JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E47 Review: Toki wa Tomare

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stardust  Crusaders, Episode 47: DIO's World, Pt. 3

Can I just say how much I really, really appreciate how the goddamn intro ends up getting fucked by Dio's ZA WARUDO? Especially the final scene, with the singer's line of "End of the World" overlapping with Dio stopping time and shouting ZA WARUDO over "the world"? That's gorgeous, and we even get a glorious, glorious scene of 3D Dio walking past Jotaro with a gorgeous, gorgeous animation. 

Oh, and the ORA ORA/MUDA MUDA exchange is as gloriously hammy and amazingly animated as I had hoped. The episode also has a brief bit of flashback of Dio experimenting with the World, featuring a brief cameo appearance by Enya the Hag and Nukesaku, as well as flashbacks to Season 1. That was definitely well-appreciated.

And then we get into the actual fight between Jotaro and Dio, which leads into one of the 'plot twists' in this final battle that I genuinely found to be a gigantic ass-pull when I first read Stardust Crusaders. And now? I still kind of think that it's an ass-pull, but I guess I mellowed out somewhat because I knew it was coming? It really could've used a bit more of a foreshadowing in any shape of form beyond the whole "both The World and Star Platinum are close-range stands, therefore they are the same type of Stand." 

Also I'm not sure just how Jotaro is flying around with a golden aura like Dio -- Dio displaying that power is something I'll buy, but Jotaro's never shown to be able to do so before and while the first couple of times might just be "he leaps really far", as the Jotaro/Dio battle goes on it's just straight-up flying around. 

But there you go -- Jotaro's Star Platinum ends up apparently being able to at least allow Jotaro to perceive Dio and move his fingers while Dio is stopping time, albeit Jotaro can move very little while Dio can stop time for five seconds (the five seconds don't include talking, it seems). And Dio ends up being super-cautious, although he ends up thinking that Jotaro was trying to trick him by planting a magnet on Dio's clothes that'll cause Jotaro's arm to move if he gets close. Silly Dio, if gravity doesn't work while time is stopped, neither will magnetism!

It turns out that Jotaro is bluffing, and that he actually caused Dio to move close enough for Star Platinum to unleash a barrage of ORA ORA's. Dio quickly adapts to this, and decides to stop time from a range, and ends up using a ranged attack -- by producing a fuck-ton of knives, and saying "CHECKMATE DA!" while throwing them through the air at Jotaro, knowing that Jotaro can only knock some of them loose while moving briefly for a second in the five-second window that the knives are being thrown. 

It's another pretty fun, iconic scene, and even as Dio throws another blade into Jotaro's head... all of the blades apparently hit thick books that Jotaro's been keeping under his clothes, and plays dead. Polnareff suddenly jumps in, the final Crusader to not have fought against Dio, and, again, the chance that Polnareff straight-up gets murdered here is pretty high. Dio one-shots Polnareff pretty easily, but this forces Jotaro to try and get Dio's attention to save Polnareff, wiggling his fingers ever so slightly. I do like just how cautious Dio is in regards to Jotaro, especially once he knows that Jotaro is able to move within The World's stopped time. 

In a pretty tense bit, Dio ends up trying to figure out if Jotaro is really dead or not -- and Jotaro uses Star Platinum to straight-up stop his heart from beating! It's really fortunate for Jotaro, by the way, that Dio actually announces just what he's going to do before doing. Dio taking control of a policeman and shooting Jotaro's leg is also a horrifyingly written scene (although really should've shot him in the chest, silly Dio), and Dio ends up wanting to slice Jotaro's head off with a goddamn road sign just to make sure he's dead. 

And then Jotaro summons Star Platinum to crush Dio's skull! That was absolutely awesome. Jotaro attempts to kill Dio while Dio tries so valiantly to escape with his legs crushed and his skull broken... and manages to actually trick Jotaro to punching him so far away, while broken, in a certain direction... where Joseph Joestar's body was. 

And as Dio drains Joseph's blood and kills him, he ends up being revitalized because, if we forget, he's still a goddamn vampire. Dio's "final" form means that he's fully integrated with Jonathan's body, and that also apparently means that he discards the orange jacket to show off those big, big Joestar-brand muscles. 

Yep, there's still another episode and a final round for Jotaro to fully defeat the full-powered Dio. Overall, it's a pretty damn awesome episode, with Dio's voice actor and Jotaro's voice actor not afraid to ham the hell out of it, with lots of iconic Dio attacks that have became memetic in the JJBA fandom realized in all its animated glory, and some genuinely insane bits that is still quite thrilling like the knife barrage or the bit where Jotaro stops his heart. It's a genuinely fun little super-powered action scene, and it's just such a shame that the manga doesn't really add anything to make the twist that Jotaro can move within The World feel a bit more palatable. Still, once you get past that,  the episode is pretty enjoyable as both Jotaro and Dio starts to pile on "I have the advantage" on each other.