I was a bit daunted going into Stardust Crusaders, seeing as how this is the most popular and iconic arc of one of the most iconic manga out there. It felt like I was in for something special. As much fun as Battle Tendency had been, it wasn't mind blowing, simply a really strong action show. Having now watched all of Stardust Crusaders, I can confidently say...
Really? This is what all the hype was about?
It's not that Stardust Crusaders is bad, far from it. It's very entertaining, if deeply flawed. That said, it didn't blow me away, and in fact felt like a drop in quality from the excellent Battle Tendency arc. Let me explain.
Stardust Crusaders stars the first JoJo not to be a Joestar by name: The Japanese Jotaro Kujo. Jotaro is by far the most iconic of all the JoJos: his character design is the only one I was familiar with before watching the show, and he tends to top (or nearly top) "best JoJo" lists everywhere.
He's alright.
Like a lot about Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro feels like a step down from Battle Tendency. Battle Tendency gave us the magnificently goofy genius that was Joseph Joestar. I went on in my review of that arc about how entertaining it was to watch him fight: every battle Joseph was in was both a performance piece and a battle of wits. Joseph put up his goofy persona to hide his strategic genius, didn't play fair, and would tell us his plan in the style of a Holmesian reveal. Usually, his opponent would then reveal he was one step ahead, and then Joseph would reveal he was one step ahead of that and so on. Jotaro, on the other hand is a quiet, harsh "tough punk" type. He'll be stoic, take a beating for a bit, then counter with one single calculated move that'll usually win the battle straight away. It's not as much a battle of wits, as a matter of waiting for Jotaro to figure out the one winning move, which is satisfying but not as much fun to watch as Joseph's constant back-and-forth with his enemies.
Don't get me wrong, Jotaro is badass as all hell, and a cool protagonist. The problem is that he's just not as entertaining to watch as his immediate predecessor. This isn't limited to battles either: his stoicism in the more mundane scenes means he's not often got much to do. Whilst this does mean that when he does show emotion it's all the more touching, he simply can't compete with Joseph's constantly entertaining shenanigans.
Speaking of Joseph, he's back as one of many main characters, aged about fifty years. I really like the way he's brought back: he's no longer the loud-mouthed brash asshole of Battle Tendency. Instead he acts as the group's battle-wisened leader and Jotaro's mentor figure. He doesn't get to fight much, but he's still recognizably the same Joseph from before, battling more through trickery and mindgames than physical might, if with less of a cocky attitude and more of a "cool old man" spin on it.
The main cast as a whole is hands down the best the show has had so far. Not only is Joseph here, but Jotaro is also joined by the cold and calculating Kakyoin, the wise and stoic Avdol, the brash dumbass Polnareff and an asshole dog named Iggy. These characters vary wildly in quality: Avdol is about as boring as you get, Kakyoin is fine, Iggy is great for a dog character, and Polnareff is brilliant, easily the best character in the arc. In fact, a problem of mine is that, if Jotaro's stoicism didn't make him blend into the background with such a large main cast, Polnareff most certainly does. Not only does Polnareff have by far the most complex arc in the season, he also seems to get in more fights than Jotaro does, and he's certainly given more screen time, both in his role as comic relief and as an actual character. Between Polnareff and Iggy's arcs, Jotaro being badass, Joseph being a rad grandpa, and both Kakyoin and Avdol being quite likeable, if not very interesting, it's hard not to grow attached to this group of characters.
Possibly the biggest change in Stardust Crusaders is the new power mechanic to replace Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency's Hamon: Stands. These are spirit monsters created from people's life energy, and most of the fighting in this season takes place as stand battles. They're basically Personas before Persona was a thing. Each stand is unique and with a very specific set of powers, which leads to some very interesting interplay. It's a great concept that freshens up the battles, which is good, since there wasn't much else left to do with Hamon. There is a bit of a flub in execution, though: whilst almost every enemy stand is indeed inventive, forcing very specific battles to be fought, our main cast has very similar and generic stands. Jotaro's punches hard, fast, and is precise. Polnareff's stabs things hard, fast, and is precise. Avdol's shoots fire, Kakyoin's shoots gemstones. Iggy's is kind of cool in that it's made of sand, but we barely see him use it: as far as I can remember it only really sees proper use in three episodes.
The one exception is Joseph, who is given what is on a couple occasions described as the weakest stand of them all: purple vines that he can use as a grappling hook, as well as having the ability to take "spirit photos" under specific circumstances. This is presumably to make him have to take a back seat in combat scenarios, preventing him from taking Jotaro's thunder, but it results in what little combat Joseph does end up being in by far the most interesting, due to him having to come up with creative ways of using his very limited and specific set of abilities. I'm willing to bet that how well this turned out is part of what lead the author to also give the next JoJo's (Diamond is Unbreakable's Josuke's) stand a very specific ability on top of being able to punch hard.
