Stardust Crusaders - Plot

Plot

The third arc takes place in 1989 and follows Jotaro Kujo (空条 承太郎, Kūjō Jōtarō?), the grandson of Joseph Joestar. In Japan, Jotaro is a troublesome student who regularly gets into fights at school and antagonizes his teachers. He is put in prison after beating up three armed men and a trained boxer, but he refuses to leave, claiming he's possessed by an evil spirit. To demonstrate, he takes a gun and shoots himself in the head, but the bullet is stopped by an arm shooting from his hand that only he and his mother Holy can see. Joseph Joestar soon arrives with his friend Muhammad Avdol. A battle ensues between Avdol and Jotaro in which Avdol manifests his own evil spirit, using it to provoke Jotaro out of the cell. Joseph explains that Jotaro's "evil spirit" is actually a Stand, a manifestation of psychic power. Jotaro's Stand, named Star Platinum, possesses incredible precision and strength; Avdol's Stand, known as Magician's Red, can control fire; Joseph's Stand, Hermit Purple, manifests as thorny vines that allow him to manipulate cameras and other mediums, capturing images from a great distance.

Joseph reveals that Jotaro's and his own Stand, having both manifested recently, appeared because of the reemergence of Dio Brando (now referred to as simply "DIO"). When he sank to the bottom of the sea, Dio attached his severed head to Jonathan Joestar's body. However, DIO's Joestar blood linked him to the rest of the family, and thus when DIO began to develop a Stand, Joseph and Jotaro did as well. DIO vows to destroy the Joestar family and sends a student, Noriaki Kakyoin, to dispose of Jotaro. Kakyoin's Stand, Hierophant Green, possesses a nurse and attacks Jotaro with its Emerald Splash maneuver, but Jotaro defeats him soundly.

It is soon discovered, however, that Holy has developed a Stand. Her Stand appears as ivy growing from her body, but because she lacks the fighting spirit to control it, the strain of its activity is slowly killing her. Joseph and Avdol determine that unless they kill Dio within fifty days and thus break his Stand's influence, Holy will die.

Star Platinum's keen eyesight helps the three determine that DIO is somewhere in Egypt. Kakyoin, freed by Jotaro from DIO's mind control, comes along to help the group. On a jetliner the group is ambushed by the insectile stand Tower of Gray, forcing Kakyoin to prove his worth. Jean Pierre Polnareff, user of the swordsman Stand Silver Chariot, challenges Avdol in Hong Kong but is eventually freed from DIO's control, joining the group to avenge his sister. The heroes take a ship to Singapore but are forced to battle the aquatic Stand Dark Blue Moon, controlled by an assassin who has murdered and impersonated the ships captain Tennille, who sinks their ship. Accompanied by a stowaway girl, the group boards an abandoned freighter but discover that the entire ship is a Stand called Strength, controlled by an orangutan. Devo the Cursed uses his Stand, Ebony Devil, to accost Polnareff in Singapore, while Rubber Soul and his Yellow Temperance impersonate Kakyoin before attempting to consume Jotaro. In Calcutta they encounter the team of Hol Horse, user of a gun Stand called the Emperor, and J. Gail, a man with two right hands and user of the Hanged Man, a Stand of light that attacks from mirrors. Polnareff avenges his sister by slaying her murderer, J. Gail, but Avdol is killed by Hol Horse, who flees the scene.

