JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E48 Review: RODO RORA DA!

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stardust Crusaders, Episode 48: The Faraway Journey, Farewell Friends

Yep, this is the final episode of Stardust Crusaders, and I really want to thank anyone who's read all of my JoJo reviews. As straight-forward and camp as JJBA can be, it's a series that I do really like, and while I will probably take a brief break, I'm definitely going to do Diamond is Unbreakable and Vento Aureo reviews in the near future. 

Anyway, despite the pretty melancholic title, the episode is still as action-packed as the previous couple of episodes, still dealing with the final segment of the battle between Jotaro and Dio. Jotaro gets to see a vision of Joseph's soul as he floats away, telling Jotaro to not lose his cool in the battle, while Jotaro is barely keeping his anger in check over seeing his grandfather die. 

Dio having gained full control of his body ends up finding that he can stop time for longer periods of time, going up to eight seconds, and then ten seconds, and as the battle between Jotaro and Dio rages (we get a couple of WRYYYYYY!! from Dio as well this time around, showing that he's gotten a wee bit crazier) Dio unleashes easily the most memetic attack of all:

RODO RORAAAAA DAAAAAAA!

To the uninitiated, after stopping time and highlighting just how scary it is to stop time, Dio apparently disappears, and Jotaro is all tense... and then Dio jumps in with a goddamn road roller and drops it on top of Jotaro and continues to pummel at it going "MUDA MUDA MUDA!" It's ridiculous, it's insane, it's wacky, and it's gloriously awesome. Honestly, this sequence probably caught anyone who saw it first off-guard. 

And at the very last second, Jotaro uses Star Platinum to stop time and escape, ending up behind Dio. Yeah, it's an awesome moment, and this one at least has some measure of foreshadowing? Jotaro breaks Dio's legs, and tells him to stand up when his legs are healed, because beating him while he's down will leave a "bad taste" in his mouth. Dio ends up leaping towards Jotaro while his legs are still wounded, spilling blood in Jotaro's face and unleashing The World for one last tussle...

But Star Platinum just punches The World, and ends up cracking it so badly that Dio gets split in half and dies on the spot. And Jotaro tells Dio off with one last sentence: "You lost for one reason -- you pissed me the fuck off." A pretty great one-liner, huh?

Anyway, the rest of the episode ends up being a bit of a tidying-up moment, with the Speedwagon foundation doctors showing up, and Jotaro telling them to transfuse Dio's blood back into Joseph, while Jotaro pumps Joseph's heart with Star Platinum. Kind of nonsensical and won't work in real life considering how long Joseph's been dead, but I dunno. Maybe all those time-stopping ended up causing the battle to seem longer than it is? Eh. Joseph wakes up, and in true Joseph fashion, pretends to actually be Dio, possessing Joseph's body, going "mwahahaha!" before Jotaro quizzes him on useless western trivia. Among the questions? "Who sang a parody of Michael Jackson's Beat It, called Eat It?" "Al Yankovic!" What really tickles me is that Jotaro actually knew the right answer to this one. Oh Jotaro.

We get to see Jotaro and Joseph burn Dio's body in the sun, finally ending the threat of Dio once and for all, and remember the three fallen comrades. Holly wakes up from her Stand-sickness, which is the end-goal for the Joestar family all along, and we get a decent farewell scene between Polnareff and the two Joestars. It's a neat little ending as Jotaro gazes wistfully at the photograph they took at the beginning of the Egypt arc. The Crusaders' mission was to kill Dio, and it's done, albeit with casualties. Overall, Stardust Crusaders is the straight-up most action-packed Part of JJBA, and while I certainly loved many parts of it, I won't shy from calling it pretty flawed. Still, its earnest hamminess and focus on hot-blooded action scenes has been really enjoyable to watch, and I definitely had loads and loads of fun watching this. See you guys soon for Diamond is Not Crash!