That said, what the main cast lacks in creative stands, their enemies more than makes up for. The fights here aren't quite as enjoyable as Battle Tendency, but they are certainly close. Every foe the Stardust Crusaders face has a stand with a very specific ability that's incredibly powerful in the right situation, which the enemy inevitably lures the Crusaders into before attacking. This means that every battle is a sort of puzzle: they're not going to beat the enemy head on, so our heroes have to figure out a way around their disadvantage, be it by tricking their opponent, beating them at their own game, or turning their abilities against them. The show does a brilliant job of setting up their enemies as powerful on their own turf. I was honestly surprised at how many times I caught myself thinking "there's absolutely no way that they make it out of this one. This must be where one of them dies". This makes the fact that their miraculous turnarounds only feel like an ass-pull in two or three of the battles all the more impressive.
That said, the battles are both Stardust Crusaders' biggest strength and weakness. With a couple exceptions here and there, every individual battle is great, but there's just too damn many of them. We get three or four episodes of set up for the plot at the very start of the arc: Joseph's daughter/Jotaro's mother is ill because Dio is back (now inexplicably called DIO and hiding in Egypt), and off go the Crusaders on their journey to beat him up. From this point, practically every single episode follows the same exact structure: The Crusaders arrive at some milestone in their journey, get attacked by some Stand user, fight them off, and move on. There's no plot progression beyond "hey, we got a bit closer to Egypt". Every episode is either a fight, or part of a multi-episode fight.
It frankly gets exhausting, and I really wish there'd been a couple episodes where something different was happening. Both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency were very focused on their central plots, but they had distractions: Phantom Blood spent almost half of its running time just setting up the rivalry between Jonathan and Dio, and Battle Tendency had episodes dedicated to just introducing new characters, or having Joseph train his Hamon. These are both arcs that lasted less than half the time that Stardust Crusaders did, but still gave us a break from all the fighting to spend time exclusively on developing its characters, which resulted in there being a clear sense of momentum. Stardust Crusaders ends up feeling like it's a 40 episode long tournament arc: just have our heroes fight a variety of bad guys until they can finally get to the big bad guy in the finals.
The big bad guy himself is DIO (In all caps because he's spent 100 years under the sea, I guess). I got really excited to see him again, which made it disappointing when he spent most of the arc not being in the show. Until the last five or so episodes, we only ever get to see DIO every few episodes, brooding in his mansion. He'll spend the last couple minutes of an episode telling the next big stand user (that we can spend two episodes instead of one on because we set him up, right?) to go kill the Crusaders, rinse, repeat. Once the Crusaders find him, he still's still as overwhelmingly powerful as ever (and provides us with a fantastic battle) but he no longer feels as malevolent and terrifying as he did in Phantom Blood, despite being even more fucked up than he used to be. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that he no longer has the personal connection with the protagonist that he did with Jonathan, but it's sad that he's not as terrifying nonetheless.
Possibly the most disappointing aspect of Stardust Crusaders, however, is how mundane it feels. Don't get me wrong, this is still JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where nothing makes sense and everything is over the top and deliciously silly, but Stardust Crusaders doesn't feel unique in the same way that the previous and (from what I've seen) future arcs do. Phantom Blood was a very interesting take on gothic horror, Battle Tendency drew on the pulpy globe-trotting adventure feel that inspired things like Indiana Jones (with just a smidge of martial arts drama mixed in), and the next arc, Diamond is Unbreakable, is much smaller in scope and grounded in its location than any of the others, using elements of a small town murder mystery. Stardust Crusaders, travelling gimmick aside (which doesn't add much more than different terrain for the characters to fight on, something that Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency did fine with providing), just doesn't have a strong identity. It's just constant fighting. There's no interesting texture to it.
I've ragged a lot on Stardust Crusaders here, but I did genuinely like this arc. As I've mentioned, the stand battles are thoroughly enjoyable, and the larger cast is the best one that JoJo's has had to date. I simply feel like it's a step down from Battle Tendency, and am disappointed that this very beloved piece of entertainment wasn't as big of an improvement from Battle Tendency as Battle Tendency was from Phantom Blood. Stardust Crusaders is a really solid, perfectly enjoyable piece of action fun, and JoJo's unique brand of crazy made sure it stayed unique throughout, but it's deeply flawed, and doesn't stand up to Battle Tendency.
