JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Egypt Arc

Episode 11

D'Arby is the perfect con artist. He can remember the placement of every card in a deck purely by feel, able to count and record the new placement of every card that flips past his fingers as he shuffles. He deals so fast and smooth that no human eye can track whether he's dealing fairly, and of course he never is. He works only in locations where every stray variable is accounted for; every so-called stranger within a mile of the bar is secretly working for him. It's impossible to beat him in a game of poker. How can Jotaro possibly "stand" against such a perfect combatant?

Simple. He knocks 40 years off D'arby's life and renders him dead blabbering senile through the sheer size and heft of his cajones alone. That's just the kind of man Jotaro Kujo is. Balls before all else.

The "battle" against D'Arby is a great microcosm of the Jojo's philosophy on the whole. If Grandpa Jojo and his many relatives were to set you down on their knee and give you a life lesson gleaned from their many years of adventuring, it would be this: strength is great, wits are better, and heart is better still, but guts trump all else. Guts are more important than strength, guts are more important than wits, and guts are even more important than heart. Your balls are more important even than your morals, especially when you're facing monsters who don't play by the rules and don't reform with mercy, like Dio and his crew. All that said, having guts doesn't mean taking yourself too seriously! Once you've beaten your foe into submission with your great and weighty nads, walk away with your head held high and laughter in your soul. Being badass ain't no thing, and if you can't laugh at yourself and your best mates, you don't have any right to laugh at your trounced opponents. So laugh, I say! Laugh and have guts! At this point, the speech would probably end with a dynamic Jojo pose, maybe a lit cigarette, definitely a BADAN~! in the air (and in the background art.)

Anyway, the solution to beating D'Arby is stupidly simple. D'Arby plays a perfect game of poker, so Jotaro can only beat him with the perfect bluff. He doesn't even look at his cards, but he gradually, slyly, confidently bets first his soul, then Avdol's, then Kakyoin's, then his sainted mother's and demands that D'Arby call the game. D'Arby is positive that Jotaro can't have a decent hand, but there's still room for doubt. D'Arby's hand isn't perfect. He has four kings, but there are a few rare hands possible that can beat that combination. Jotaro shouldn't have any of those hands. He can't! D'Arby made sure of it, but a deadly combination of doubt and the mind-melting fear of his own wager begin to shatter the Osiris master's poker face. If he loses, he'll have to reveal the secret of Dio's stand, and that means a slow and agonizing death at his master's hand. In the secret game they've been playing, a game of guts, D'Arby's balls are sorely inferior to Jojo's. (In fairness, standing at the feet of a vengeful Dio is one of the scariest things any Jojo's cast member can imagine.)

As Jotaro lights up a (hilariously censored) cigarette and takes a cool sip of a (strangely girly) cocktail, D'Arby's perfect con artist ego slams full force into his suppressed survival instincts. The stress and discord caused by Jotaro's impossibly immense balls destroys him from the inside-out, causing him to pass out while standing up, unable to either call or fold, and freeing all his captured souls from their prison. Of course, the incredibly silly reveal that Jotaro had a bum hand from the start doesn't sit too well with the emotional and morally upright Avdol, but it all turned out fine in the end, right? This was one of the tensest episodes of Stardust Crusaders yet, but it never loses its healthy sense of humor. The end result is a magical juxtaposition that makes the "impossible poker game" fly by in no time at all, and makes poor broken D'Arby one of the most memorable foes, defeatable only through his own self-doubt.

Next week, we'll be revisiting two down-and-out villains who just don't know when to quit. Hol Horse and Boingo are joining forces! Normally, I'd be worried about the Stardust Crusaders, but this new beautiful friendship looks like it'll only be bad news for its own dopey duo.

Rating: A

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Egypt Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Hope has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.