English Dub Review: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders “The Empress”

“Does this look infected to you?”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Opening begins when the Old Hag who serves Dio “Enyaba” is filled with the rage, sadness and stigmatic pain of her son Centerfold being killed by Polnareff, while what’s left of Team Joestar travels by bus from Calcutta towards Varanasi. Strangely enough, they’re also joined by the woman from before that helped Hol Horse Escape who calls herself “Nena”. Upon arriving in the city, Joseph grows concerned about an irritating bug bite on his arm, and goes to the local hospital for treatment, while Nena quietly remains with Polnareff and tells Jotaro & Kakyoin to check into a hotel. As the Doctor attempts to remove the growth, he gets killed by the “bug bite”, which grows a face revealing itself to be a Stand called “The Empress”.

A good chunk of the episode’s running time is spent on Joseph struggling against the Stand attached to his arm while hiding from the cops due to the doctor’s murder that consequently puts the police on high-alert, while Polnareff is distracted by Nena. In a violently comedic scene that feels straight out of Evil Dead 2, The Empress eventually grows tiny arms and an upper-torso rapidly punching Joseph while attempting to keep him in one place to be arrested. Joseph attempts to use “Hermit Purple” to ensnare Empress, after realizing that his “Hamon” techniques won’t work since the growth is part of his own body. Eventually, Joseph comes across an oil drum containing a black substance and dunks his infected arm inside.

As the Empress proclaims that it can’t be suffocated because it isn’t living tissue, the black substance suddenly hardens stopping her movements. Joseph reveals in a clever twist that the barrel not only contained coal tar but his Hermit Purple’s Stand powers helped him find it during their struggle. In an excellent scene that calls back to his Iconic catchphrase, Joseph uses Hermit Purple to completely rip Empress to shreds. Elsewhere, Nena also dies, revealing she was not only the Stand’s user but a grotesquely obese woman who used the skin of a younger woman to disguise herself which hilariously shocks Polnareff to his core. After regrouping with Jotaro & Kakyoin, Team Joestar travels by car to Pakistan, And the episode cryptically ends when they’re quietly being followed by a Red Cadillac.

Our Take

Despite this being a Joseph-focused episode, I mostly had a good laugh when the Empress attacked Joseph while still attached to his arm which was reminiscent of Ash’s struggle against his possessed hand from Evil Dead 2 and seemed fitting as I always felt Joseph’s younger self from Season 1 had a roguish Bruce Campbell-like charm about him. As a whole, Stardust Crusaders episode 12 reminded longtime fans that even in his elderly stage, Joseph is still a badass when the situation calls for it.

Hopefully, we can figure out who’s behind the wheel of that Red Cadillac in Episode 13.