We finally made it. Stardust Crusaders. Also, this is the first and only one of the stories with an actual fight scene.

Jotaro and Joseph were standing outside Jotaro's house. Holly walked out of the house and smiled when she saw Jotaro, "Hi!"

She ran up to Jotaro and hugged him, "Where have you been?"

Jotaro stood still, "I've been away with the old man."

Holly let go of Jotaro and started to walk towards the house, "Well, you're gonna have to tell me all about it-"

"I'm glad you're okay mom."

Holly looked at Jotaro with surprise, but smiled and got back to walking. Joseph smirked, "I'm proud of you Jotaro."

"Good grief."

The two started to follow Holly into the house. Holly turned back to them with a grin, "Oh yeah, there's something I want to show you!"

"What is it-AHHHH!"

A bunch of flowers started to sprout around Holly, much to the surprise of both Jotaro and Joseph, "WHAT?!"

Later

Jotaro and Joseph were sitting at the table with Holly, "Let's start from the beginning. When did this happen?"

"It happened right when I woke up."

A day earlier

Holly was stretching her legs while Suzie was watching, "Are you sure that you're fine sweety?"

"I've never felt better!"

As Suzie started to take a breath, flowers started to sprout from the floor, "Holly?!"

Holly looked at the flowers, "What?!"

Present

"I figured that you two would know something about this."

Joseph sigh, "Alright. I'll explain everything."

Outside of the Kujo house, we see the one who said the words that preceded the sentence that you're reading right now. He was a blond haired man wearing a gardening uniform with sunglasses, "That bastard. Jotaro Kujo, I'll get you for what you did to Lord Dio."

His stand appeared. It was a humanoid grey stand. The only part of it that wasn't grey was a golden eye on the forehead, "Let's begin."

The stand fired a beam from it's eye. The beam hit a window on one of the nearby buildings, then reflected off towards the Kujo house.

"And that's the whole story."

The beam went through the wall. Joseph and Holly were in the beam's way, "The World!"

Jotaro stopped time and Star Platinum pulled Joseph and Holly out of the beam's way. Time resumed and the beam went through the floor, "Stay down!"

Joseph and Jotaro looked at the hole the beam left in the wall, "It's a stand user!"

"No shit!"

Another beam breached through the wall and missed them all by a wide margin. They heard a few crashes from one of the other rooms. Holly screamed, "What is going on?!"

Jotaro opened the door and looked around, he saw the stand user, "I see the stand user."

Star Platinum grabbed a cup and threw it at the sniper. The sniper was hit in the head with the cup and Jotaro started to run towards the building. The sniper's stand aimed at Jotaro, "DIE!"

The stand fired it's beam at Jotaro, "The World!"

Time froze just as the beam was about to hit Jotaro. He jumped through the door as time started to move again. Jotaro started to run up the stairs until he reached the top. Star Platinum punched the door, sending it flying towards the stand user. The stand fired a beam, cutting the door in half, "I wanted to finish you quickly."

"Tough shit."

Star Platinum threw a punch at the user, but the stand fired a beam. The beam pierced the fist, making Jotaro grab his hand, "That's what you get! I'll finish you off!"

The stand started to charge it's beam, but a brick hit the user in the back. Joseph was on the roof of the building next to them. The user was on his knees and Jotaro was in front of him, "You've pissed me off."

The user deployed his stand, but Star Platinum grabbed the stand by the neck. The user gasped for air, "What?!"

Star Platinum was about to punch the stand, but the user started to grin, "I'll give my life to avenge Lord Dio!"

He started to charge his beam, but Jotaro just sighed, "Good grief. The World!"

Star Platinum froze time, "He must not have known that I could freeze time."

Star Platinum started to repeatedly punch the stand, "Time is about to move."

Time unfroze and the user was sent flying to the roof that Joseph was on, "Well, that's that."

Joseph wrapped the user up with Hermit Purple, "Let's find out what to do with you."

Unbeknownst to Joseph, the stand eye appeared on the user's head. The user charged forward and started to charge the ray. Holly, who was on the ground watching everything, reached out, "No!"

Large vines stretched out between Jotaro and the User just before the beam was fired. The beam hit the vines, but it didn't breach them, "WHAT?!"

Joseph knocked the user out.

Stand Master: Bemstro. Stand: Moon. Status: Arrested.

Jotaro and Joseph were sitting at a table, "Hard to believe that Holly's stand could do that."

"It was a gut response."

Holly came in with vines carrying plates full of food, "Today was very exciting. We should do it again-"

Joseph stood up, "NO!"

Jotaro tipped his hat, "Good grief. We'll see about helping you learn how to use it."

"I'd love that."

So, the three sat down and started to eat.

I gave Holly a stand. I guess that says a lot about how I handle my stories.