7/10
Stardust Crusaders has numerous deep flaws, and is a slight disappointment when compared to its predecessor, but its fantastic style and great battle sequences elevate it into being a very solid experience.
Really? This is what all the hype was about?
It's not that Stardust Crusaders is bad, far from it. It's very entertaining, if deeply flawed. That said, it didn't blow me away, and in fact felt like a drop in quality from the excellent Battle Tendency arc. Let me explain.
Stardust Crusaders stars the first JoJo not to be a Joestar by name: The Japanese Jotaro Kujo. Jotaro is by far the most iconic of all the JoJos: his character design is the only one I was familiar with before watching the show, and he tends to top (or nearly top) "best JoJo" lists everywhere.
He's alright.
Like a lot about Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro feels like a step down from Battle Tendency. Battle Tendency gave us the magnificently goofy genius that was Joseph Joestar. I went on in my review of that arc about how entertaining it was to watch him fight: every battle Joseph was in was both a performance piece and a battle of wits. Joseph put up his goofy persona to hide his strategic genius, didn't play fair, and would tell us his plan in the style of a Holmesian reveal. Usually, his opponent would then reveal he was one step ahead, and then Joseph would reveal he was one step ahead of that and so on. Jotaro, on the other hand is a quiet, harsh "tough punk" type. He'll be stoic, take a beating for a bit, then counter with one single calculated move that'll usually win the battle straight away. It's not as much a battle of wits, as a matter of waiting for Jotaro to figure out the one winning move, which is satisfying but not as much fun to watch as Joseph's constant back-and-forth with his enemies.
Don't get me wrong, Jotaro is badass as all hell, and a cool protagonist. The problem is that he's just not as entertaining to watch as his immediate predecessor. This isn't limited to battles either: his stoicism in the more mundane scenes means he's not often got much to do. Whilst this does mean that when he does show emotion it's all the more touching, he simply can't compete with Joseph's constantly entertaining shenanigans.
Speaking of Joseph, he's back as one of many main characters, aged about fifty years. I really like the way he's brought back: he's no longer the loud-mouthed brash asshole of Battle Tendency. Instead he acts as the group's battle-wisened leader and Jotaro's mentor figure. He doesn't get to fight much, but he's still recognizably the same Joseph from before, battling more through trickery and mindgames than physical might, if with less of a cocky attitude and more of a "cool old man" spin on it.
The main cast as a whole is hands down the best the show has had so far. Not only is Joseph here, but Jotaro is also joined by the cold and calculating Kakyoin, the wise and stoic Avdol, the brash dumbass Polnareff and an asshole dog named Iggy. These characters vary wildly in quality: Avdol is about as boring as you get, Kakyoin is fine, Iggy is great for a dog character, and Polnareff is brilliant, easily the best character in the arc. In fact, a problem of mine is that, if Jotaro's stoicism didn't make him blend into the background with such a large main cast, Polnareff most certainly does. Not only does Polnareff have by far the most complex arc in the season, he also seems to get in more fights than Jotaro does, and he's certainly given more screen time, both in his role as comic relief and as an actual character. Between Polnareff and Iggy's arcs, Jotaro being badass, Joseph being a rad grandpa, and both Kakyoin and Avdol being quite likeable, if not very interesting, it's hard not to grow attached to this group of characters.
Possibly the biggest change in Stardust Crusaders is the new power mechanic to replace Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency's Hamon: Stands. These are spirit monsters created from people's life energy, and most of the fighting in this season takes place as stand battles. They're basically Personas before Persona was a thing. Each stand is unique and with a very specific set of powers, which leads to some very interesting interplay. It's a great concept that freshens up the battles, which is good, since there wasn't much else left to do with Hamon. There is a bit of a flub in execution, though: whilst almost every enemy stand is indeed inventive, forcing very specific battles to be fought, our main cast has very similar and generic stands. Jotaro's punches hard, fast, and is precise. Polnareff's stabs things hard, fast, and is precise. Avdol's shoots fire, Kakyoin's shoots gemstones. Iggy's is kind of cool in that it's made of sand, but we barely see him use it: as far as I can remember it only really sees proper use in three episodes.
The one exception is Joseph, who is given what is on a couple occasions described as the weakest stand of them all: purple vines that he can use as a grappling hook, as well as having the ability to take "spirit photos" under specific circumstances. This is presumably to make him have to take a back seat in combat scenarios, preventing him from taking Jotaro's thunder, but it results in what little combat Joseph does end up being in by far the most interesting, due to him having to come up with creative ways of using his very limited and specific set of abilities. I'm willing to bet that how well this turned out is part of what lead the author to also give the next JoJo's (Diamond is Unbreakable's Josuke's) stand a very specific ability on top of being able to punch hard.
