How was that supposed to be better than S1?

fluffybunnyboy said:
Those types of protagonists were also popular in spaghetti westerns, which had worldwide audiences back when.

Never once when I watched the Dollars trilogy did I think, "This Man With No Name is cool, but he would be so much better if he screamed lots of passionately emotional lines!"

But apparently, this is what makes Jonathan so much better than Jotaro in the eyes of western anime viewers.

TeddyBeer1983 said:
To me, this whole thread just shows how much times have changed. Most people today see Jotaro as a total dick with no personality who should be nicer to bis mom.

Back when the manga version was being made, no one cared about character development in a shonen action manga. Fans just wanted to see the protagonist beat the crap outta the bad guy. And characters like Jotaro were pretty much the norm.

The "plot holes" people are so obsessed about in this day and age, the "asspulls"...none of that mattered as long as it was FUN! In fact, to me the lack of logic makes this even more fun for me.

The ONLY flaw I see in Stardust Crusaders is that it was animated in the wrong era (animation wise).

Ken_of_Hokuto said:

Problem with this is that barring The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the supporting characters were nothing to write home about either, they didn't have a character arc or anything. When that 3rd movie happens we see lots of shenanigans involving Blondie and Tuco, so it's not like he's a flat character too.

Jotaro is way better as a supporting character IMO. Being all stoic and shit AND a mentor? Nice stuff.

tsudecimo said:

But Kenshiro is your favorite character?

gedata said:

He isn't a favorite of mine, but Kenshiro showed at least a wider range of emotions then Jotaro did

Ken_of_Hokuto said:
Not only Kenshiro showed more tenderness, he actually showed more anger and happiness Jotaro ever did.

So yeah, one could say Kenshiro is at the very least not as flat as Jotaro.

Haytin said:
Maybe it's different in the manga, but I honestly have no clue how anyone could think Stardust is better than Battle Tendency. Stardust had so much fucking padding. And the Dio fight was a total let down. The fight in the older version was way more epic. This one just seemed lackluster. I'm assuming they spent all their budget on all those 2, and 3 episode fights rme.

I really wish Stardust followed Battle Tendency's example by just making the show short and sweet. I totally prefer 10 great episodes over 48 mediocre ones. But I guess I'm just a quality over quantity type of guy...

fluffybunnyboy said:

Yeah, it's so terrible how Stardust Crusaders ripped off Pokemon.....

....Back in 1989, years before Pokemon existed. Araki is such a time machine-abusing plagiarist, I swear. =P

Mixon said:
True, D'Arby fights were good, though if the way Jotaro won the first fight wasn't an asspull, I don't know what is. Well, I suppose different strokes for different folks, I was enjoying first two arcs wholeheartedly throughout each episode, and hated SC, so I suppose I can't escape some bias.

tsudecimo said:
Well I didn't really watch/read Fist of the north star (aside from some episodes on TV, when I was a kid), but I just assume, from the way other anime reference him, he is the iconic action stoic badass character.

tsudecimo said:

You mean the star finger thing? well there is a little abilities that aren't showed from the beginning of the stands (polenraff ability to release the point of his sword)

tsudecimo said:
I always wanted to read it, for the catch phrase if nothing else, but I didn't find any good scans, do you know any decent ones?

Mixon said:
Never said it ripped off Pokemon, I didn't even think of comparing the two, lol.

Mixon said:

Works either way. Phantom Blood was amazing, I thought I was past my anime phase when I was watching it, but there I was, watching 3 episodes at a time on the edge of my seat.

Battle Tendency was also great, I really enjoyed the scope of the story and how obviously Pillar Men were at a advantage. I enjoyed Joseph's street smarts and how everything was part of his plan.

Then came Stardust Crusaders which took all the parts of BT that made me go "that was clever", threw them out of the window, and put bullshit pokemon powers instead. It also took all attempts at humour and replaced them with shit jokes and everyone making ugly faces.
I liked the first Darby brother, I liked parts with Joseph in the spotlight, I hated most of the cast, starting with Jotaro. The whole series dragged ruthlessly, as I only watched it for Joseph and Dio.

I have to agree with sjack on this one, if JoJo became popular during SC, it did for all the wrong reasons.
PB and BT I would recommend to people that aren't even into anime, SC I would not recommend to even hardcore weeaboos.

"I'm glad it's over".

Rizzle said:
Stands are boring/ridiculous, at least to me, because there are little to no rules to constrain them. A stand can have any and every power that is convenient to the plot, and there is very little similarity between stands to even be able to group them as the same type of "magic." Stands are any random power that the mangaka wanted to write a fight about that week. This is lame, no matter how he tried to use the powers in inventive ways (especially because we all knew the outcome of those fodder fights before they even started). Systems of magic need to make sense at least within the story's own world. Stopping time, psychic photography, age regression, removing souls, whatever the hell Empress is (parasite?), Mariah's magnet/gravity powers, Vanilla Ice's dimension warping/black hole, a future telling manga book...these are all abilities that come from the same source type!? An orangutan, a bird, a sword, a car, a baby, and a dog can use (and be deadly with) a stand, but Holly Kujo can't even manage to stay alive while in possession of one? Smells like bull to me.

I wouldn't even mind the randomness if there was an actual story to hold SC together, or the fights had any impact/consequence. BT had problems, but it was interesting to see how the characters worked within the limits of their abilities to win, or see how the limits on their powers made them lose. HxH has probably done the best job of having a wide range of powers, but at least attempting to be logical about how the system works and why things are possible. [/Opinions]

sadpwner said:
I agree. S2 was strictly worse than S1. S1 got a 9 from me while S2 got a 6. This was reflected in the sales. S1 sold significantly better.