JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

ChaosAlike Mar 26, 2016

9

When I first heard about Jojo, I was immediately excited to watch this gem of a series. I can safely say overall, I wasn't disappointed. However, Battle in Egypt shoots to the stars in quality while Stardust stays on the ground, if you catch my drift.  Story The story starts off with 17 year old Jotaro Kujo, who thinks he's possessed by an 'evil spirit' which his grandfather (Joseph Joestar from Battle Tendency) and a fortune teller named Avdol tell him he possesses a strange and mysterious power called a 'Stand'. From there, Jotaro meets Noriaki Kakyoin and Jean Pierre Polnareff as the five make their way to Egypt, fighting Dio's assassins who also possess stands.  Characters I will say this: I was definitely not disappointed with any of the characters from Stardust. All of their powers were fairly interesting, even if they were kind of useless. One thing I do have to complain about is that the majority of this part does NOT focus on Jotaro, but instead on establishing everyone else, so our main Jojo felt a little underrated. But to make up for it, Noriaki and Polnareff definitely stole the show. Hol Horse and J. Geil did as well during episodes 10-11. The plot about Polnareff's sister and J. Geil was definitely an interesting turn of events, immediately followed by Avdol's "death" which was all the more heartbreaking. I very much liked how everyone's plots were evolved over time, and I found it interesting that after 'The Emperor and The Hanged Man' that Hol Horse was supposed to join the crusaders instead of Avdol coming back. Animation The animation blew me away. The neon color scheme, the way everyone looks which is faithful to Araki's original work, the way everyone's stand looked... Beautiful. It's fluid, full of color, and goregeous. Sound The music and sound design were absolutely mind blowing. Hats off to the music team especially because it fits the series so well. Everyone's dialogue was of course over the top and ridiculous, but would you expect anything less? Everything was made better with something in English *cough Joseph cough* and the one-liners and jokes had me laughing every time. Overall, people may hate this part compared to Battle in Egypt because yes, this part does have a rocky start, but gets better as it goes on.

PhantomLex Aug 3, 2018

10

I'm sorry I had to give this an all 10/10 the reason is simple want to see handsome buff man fighting each other? And have your mother walk in and question your sexuality to the scene of Noriaki Kakyoin licking a cherry furiously while staring at jotaro in the eyes well then this is the perfect Anime for you! After watching the series and reading the manga you will soon be shouting out DIO! And "Is That A Jojo reference" to every pose you see the animation and the quality is outstanding its like they have pulled the original work straight out of the manga to the anime this is worth watching!

TheAngryBears Dec 11, 2015

7

I'm not sure why the first and second season of Jojo: Stardust Crusaders is split into 2 separate series. Therefore, I'm going to post my big picture review of Stardust Crusaders, then move onto this first series specifically. To sum up that video: The plot is fairly stupid. If you've played Castlevania: Any of them then you get the idea. Kill Dracula. But his name isn't Dracula, its Dio. Oh, and people can gain the power to manifest their fighting spirits into supernatural avatars known as Stands. That premise is what drew me into Jojo initially. To me it seemed like fighting these quirky Stand abilities and the main cast having to find an unorthodox way to deal with them. And while Stardust has that, technically, it doesn't do much with that core central idea. There's moments, to be sure, but most episodes end with Jotaro getting close enough to the enemy Stand and having his own Stand: Star Platinum Kenshiro Fist of the North Star ATATATA-ORAORAORA punch its supernatural head in. Like the just mentioned Fist of the North Star, Jotaro's Star Platinum can defeat literally anyone. And scenes where the main cast is in danger, or they're helpless is almost comically short because Star Platinum can do damn near anything. As I said before, there are exceptions to be sure. But overall, Stands and their abilities are rather underwhelming here, and most of this first season feels disposable as a result. But I sat through it because hot damn was the animation work great here. Stardust is vibrant, leaping straight from the 80's with a fantastic neon color scheme. I can't think of many...ANYTHING, that has canon alternate colors for almost the whole cast of characters. And yes, it sucks how many problems are solved with Star Platinum bashing in the monster of the moment, but at least it looks fantastic. Also I give genuine props to the sound and music team, the music is fantastic and it ties the production together. Overall, the second season fixes much of what went wrong in this first season. But, to sum up this first half of Stardust Crusaders: Its a story with a dull, stupid plot made up with fantastic production quality. And once things get to Egypt, well, I'll save that for the Battle in Egypt review.