JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E19-20 Review: Happy Fun Dreamland

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Episode 19-20: Death 13

The Death 13 arc features one of the Stands that start getting a bit more elaborate beyond just "it can swim" or "it is a poisonous mist". I don't necessarily think Death 13 a particular stand-out compared to other story arcs, mind you, and have always thought that the main villain, the super-smart baby Mannish Boy, to be a rather bizarrely utilized villain. Still, the two-parter ends up playing up a lot of fun tropes on dreamland monsters and is one of those odd episodes that actually lets Kakyoin be the hero that saves the day, something that Kakyoin fans are just going to sort of have to savour as they pass.

Anyway, the introduction to Death 13 is kind of fun as Death 13 is first seen by Kakyoin waking up in a bizarre Disneyland-like world, and then a DOG GETS GRUESOMELY AND GRAPHICALLY KILLED. Why, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? Why do you think graphic dog deaths are necessary? Why the hell?

Kakyoin wakes up from this nightmare and ends up not remembering anything from this bizarre dream, but sees the dead dog and gets confused, thinking that he should remember something about that dead dog, because memory wipes or not, graphic dog murders don't just get forgotten by your psyche.

Our heroes end up going into a plane, and ends up having a sick baby hoisted onto them to take into the next town to see a doctor, and I do like that Jotaro keeps snarking about how Joseph's constant plane crashes is more likely to kill them than an enemy Stand. It is kind of dumb how they had insisted in previous episodes that planes are too dangerous (that's the whole genesis of the camel nonsense!), and then this episode they decide that.... "they won't send their Stand into the air"? Really, Joseph? Did you not remember that the last Stand you faced is a literal sun? Sometimes the handwaves in these episodes really need a lot of work.

And while the setup is genuinely kind of dumb, the actual horror portions of the episode as this time Kakyoin and Polnareff end up being transported into the dreamland, with Kakyoin realizing that the memories that they make in dreamland stay in dreamland, is pretty horrifying. Death 13 himself manipulates the dream world in horrifyingly grotesque ways, like having a megaphone come out from the dog corpse, continually going "lali-ho!", creating maggots and shit, and taking his sweet, sweet time in proclaiming how he is supreme and how he is about to kill the two of them. If Death 13 is any effective, he'd just slit Kakyoin and Polnareff and be done with it, but apparently he's the Stand of the super-smart baby.

A super-smart 11-month old baby that is never explained, but we'll assume that manifesting a Stand is what led it to become extra-smart?

We get a hilarious bit where we cut away to Jotaro and Joseph suddenly having this intense "HMM?!!" on the plane and going "I sense that!" Surely, some main character powers allowed them to sense Death 13 being activated, and considering how Stardust Crusaders really play fast and loose with Stand rules, it's not out of the question. But apparently it's just them smelling that the baby shat himself. They wake Polnareff up just before he gets cut, and then Kakyoin ends up trashing in his dream so hard while Death 13 tries to choke him with crawling eyeballs (!!!) that he kicks Joseph in the head and we get, of course, the obligatory plane crash. And it's not even Joseph's fault this time!

And in a neat bit, we get Kakyoin apparently carving in an injury into his arm when he realizes that injuries actually get carried back and forth between dreamworld and the real world, carving in BABY STAND into his arm. And this is where the second part ends up starting, with a ticking clock to when the Crusaders get to sleep and will be defenseless against Death 13. Can Kakyoin figure out just how the baby is able to manifest his Stand without any memory of it? It's a fun little exercise as Kakyoin finds himself increasingly without allies as none of them really believe him and his incomplete facts.

And, of course, Kakyoin ends up looking far more crazy than anything -- and while it's tempting to condemn the other Crusaders for not believing the impossible, the panicking things Kakyoin did -- insisting that the baby is intelligent and can kill a scorpion, seeing how Kakyoin cut his own arm ("Oh... my... God..." indeed, Joseph) and seemingly ready to kill a baby... it's dragged on for a mite too long, but I did like these sequence of events.

Of course, Polnareff knocks Kakyoin out when he seems to be willing to straight-up murder a baby, sending everyone into the dreamworld where they are at the mercies of Death 13. "HOREEE SHEEET!" Joseph cries, as Death 13 starts manipulating events and, again, pontificating instead of killing everyone. We get a hilarious bit with the fake Star Platinum Ora-Ora punching itself in the face with a frying pan, but then we get the further revelation that Kakyoin activated his Stand before Polnareff knocked him out... which I felt was a bit of an asspull, surely? It's minor enough to handwave aside, because I guess Kakyoin could just be summoning Hierophant to kill the baby instead of being ready to bring it into the dreamworld.

And we get a fun bit of "ah-ha! My Stand has no body!" and "ah-ha! My Stand can compress itself and crawl into your ear", and Hierophant Green basically overpowers Death 13. Perhaps because killing a baby is way too dark for this series (as much as the episode takes its time to establish that Mannish Boy clearly is intelligent enough to be a sadistic little shit), Kakyoin decides to spare Mannish Boy... although I'm not sure how he convinced Mannish Boy to actually let him retain his memories. Couldn't Mannish Boy just kind of agree and let Kakyoin wake up sans memories anyway once he's safe? Whatever the case, we get a final scene where the baby food joke earlier in the episode gets a punchline when Kakyoin mixes Mannish Boy's own doo-doo into his baby food, and then Joseph and Polnareff sort of force-feeds the baby.

Again, the episode ends up feeling stretched a bit too long at times, and really that's the biggest problem with these episodes, I feel. I don't really have a problem with the villain-of-the-week mentality of Stardust Crusaders like some people do, but I feel like two episodes is a bit too long for the content these episodes have, yet making it one-and-a-half is all weird for pacing, and one episode's too short for the content from the manga. A bit unfortunate! This one at least manages to make use of the last couple of minutes to foreshadow the next episode, and a certain island where they'll meet someone 'important'... Overall, an okay two-parter, I suppose.

The JoJo Playlist

• The baby's name isn't given in the actual episode, but is later given by guidebooks as "Mannish Boy", an album and a single by blues musician Muddy Waters.