JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E34-35 Review: Gambling Apocalypse Joseph

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Episodes 34-35: D'Arby the Gambler, Pts. 1-2

One of the things I've  noted about both Kaiji and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is their ability to use an enthusiastic narrator to elevate an otherwise mundane set of events into an utterly outlandish and awesome sequence. And there's a reason that the battle against Daniel J. D'Arby, the Gambler, is one of the most memorable fights and one of the most talked-about moments in Stardust Crusaders. See, D'Arby's Stand, Osiris, has a simple ability that feels more at home in Yu-Gi-Oh or Kaiji. If you lose the gamble, you lose your soul. Quite literally, as Osiris grabs you up and squishes you into a little poker coin for D'Arby to collect. 

The thing that makes D'Arby different, though, is that he's not just an asshole or a nincompoop like the majority of Dio's minions thus far. Once you get past those weird metal stickers (tattoos?) on either side of his mustache, D'Arby embodies what an evil Kaiji would be. A gambler that's completely in control, and is honest about the fact that he's cheating -- either cheat better, or beat him at his game. And he gambles almost compulsively. Throw in an absolutely excellent voice actor in Banjo Ginga (One Piece's King Riku, Shokugeki no Souma's Senzaemon Nakiri and Mobile Suit Gundam's Gihren Zabi), which truly plays up his hamminess without going too over-the-top...

(I mean, there is the rather... hilarious bit of "go aheed mistah josterr", but I dunno. That's a lot better than most of the Engrish in this show)

While hunting down for Dio's base, our heroes (which is basically just down to four...  Kakyoin and Iggy won't really become relevant until much, much later) end up encountering a gambler that seems to just want to kind of have fun and gamble a bit, seemingly at a whim... and Polnareff is kind of an idiot for just brushing off the "let's bet for your soul, mm-hmm" comment. For someone who's been possessed by a sword, turned into a kid, fought a clay zombie of his sister and trapped inside a dream, he really should pay a bit more attention to weird things people say. Polnareff ends up getting tricked when D'Arby bets on a cat (a cat that, of course, belongs to him), and gets turned into a coin. Various times at the climax of this story characters note just how utterly close D'Arby came to getting rid of the entire team without even engaging in an ORA-ORA fight, and, you know what? Other than maybe Death 13, this is probably the only other villainous Stand user that had the entire party at his mercy as opposed to just one or two characters. Hell, D'Arby even notes that the Crusaders can't even beat him up, because the people whose souls he's stolen will die alongside his Stand. 

The animation is insanely well-done, too, especially D'Arby's card tricks, masterfully brought into fluid animation by the animators. 

The first episode basically has Joseph engaging D'Arby in a ham-to-ham and trickster-to-trickster battle against D'Arby, and it's pretty hilarious to see Joseph being ready to cheat, but D'Arby already anticipating that and cheating as well, using the sun to melt a pre-placed block of chocolate to fuck with Joseph's "drop coins into a glass of wine" gamble. It's a pretty fun moment as Joseph loses, leaving two of the most unlikely gamblers -- the pretty straightforward Avdol and Jotaro -- left to fight D'Arby. The moment that Joseph loses, with him mentally admitting defeat, is pretty horrifying as well. Hell, Osiris himself pulling Joseph and Polnareff's souls apart like sticky putty is a pretty disturbing visual as well. 

The second part ends up basically being a simple wager of Poker between Jotaro and D'Arby... and D'Arby notes to himself (and the audience) how everything is rigged in his way. Even the random boy that Jotaro decides to call in to deal cards, as is every other person in the cafe, are D'Arby's own henchmen, and that D'Arby's an accomplished gambler even without the high-stakes Stand powers (the sequence with him randomly feeling pages in a book and accurately calling out the page is pretty damn boss). Yes, Jotaro's Star Platinum can crack D'Arby's finger when he notices D'Arby cheating, but at the same time, while Jotaro might prevent D'Arby from cheating, there's no way for Jotaro to assure victory... or is there? 

We get a pretty tense bit as Jotaro  just continues to bet increasingly high amounts of souls -- first his, then Avdol's, then Kakyoin's, then his mother's -- without even bothering to look at the cards dealt to him. D'Arby knows that his henchman has dealt him good cards, and one of the highest (but not the highest) suits in poker, and that he didn't see Jotaro cheat... but then as he delivers a fantastic internal monologue, he begins to doubt things. Is Star Platinum that fast? Did he see the cards? Did the kid fuck up? And especially when Jotaro has Star Platinum doing things at superhuman speed to unnerve D'Arby like lightning a cigarette or bring him a juice (both wonderfully animated, by the way)... and throw in some fantastic voice-acting from Daisuke Ono on Jotaro's part to really sell his utter confidence... 

It's actually one of my favourite Jotaro moments, and one of the most badass moments precisely because it doesn't feature any ORA ORA barrage (which ends up being kinda samey after a while) but just Jotaro relying on nothing but sheer balls and intensity to utterly unnerve D'Arby into second-guessing Jotaro's card, which ran throughout the entire episode. The tension was high, for what is basically "they play poker, Jotaro bluffs, D'Arby panics, and loses". When Jotaro demands the secret of Dio's secret as D'Arby's payment, he ends up freaking the fuck out, and while he wants to call the bluff as a gambler, the sheer amount of uncertainty and freaking out ended up causing him to pass the fuck out from the sheer intensity of the scene. 

It's utterly badass, honestly, and equally ballsy and stupid for Jotaro to do it. He has nothing but trash cards, and Avdol was even baffled by Jotaro's sheer balls (Avdol thought Jotaro had found a way to win) to rely on nothing but his bluffing skills and D'Arby's own second-guessing. But the same "lost the will to fight" rule ended up biting D'Arby back in the ass and realeasing Joseph and Polnareff's souls (as well as, bizarrely, the rest of D'Arby's collection?).

While not the most viscerally exciting, it's still one of the most tense and fun sequence in Stardust Crusaders. Definitely one of my favourite conflicts, in any case. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• Daniel J. D'Arby borrows his last name from the American singer Terence Trent D'Arby, known for his singles Wishing Well, Sign Your Name and Dance Little Sister.
• Bit of  a cameo, but among D'Arby's victims are Garie Moor, based on Gary Moore, as well as Christian Vander.