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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders Egypt Arc
Episode 7

by Jacob Chapman,

JJBA's Egypt Arc has been packed with goofy humor so far, but it's been a good long while since we've had a truly tasteless comedy episode, so the conclusion to the battle with Bast is here to satisfy! (Considering that Mariah is a rare female combatant in the series and JJBA has never had a stellar track record with female characters, we really shouldn't be surprised.)

I should clarify that I don't mean tasteless as an insult here; it's just a fact. Japan and America have both come a long way since this story's publication in 1991 or so, and certain types of comedy are considered both too easy and too offensive by modern metrics, but in the interests of adapting the comics as directly as possible (if anything only adding short scenes of connective tissue, and not much of that,) all the original Jojokes are here in their groan-worthy glory. It's not the first time this story's age has shown, and it won't be the last. Gags abound as the magnetism-bound Joseph and Avdol contort into compromising positions, and scandalize children and old ladies with their "filthy gay antics." When all the humping is behind us, the bevy of sexist jokes about Mariah come riding in, as her bustier, filled with nuts and bolts, grows to massive size when the magnetized men approach her. After being foiled time and time again, her once-beautiful face becomes hideous, and of course the minx is ultimately done in by her sexual attraction to Joseph, along with the implication that she's only working for Dio because he's even hotter. It's a smorgasbord of uncomfortable laughs for twenty minutes straight!

Nevertheless, I loved this episode, and the glee I felt while watching it is a weird emotion to parse. I think the blessing of time has given these dorky and questionable slapstick routines a kind of recursive charm that equally cheap, distasteful modern comedy doesn't earn. (It's not nostalgia talking either: I don't remember reading this part of the manga, and it wasn't put into the OVAs, which I'm more familiar with.) It's hard to explain why this morbidly distasteful episode "works," and I don't expect it to work for everybody, but I'll do my best to clarify.

For me personally, reacting to "problematic" content is a case-by-case process that mostly revolves around perceived intent, but for this episode, my focus was more on the impact and relevance of the yuks, or in this case their complete lack of impact or relevance. Stardust Crusaders was written at a time when its antics were considered normal for even mainstream comedy, not just in Japan, but America as well. Early 90s teen comedies made light of date rape, and homophobic slurs were tossed off no-problem in PG-rated family films. Now this kind of comedy is reserved almost exclusively for otaku comedies or American youtube shows aimed at young teens with the need to feel "edgy," but broader audiences have largely moved past these lazy "punching down" standbys. In comparison to mainstream entertainment of its time, this episode of Stardust Crusaders is benign, and probably didn't gain even a second glance from most readers. By today's standards, it's pretty jaw-dropping, but that was standard comedy hijinks for 1991! Sometimes it's hard to believe over 20 years have passed, and sometimes it's really not...

Now that this norm has changed, Jojo's gay panic humor or sexist leanings are so bald and out-of-date that they have no impact. Modern audiences don't laugh at Avdol seemingly blowing Joseph because they hate gay people, they laugh because Avdol blowing Joseph is funny all by itself, and then they cringe when the second part of the joke, the spectators calling them "filthy," lands behind it. The widespread cringe softens the joke and reminds us all how far we've come, which can be healthy. This episode has all the power of a time capsule, and it's hard for me to get up in arms about something with no power or relevance in the same way I would the high grosses of modern-day films I find offensive like Ted or 50 Shades of Grey. Reactions are guaranteed to vary, of course, so don't take my nonplussed reaction to this episode as gospel.

To get away from the collar-straining serious stuff before the conclusion, there's a lot of excellent touches to the comedy here that make it the best of itself, stupid or not. JJBA's gangbusters score is in top form this week with some downright inspired flourishes that absolutely make the humor land. A completely unexpected tripsy little tango tune sneaks into the background when Joseph and Avdol are pretending to dance together that nearly had me on the floor. Every time a metal object zips toward our heroes, a xylophone goes off, in different tones and variations depending on if they're about to get hit by a bicycle or a set of false teeth. Snare drums chug along behind the group as they get weighed down by more and more metal flotsam, adding tension and comedy to the chase all at once. You can keep your Terror in Resonance's and Ping Pong's, I still think JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has the most wonderful music work of the past year in anime. (They're all great scores of course, so why pick and choose? I'll take all of them!)

If it suits your stomach, the fight against Bast is great for a few laughs, and the silliness isn't over yet, as Polnareff and Jotaro face the shadowy Set next week!

Rating: B+

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.


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