Joseph is infected with a boil that turns out to be the Empress, a Stand controlled by Nena, but outsmarts the foe. En route to Pakistan the party battles Wheel of Fortune, a car Stand controlled by ZZ. Enya Gail, mother of J. Gail, attempts to use her stand Justice in an attempt to avenge her son, sending an army of animated dead after Polnareff and Jotaro. In Karachi, Steely Dan uses The Lovers to hold Joseph hostage, forcing Jotaro into the role of personal manservant. Arabia Fats, user of The Sun, attempts to thwart the group in the Arabian Desert but is discovered and easily defeated. The group is soon saddled with the baby Mannish Boy, who uses his Stand, Death 13, to attack in dreams. Only through Kakyoin's quick thinking does the group survive Death 13's dreamworld. On an island in the Red Sea, Polnareff is accosted by the genie Stand Judgment, but the previously assumed dead Avdol returns and saves him. Avdol appropriates a submarine, but the vehicle is infiltrated by the High Priestess, a Stand controlled by Midler that can take the form of anything metallic; however, Star Platinum's power easily defeats it.

Upon arriving in Abu Simbel the heroes are joined by Iggy, a Boston Terrier and the user of The Fool, a simple but powerful Stand of sand. They are immediately attacked by the blind Stand user N'Doul, who attacks with Geb, a Stand of water and the first of the nine Egyptian god Stands; he is able to slash through Kakyoin's eyes before he is defeated by Jotaro and Iggy. Oingo and Boingo, users of the face-altering stand Khnum and the future-predicting comic book Thoth respectively, attempt to defeat the heroes, but Oingo is incapacitated without the heroes even knowing he was there. Anubis, a sword with a Stand, possesses a farmer named Chaka, a barber named Khan, and then Polnareff, nearly killing Jotaro. Mariah, the user of Bast, magnetizes Joseph and Avdol causing problems for them. Polnareff and Silver Chariot are reduced to children by Seth, the Stand of the child-abuser Alessi. Later, the group encounters Daniel J. D'Arby who offers information if they gamble with him, but when Polnareff and Joseph lose, D'Arby's Stand Osiris transforms their souls into poker chips. Only by betting everyone's souls can Jotaro defeat him. In Cairo the group meets Hol Horse again, who has partnered himself with Boingo, but are defeated. Later, Iggy battles Pet Shop, DIO's pet falcon and the user of the ice-slinging Stand Horus. Kakyoin returns soon afterwards, his eyesight mostly recovered.

The doorway to DIO's mansion is guarded by Telence T. D'Arby, younger brother of D'Arby the Gambler. His Stand, Atum, steals Kakyoin's soul after a round of video games, but despite D'Arby's mind games Jotaro is able to outwit him. Meanwhile, Polnareff, Iggy, and Avdol easily dispose of Kenny G, whose Tenore Sax Stand creates an illusory maze. Avdol is then killed by an invisible force that is revealed as DIO's henchman, Vanilla Ice, whose Stand Cream swallows itself into another dimension and instantly obliterates anything its sphere of destruction touches. Ice, who killed himself for DIO but was revived by DIO's blood, is able to nearly eliminate Polnareff, but a valiant sacrifice by Iggy allows Polnareff to ultimately win. Meanwhile, Jotaro, Joseph, and Kakyoin encounter Nukesaku, the Idiot, but easily defeat him.

Though wounded and alone, Polnareff confronts DIO but is confounded by the vampire's powers. When the four surviving heroes are reunited they climb to DIO's tower with the Idiot in tow, but when the Idiot opens the casket he inexplicably ends up mutilated inside it. DIO chases Joseph and Kakyoin across Cairo until Kakyoin, at the price of his life, discovers that DIO's Stand, The World, is able to stop time. With most of his friends dead or injured, Jotaro confronts DIO. Though The World has a huge advantage in the ability to stop time, Jotaro nearly defeats DIO, but the vampire restores himself by draining Joseph's blood, becoming even stronger. Finally DIO attempts to finish off Jotaro by crushing him with a steamroller, forcing Jotaro to use Star Platinum in new ways by revealing its own time-stopping abilities.

After DIO is defeated, Jotaro oversees a blood transfusion from the remains of DIO, which lies next to the newly deceased Joseph. As a result, Joseph is resurrected. Jotaro and Joseph return to Japan, bidding farewell to Polnareff before their flight, as a recovering Holly awakens back at home.