That said, what the main cast lacks in creative stands, their enemies more than makes up for. The fights here aren't quite as enjoyable as Battle Tendency, but they are certainly close. Every foe the Stardust Crusaders face has a stand with a very specific ability that's incredibly powerful in the right situation, which the enemy inevitably lures the Crusaders into before attacking. This means that every battle is a sort of puzzle: they're not going to beat the enemy head on, so our heroes have to figure out a way around their disadvantage, be it by tricking their opponent, beating them at their own game, or turning their abilities against them. The show does a brilliant job of setting up their enemies as powerful on their own turf. I was honestly surprised at how many times I caught myself thinking "there's absolutely no way that they make it out of this one. This must be where one of them dies". This makes the fact that their miraculous turnarounds only feel like an ass-pull in two or three of the battles all the more impressive.
That said, the battles are both Stardust Crusaders' biggest strength and weakness. With a couple exceptions here and there, every individual battle is great, but there's just too damn many of them. We get three or four episodes of set up for the plot at the very start of the arc: Joseph's daughter/Jotaro's mother is ill because Dio is back (now inexplicably called DIO and hiding in Egypt), and off go the Crusaders on their journey to beat him up. From this point, practically every single episode follows the same exact structure: The Crusaders arrive at some milestone in their journey, get attacked by some Stand user, fight them off, and move on. There's no plot progression beyond "hey, we got a bit closer to Egypt". Every episode is either a fight, or part of a multi-episode fight.
It frankly gets exhausting, and I really wish there'd been a couple episodes where something different was happening. Both Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency were very focused on their central plots, but they had distractions: Phantom Blood spent almost half of its running time just setting up the rivalry between Jonathan and Dio, and Battle Tendency had episodes dedicated to just introducing new characters, or having Joseph train his Hamon. These are both arcs that lasted less than half the time that Stardust Crusaders did, but still gave us a break from all the fighting to spend time exclusively on developing its characters, which resulted in there being a clear sense of momentum. Stardust Crusaders ends up feeling like it's a 40 episode long tournament arc: just have our heroes fight a variety of bad guys until they can finally get to the big bad guy in the finals.
The big bad guy himself is DIO (In all caps because he's spent 100 years under the sea, I guess). I got really excited to see him again, which made it disappointing when he spent most of the arc not being in the show. Until the last five or so episodes, we only ever get to see DIO every few episodes, brooding in his mansion. He'll spend the last couple minutes of an episode telling the next big stand user (that we can spend two episodes instead of one on because we set him up, right?) to go kill the Crusaders, rinse, repeat. Once the Crusaders find him, he still's still as overwhelmingly powerful as ever (and provides us with a fantastic battle) but he no longer feels as malevolent and terrifying as he did in Phantom Blood, despite being even more fucked up than he used to be. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that he no longer has the personal connection with the protagonist that he did with Jonathan, but it's sad that he's not as terrifying nonetheless.
Possibly the most disappointing aspect of Stardust Crusaders, however, is how mundane it feels. Don't get me wrong, this is still JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where nothing makes sense and everything is over the top and deliciously silly, but Stardust Crusaders doesn't feel unique in the same way that the previous and (from what I've seen) future arcs do. Phantom Blood was a very interesting take on gothic horror, Battle Tendency drew on the pulpy globe-trotting adventure feel that inspired things like Indiana Jones (with just a smidge of martial arts drama mixed in), and the next arc, Diamond is Unbreakable, is much smaller in scope and grounded in its location than any of the others, using elements of a small town murder mystery. Stardust Crusaders, travelling gimmick aside (which doesn't add much more than different terrain for the characters to fight on, something that Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency did fine with providing), just doesn't have a strong identity. It's just constant fighting. There's no interesting texture to it.
I've ragged a lot on Stardust Crusaders here, but I did genuinely like this arc. As I've mentioned, the stand battles are thoroughly enjoyable, and the larger cast is the best one that JoJo's has had to date. I simply feel like it's a step down from Battle Tendency, and am disappointed that this very beloved piece of entertainment wasn't as big of an improvement from Battle Tendency as Battle Tendency was from Phantom Blood. Stardust Crusaders is a really solid, perfectly enjoyable piece of action fun, and JoJo's unique brand of crazy made sure it stayed unique throughout, but it's deeply flawed, and doesn't stand up to Battle Tendency.
7/10
Stardust Crusaders has numerous deep flaws, and is a slight disappointment when compared to its predecessor, but its fantastic style and great battle sequences elevate it into being a very solid experience.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario