JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders / Trivia

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders

Adaptation First: The OVA adaptation of the part was actually released first in America, its 13 episodes being sold as early as 2003 but the manga proper wouldn't be translated until 2005.
All-Star Cast: The English dub for the 2014 anime has a veritable who's who of well-known voiceover names. The cast includes Matthew Mercer, Richard Epcar, Patrick Seitz, Kyle Hebert, Doug Erholtz, Derek Stephen Prince, Julie Ann Taylor, Barbara Goodson, Dorothy Elias Fahn, Wendee Lee, Ray Chase, David Vincent, Grant George, Tara Sands, Karen Strassman, Greg Chun, Lauren Landa, Erica Mendez, Carrie Keranen, Cam Clarke, Jessica Gee-George, and Xander Mobus.

Approval of God: French musician Michel Polnareff is pretty amiable about being the namesake to Jean-Pierre, to the point where he's even tweeted about it with nothing short of incredible pride at the fact.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
- Apart from in a fan-made Flash video (and M.U.G.E.N), DIO does not yell "WRYYYYY!" right after dropping the steamroller on Jotaro, not even in the arcade game the video was based on. While he does yell "WRYYYYY!" during the final battle, it's not at this part.
- Via Memetic Mutation, everybody "knows" DIO's phrase is "Toki wo tomare" (Time stands still). Only via reading the original manga (or setting your system's language to Japanese for the PSN/X360 version) or even studying basic Japanese grammar do you find out it's actually supposed to be, "Toki yo tomare"; an imperative (giving a command) phrase— more like, "Time! Stand still!"— rather than an indicative (speaking in reference to something through an objective statement) one.
- Inverted example: During the famous "Oh, you're approaching me?" scene, most people will just skip over the part where DIO says "Even though your grandfather, Joseph, told the secret of The World, like an exam student scrambling to finish the last problems on an exam until the last moments before the chime?" and go straight to Jotaro's dialogue. Ditto for the dub, where most people will skip the part where DIO says "You're blatantly ignoring your grandfather's wishes, even after he gave his life to tell you about the power of The World. Surely his pathetic pleas warranted a bit of consideration?"
DIO: "Oh, so you still want to fight?"
Jotaro: "I have to move closer if I want to beat your sorry ass to a pulp!"
DIO: "Really? Okay then. By all means, come closer."
Breakthrough Hit: It was Stardust Crusaders that launched both Hirohiko Araki's career and the franchise into the stratosphere.
Career Resurrection: Alongside Free!, Kakyoin helped Daisuke Hirakawa become more popular with anime fans after he got a lot of heat for voicing the infamous Makoto Itou.
Colbert Bump:
- Heritage for the Future was the earliest example of this for the series in the West. It wasn't as widespread as later examples but seeing as how many people outside of Japan hadn't heard of JJBA before the game's international release it did increase interest to say the least.
- Viz Media attempted this in the mid 2000's by releasing the manga in the United States. Their initial plan was to release the other parts afterwards (though out of order as they were going to release Stone Ocean next) but low sales numbers prevented them from doing so. It wasn't until 2015 when Viz Media would try again but instead chose to start from Phantom Blood but with the JoJonium re-releases.
- Crunchyroll licensing the anime is what ultimately led to JJBA gaining a large following outside of Japan. There was already a small boost in interest after the 2012 anime and the digital release of Heritage for the Future but this is what ultimately made more people go and check out the 2012 anime and even gain interest in the later parts which would inspire better translations for the manga.
Creator Couple: In the OVA's English dub, composer Marco D'Ambrosio and his wife Terri play minor roles.
Cross-Dressing Voices:
- In Japanese: Misato Fukuen as Iggy, Ikue Ohtani as Mannish Boy, and Motoko Kumai as Boingo.
- In English: Tara Sands as Mannish Boy, Jessica Gee-George as Boingo, Erica Mendez as young Polnareff, and Dorothy Elias Fahn as young Jotaro.
Fake Nationality: The anime's English dub averts this by not giving any of the characters accents. They weren't included in the test dub and a clip from the official dub confirmed that neither Joseph nor DIO would be retaining their accents from the Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency dubs. According to Richard Epcar, Bang Zoom had decided to drop the accents to put more ease on the actors.
Fan Nickname: Fans often refer to Joseph in this part as "Oldseph" or "Foxy Joseph" since he's now a senior and is also Jotaro's grandfather.
- DIO's outfit in this Part is (not-so-)affectionately referred to as the banana suit.
Fan Translation: One exists for the SNES RPG.
God Never Said That: It's a common misconception that Avdol's death was at one point meant to be permanent, and that Araki changed his mind because of his popularity at the time. However, according to an interview with Araki from the Jojonium release, Araki stated that Avdol was always intended to return, and that he was never very popular in any polls.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: In both the United States and Japan, the original OVA is no longer available on home video. After Egyptian Islamic fundamentalists complained about a scene of DIO reading the Quar'an in the OVA, the original home video release went out of print, leaving the OVA unlicensed in Japan. In the United States, the OVA's original licensor (Super Techno Arts) is no longer in business and seeing as how the OVA is without a distributor in Japan, it is unlikely that an American company like Crunchyroll or Viz Media can ever license rescue the OVAs.
No Export for You: The SNES RPG was never given an international release.
The Other Darrin:
- Jotaro Kujo was voiced by Jurota Kosugi in the OVA, Kiyoyuki Yanada in the Capcom game, Tetsu Inada in the Vento Aureo game, and Daisuke Ono in All-Star Battle & the anime. In the English versions he was voiced by Abie Hadjikarthani in the OVA and Matthew Mercer in the anime.
- Old Joseph Joestar was voiced by the late Chikao Ohtsuka in the OVA, Toru Okawa ^note in the Capcom game, Tomokazu Sugita in the preview at the end of Battle Tendency and in All-Star Battle, and Unshou Ishizuka in the anime. In the English versions he was voiced by Michael Bennett in the OVA and Richard Epcar in both the 2012 anime^note and Stardust Crusaders anime itself.
- Mohammed Avdol was voiced by Kiyoshi Kobayashi in the OVA, Hisao Egawa in the Capcom game, Masashi Ebara in All-Star Battle, and Kenta Miyake in the anime. In the English versions he was voiced by J.S. Gilbert in the OVA and Chris Tergliafera in the anime.
- Noriaki Kakyoin was voiced by Hirotaka Suzuoki in the OVA, Mitsuaki Madono in the Capcom game, Koji Yusa in All-Star Battle, and Daisuke Hirakawa in the anime. In the English versions he was voiced by Doug Boyd in the OVA and Kyle Hebert in the anime.
- Jean Pierre Polnareff was voiced by Katsuji Mori in the OVA, Tsutomu Tareki in the Capcom game, Akira Nageshi in the Vento Aureo game, Hiroaki Hirata in All-Star Battle, and Fuminori Komatsu in the anime.
- Iggy was voiced by Shigeru Chiba in All-Star Battle, and Misato Fukuen in the anime.
- DIO was voiced by Nobuo Tanaka in the OVA, Isshin Chiba in the Capcom game, and Takehito Koyasu in the anime as far as his Stardust Crusaders counterparts go. In the English versions he was voiced by Andrew Chaikin in the OVA and Patrick Seitz in the anime.
- Hol Horse was voiced by Norio Wakamoto in the OVA, Yoshito Yasuhara in the Capcom game, Hochu Otsuka in All-Star Battle, and Hidenobu Kiuchi in the anime.
- Vanilla Ice was voiced by Takeshi Aono in the OVA, Hiroyuki Yoshino in All-Star Battle, Yuji Kishi in JoJo's Venture, and Sho Hayami in the Heritage for the Future update (replacing Kishi) and anime^note.
The Other Marty: Patrick Seitz originally provided the voice of Star Platinum in a test dub of the anime before Matt Mercer took over for the official dub.
Promoted Fanboy: Both of Jotaro's voice actors in the TV anime were long time fans of the franchise, now voicing one of the titular characters in the series.
Relationship Voice Actor:
- Yuka Komatsu provides the voice of Sherri Polnareff, while the de-aged Jean Pierre Polnareff is voiced by Ayumi Fujimura. Both Komatsu and Fujimura voiced the Daemon Sisters.
- Jotaro is one of four anime characters (and one visual novel character) that Matthew Mercer shares with Daisuke Ono. Mercer shares another character with Jurota Kosugi, Jotaro's voice actor in the OVA.
- Both of Daniel J. Darby's voice actors voiced Liquid Snake.
- On the dub side of things, Doug Erholtz and Patrick Seitz play the Big Bad (Yuuki Terumi/Hazama) and The Protagonist (Ragna) respectively in Blazblue, while here their roles are inverted as Erholz (Polnareff) is one of the main characters and Seitz (DIO) is the Big Bad. Kokonoe (Julie Ann Taylor) is Holly Kujo.
- Kenta Miyake and Daisuke Hirakawa (Avdol and Kakyoin's Japanese dub actors for the anime) are the Japanese dub actors for Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) in the Thor movies. Hilarious in Hindsight, since their characters don't get to interact very much in Stardust Crusaders.
Real Life Writes the Plot: The reason why Stardust Crusaders begins in Japan is due to the fact that Araki's initial vision for Stardust Crusaders was rejected by Shonen Jump for being too removed from Japanese culture. In fact the running joke of Joseph complaining about Japan may be a reference to Araki having to change the nature of his story.
Role Reprise:
- Sho Hayami returning as Vanilla Ice in the anime is the only time a voice actor who voiced a character in a past installment of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure returned to voice a character in the David Production anime.
- For the TV anime only Daisuke Ono and Junichi Suwabe returned to voice their roles as Jotaro and Terrence D'Arby respectively from All-Star Battle.
- Hiroaki Tominaga and CODA, the vocalists of the two OPs before it, return as back up singers for "End of the World".
Saved from Development Hell: The road to the release of the English dub was a rather long one to say the least. While the first three episodes were available dubbed on Crunchyroll shortly in the summer of 2014, it was only a test with no follow-up announced afterward. There was also the matter of the 2012 anime covering Parts 1 & 2 which hadn't been dubbed at that point. Initially it was thought that a full English dub would be released by Warner Brothers after the DVD release of the 2012 anime in 2015 with Tweets by Richard Epcar in early 2016 as well as a dub clip shown at Anime EXPO 2016 suggesting this. Then came the announcement that Viz Media would now be handling the home video releases for the franchise followed by the announcement of a Toonami airing for the 2012 anime that would run from October 2016 through April 2017. Supposedly this pushed the dub's release date even further as at Anime Boston 2017, Viz Media announced that the Stardust Crusaders dub was in production but was still in the early stages. Made worse was that while many were expecting the dub to air on Toonami after the 2012 anime wrapped up that wasn't the case as instead Toonami would air the second season of Attack on Titan in its place. Has finally come to an end however as at Anime EXPO 2017 it was announced that the dub for Stardust Crusaders would begin airing on Toonami on July 29, 2017.
Star-Making Role: Kenta Miyake despite having been in the voice acting industry for many years mostly voiced supporting or minor roles in anime. However many new anime fans have come to associate him with Avdol and after voicing him Miyake would get more important anime roles.
Trolling Creator: Araki jokingly attempted this with the Sun arc. His intention was to make Arabia Fats and his Stand come off as so powerful that readers would be mislead into thinking it would last for several weeks. In reality Arabia Fats and his Stand are outsmarted fairly easily and have one of the shortest arcs in this part. Averted with the anime where the episode previews outright reveal the fact that it's a one-parter.
Unintentional Period Piece: The series takes place in the then-current year of 1989, the same year of the manga’s release. As such it features your typical late 80s technology and fashion.
What Could Have Been:
- Araki had initially wanted Stardust Crusaders to be a modern day retelling of Dracula. However his editors at Shonen Jump felt the series had become too far removed from Japanese culture, with only one of them thinking it was a good idea.
- Interviews with Araki suggest that the original vision for part 3 would have not had Stands as a concept, but because of Shonen Jump's interference with Lisa Lisa, he came to a conclusion that relying less on raw physical fights would allow him to get away with more creative designs and roles, leading him to creating stands.
- Hol Horse was originally going to join the protagonists after Avdol's death. However, Araki came to feel that he was too similar to Polnareff in appearance and personality, and Kakyoin in ability. For these reasons, among others, Hol Horse remained an antagonist.
- Araki had initially intended for the franchise to only be a trilogy with Stardust Crusaders being the finale. However due to this part being more popular than he expected Araki chose to continue onward.
- N'Doul was planned to be included as a playable character in the Capcom game but never made it into the final product. Several years later, however, he would be included as a playable character in Eyes of Heaven.
- After the English dub clip was shown at Anime EXPO 2016, one thing fans noticed was that Joseph lacked his accent from the Part 2 dub. Richard Epcar confirmed that the studio thought of using accents but dropped the idea to make things easier for the voice actors.