JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E05-6 Review: Polnareff's Amazing Hair

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Episode 5: Silver Chariot; Episode 6: Dark Blue Moon

Jean-Pierre Polnareff is a somewhat controversial character, because how much you like Stardust Crusaders might depend on how much you like this funky silver-haired character. Because Polnareff actually appears as much as Jotaro himself, and acts as perhaps the most happy-go-lucky, non-serious character, to contrast with the far sterner and reserved Jotaro, Kakyoin and Avdol.

But this first episode that he shows up in is basically a bit of a repeat of how the Crusaders recruited Kakyoin -- a mind-controlled assassin of Dio, with Polnareff talking big about how his speed, the knight-like Silver Chariot (probably one of the straight up cooler looking Stands) is one of the fastest and deadliest Stands, showing off how he manages to stab coins and fireballs with Silver Chariot's fence in one go.

Yet even while mind-controlled, Polnareff still shows a fair amount of honour, wanting to fight Avdol outside in the Tiger Balm Garden (an actual location that I've actually been to) so that Avdol wouldn't be put at a disadvantage. The fight between Avdol's blasts of fire and Polnareff's sheer speed with his HORA-HORA's, and his mocking of Avdol by carving a nearby statue to look like Magician's Red, is pretty fun to watch, even if it's a bit slow-paced. The soundtrack gives a pretty cool Latin-chanting bit during the later half of the battle, especially when Avdol gets serious, which is actually pretty badass. Avdol doesn't really get much time to shine throughout the series, so it's neat to allow an entire episode devoted to him as the main fighter.

Avdol also shows off how Magician's Red can actually control the flames that he unleashes, including at one point melting the joints of the statue that Silver Chariot cut up in order to create a decoy Magician's Red. There's some fun Shonen power-up moments in the middle of the fight, like Avdol switching his attacks from Cross Fire Hurricane (or "KUROSS FAIYAAAAA HARIKHENNN") into Cross Fire Hurricane Special in order to better control his fire attacks, or Silver Chariot shedding his armour to increase his speed to such a speed that he essentially creates speed clones and afterimages.

Of course, Avdol eventually wins by creating a hole and blasting fire through it via his Hurricane Special attack, and burns Polnareff up. Avdol allows Polnareff the chance to end his suffering, but Polnareff decides to accept his fate with honour... at which point Avdol stops his badass walk and extinguishes the flame. Jotaro pulls out the Dio mind-control seed, and Polnareff is now a party member. It does sot of put the subsequent villains in perspective, though -- how many of them actually have Dio's seed embedded in their foreheads that our heroes just kill without abandon? Eh.

Polnareff actually ends up acting like a bit of a RPG video game character, talking about how he's on a personal quest, hunting a serial killer with two right hands that had raped and killed Polnareff's sister, with Stand abilities, and it was this quest that led him to Dio... who, of course, has that two-right-handed man as one of his minions as the final scene in this episode shows. Overall, it's a fun episode for a simple "manly honour" battle, which is executed relatively well. And I actually do like Polnareff, who manages to balance the angsty vendetta with a cheerful, boisterous personality. It's neat.

The first half of Stardust Crusaders have been criticized for having a bit too much generic 'villain of the week' enemies that don't really add that much to the story beyond working down a quota of action scenes and tarot cards. And episode six, "Dark Blue Moon", is perhaps an episode that didn't quite need to last as long as an episode. Our heroes find themselves on a boat heading to Singapore, and end up having to figure out who the real Stand user is. We're also included to the very unmemorable little girl-disguised-as-a-boy. Following the tradition of Part 1's Poco and Part 2's Smokey, Anne* continues the tradition of JJBA having a very ineffective, boring little child character that doesn't really do much but play the 'confused by all the madness going on' character-in-distress trope.

*who doesn't even have a name in the original manga, that's how pointless the character is.

The villain of this episode is the impostor Captain Tennille, who's killed and impersonated the captain (without the rest of the crew knowing?) that Jotaro ends up exposing via a fun little fake-out about cigarette smoke. Jotaro makes this deadpan bullshit about how a Stand user's nose veins engorges when exposed to cigarette smoke, causing the impostor captain, who is a Stand user, to reflexively touch his nose. It's a fun moment, I guess.

The actual fight between Jotaro and the Impostor Captain's Dark Blue Moon, a strange four-eyed, flat-headed fish monster stand, is basically a huge "haha, my stand can survive underwater" moment that isn't super-exciting. There's a bit where Dark Blue Moon unleashes a whirlpool and summons barnacles to cut up Jotaro and any other allies, but the story doesn't really bring up any sort of real concrete evidence why Polnareff, Kakyoin and Avdol just stands around being afraid of being cut up by barnacles. The way Jotaro defeats Dark Blue Moon isn't particularly exciting either, by going limp and suddenly unleashing "Star Finger", extending his two fingers to stab Dark Blue Moon in the head, which is a bit of an asspull power that Star Platinum only displays exactly once after this, because it's a bit of an ability that doesn't quite match Star Platinum's fast-and-powerful power list.

Overall, while not outright bad, "Dark Blue Moon" isn't an episode that's particularly memorable.

The JoJo Playlist:

• Jean Pierre Polnareff is named, of course, after Michel Polnareff, a French singer-songwriter that was popular from the 60's to the 90's. I don't actually listen to a lot of French songs, so I can't say I'm super familiar with his work. 
• Captain Tennille is named after the 70's American duo Captain & Tennille. One of their more iconic songs are Love Will Keep Us Together. 
• I completely forgot about it when I first reviewed this, but "Cross Fire Hurricane", Avdol's attack, is a reference to the opening lyrics of the Rolling Stones song, "Jumpin Jack Flash".