is. Im excited yet nervous as I approach Part 4 Diamond is Unbreakable. Im nervous because people often describe it as being completely different from Stardust Crusaders and Im afraid the show will do away with everything I loved about this one. Im excited because it could improve upon what I didnt enjoy as much. Though Im moreso excited because Im sure Ill have a good time regardless. It is JoJos Bizarre Adventure after all. 200https://i.ur.com/zPKVlty.png 520https://externalpreview.redd.it/SsiVsEHrodBZGsTcvcMnYsnEFBJJXYmf7l2SvdlcgGA.png?format=pjpgauto=webps=11019e61d6a9407485b70e5c2054e1612e65bcdb