English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “Iggy the Fool and Geb’s N’doul Part 2”
The “Battle in Egypt” continues!
Overview (Spoilers Below)
As Team Joestar struggles to stay alive from the random attacks of N’Doul’s water-based Stand, they realize that N’Doul is using his sense of hearing to figure out where they are, Avdol attempts to set up a trap, but N’Doul figures it out at the last second, avoiding an attack from Magician’s Red and injures Avdol. Just when Geb is about to finish him off, Jotaro creates a distraction by running away, and knowing full well that Iggy can detect N’Doul’s attack by scent, Jotaro straight-up grabs the little bastard, and coerces him into summoning his “Fool” Stand, which he discovers can create large wings & glide, and Jotaro hitches a ride against Iggy’s wishes so they can head towards wherever the User is and kick some ass.
As the two get closer, the tension & suspense do a good job at keeping things compelling, as exemplified in scenes like Iggy’s glider ability slowly losing altitude and the unconventional ways Jotaro regains it despite the unsettling combination of Iggy’s stubbornness and N’Doul’s cunning that both put Jotaro at risk. Jotaro does manage to overcome this by using Star Platinum to grab Iggy and throws him at N’Doul’s direction at high speeds. Out of instinct, this forces Iggy to protect himself by using his Stand as a shield, while also managing to distract N’Doul long enough for Jotaro to get behind him and the end result is a suspenseful scene when play “draw” with their Stands in a wild west kinda way, which results in Star Platinum socking him in the chest. Although Jotaro’s attack wasn’t fatal, N’Doul commits suicide through the use of his Stand to avoid interrogation regarding any info about Dio.
With the defeat of N’Doul, Jotaro and by extension the audience learns that the 9 people Dio recently hired all have Stands named after the 9 Egyptian Gods along with a how N’Doul met Dio. The flashback scene itself while short gets the point across when N’Doul talks about how charismatic Dio is to the point of fanaticism. After giving N’Doul a proper burial, Jotaro confronts Iggy, who shows his true colors to Jotaro in a hilariously cute scene and Team Joestar leave to get medical attention. At first, I thought this would’ve been the episode’s ending, but in a post-credits scene, it cuts to another scene where a traveling manga artist asks to see an unusually large-haired boy’s comic titled “Oingo Boingo Brothers Adventure”. After bribing the kid, the artist discovers its colorful & grotesque art style but is scared off by the boy’s older brother while revealing their names to be “Zenyatta and Mondatta”. As the brothers prepare to head off to Aswan to confront Team Joestar, the younger brother Mondatta reveals what the man had read and they decide to wait for the next bus, but the episode finally ends when you learn that his weird ass comic predicted the artist’s future and let’s just say, it’s not a pleasant one…
Our Take
Not much else to really say about this episode, just Iggy being mischevious yet sometimes cute bastard of a Dog, along with what we already know about the 9 people hired by Dio. We at least have some small clue that each Stand is tied to an Egyptian God which makes things quite interesting. As for the ending, while it’s left open to the “brothers” who are seeking to take out Team Joestar, they seem kinda weird in their own right, not to mention, Mondatta’s magic comic is kinda creepy if it can predict some Final Destination-style shit.
Upon research, while “Oingo Bingo” is the name of an actual 80’s band, it also was the Brother’s original names in the Japanese version but like most Jojo characters who are named after famous songs, musicians, bands, and albums, some character names had to be altered in the Dub for copyright reasons. And given how goofy the two seem, I’m curious about their Stand Powers and how the two vs Team Joestar will play out.
I hope this turns out to be another Gravity Falls-type show with an overarching storyline.