Let's open this with the easiest way to get into it.

I love the stands. While I do wish Hamon was used more, I think the stands were a great power to exchange.

They just get so creative with them. One's a sun, one's a bump, there's just a wide variety of stands that help make this arc and future arcs so memorable and interesting.

Weirdly enough, the stands of this arc have been named around Tarot Cards. It is creative, though a bit weird since previous things have been named around bands and such.

You'll recall in my Superior Spider-Man Parody Critique that I said that this arc did what that series tried and failed miserably at. That being that it made a journey to the end entertaining.

From a pure story perspective of a plot like this, you could cut out most of what happens in this series. But if you do, you take away the journey and the things about the story that makes it good.

Let's talk about Dio in this arc. I could make a joke about how he never lost his sanity despite spending almost a literal century in a sunken coffin, but there is something about his demeanor throughout most of the arc that is interesting.

In Phantom Blood, he was more energetic when it came to his plans. The attitude he carries in this is much more composed. I have to wonder if all those years he spent trapped in the coffin had an effect on his personality.

It isn't until he fights Jotaro and the others that he starts getting over the top and even then he isn't that over the top until he drinks Joseph's blood.

I could just be looking too deeply into his scenes, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

Since most of the other villains are pretty one note, let's just move onto the heroes.

Jotaro was very different from what we had before. While Jonathan and Joseph were more social for lack of a better word, Jotaro was a delinquent and more aggressive.

He was more likely to let his fist do the talking. I like that he wasn't stupid.

It would have been easy to make him the dumb brute, but I appreciate that they made him actually intelligent.

I get that some fans might not like him due to him basically becoming the face of the franchise, but I'm usually good at not allowing that kind of stuff to not make me hate a character.

I like Joseph's role in this. While he's not as much a badass as he was in Battle Tendency, he has some good moments.

He is pretty funny in this arc. You've probably seen one or two memes with him somewhere.

I do think that he probably should have stayed dead, since I did like his death scene, but the scene he comes back to life is hilarious as all hell.

Avdol isn't the most deep character, but he still has his charm. He's basically the stern one.

His seriousness does come into play with comedy. I remember a line like "Polneraff is usually the funny one!' or something like that.

Kakyoin was a cool character. I'd say he was probably my favorite. He was the young one basically. More prone to calling people 'mr' or 'mrs' and I liked that he wasn't a pushover either. He knew when to be rough, although it was still pretty gross that he fed a….man...baby...stand….whatever that dream stand user was his own crap.

He was also a true gamer, killed by the world. You can start booing now.

Poleneraff is probably my favorite if Kakyoin isn't. He's comic relief and I think he's good comic relief.

He has some really good moments. Like taking out J. Geil and Vanilla Ice. His stand is also my favorite because I really like armored designs.

I loved the stuff with J. Geil and it's some really good character work with Polneraff in those episodes. They are probably my favorite episodes of the arc.

I heard he comes back in Golden Wind and apparently switches souls with a turtle. This series is weird and I love it.

Iggy is a hard character for me to talk about while not giving people the wrong idea.

I don't think Iggy's a bad character, but I had a hard time caring for him before the final stretch.

Before his focus episodes, I felt that he was pointless.

He didn't really do anything aside from helping Jotaro fight N'Doul before then.

But he did turn around for me after his focus episodes. Ya know? The ones before he died.

I do have one criticism of the final stretch. I don't really like the way Avdol and Iggy were killed off.

They died to the aforementioned Vanilla Ice and sadly he never sang 'Go ninja.'

Avdol is killed in a shock moment and Iggy dies from Vanilla kicking him a lot.

I feel like the deaths themselves are handled fairly well, but I have some personal rules for handling stuff like that.

I am of the opinion that a one-off enemy should not kill off a main character. I feel like it lessens the impact if it's a villain that we will never see later or have seen before.

I feel like it would have worked better for me if Vanilla appeared more. Like say, have him be with the old lady or Dio's bodyguard that we see by his side.

I loved the episodes overall. Poleneraff beating Vanilla is easily his best moment. It's mostly just my personal philosophy when it comes to handling character deaths coming into my judgement.

My favorite episodes are probably the ones against younger D'Arby. I just love seeing that kind of stuff.

There are edits on Youtube that have Jotaro playing actual video games. It's amazing and I love it.

Another complaint that I have is that I feel like Star Platinum having time powers like The World should have been foreshadowed a bit more. It was a good shock moment to see it use them, but I feel like we should have seen something that would imply he had them beforehand.

That being said, the fight between the Crusaders and Dio is amazing. It's a great showcase of abilities.

Stardust Crusaders is a really good arc. It reminds me of ATLA, which is probably why I like it a lot.

I guess you could say I gave it a STAND-ing ovation!

I'm done now.