The first episode of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders ended exactly where it needed to end: with the brutal clash between Jotaro and Kakyoin. When the screen faded to black and the credits began to roll, more than seventy percent - maybe even eighty - of the viewers who had started the show out of sheer curiosity let out a long breath, as if only then realizing they had been holding it in for several minutes.
The truth was simple: most of the audience still looked at the JOJO franchise with a certain amount of skepticism.
Some had tried Phantom Blood or Battle Tendency and dropped them almost immediately. Not because they were bad, but because next to more aggressive, visually explosive combat systems, Hamon felt too restrained, too old-fashioned, almost too modest. It lacked that instant impact, that visceral punch that could seize a viewer by the throat. Others had never even bothered starting. Just reading the online comments was enough to make them lose interest. A lot of people would rather rewatch Bleach for the fifth or sixth time than seriously give JOJO a chance.
If Stardust Crusaders had opened to this much attention, it was because Alex knew exactly how to steer public curiosity in the right direction. He had moved the pieces skillfully, balancing hype, provocation, and timing like someone who already understood the market's pulse down to the marrow. On top of that, the impact left behind by Death Note was still far too fresh in everyone's mind. After that, even the people who usually rolled their eyes had started thinking: if he's the one making it, then maybe it's worth at least watching the first episode.
The overall mood was almost identical everywhere.
"I want to see what the hell Alex came up with this time, since he just left Bleach and the second half of Death Note hanging to go film this."
That was the spirit. Not trust. Not devotion. More like a challenge. A stubborn refusal to look away. People were clicking play with their arms crossed, fully prepared to mock it if it stumbled.
But now, after that first episode...
Most of them were no longer in any position to mock anything.
Because the battle system was simply too new.
The characters weren't fighting with just their own bodies. They commanded. They issued orders. They thought, measured distance, weighed risk, calculated advantage and timing. And then that invisible, monstrous being known as a Stand would step forward to fight the real battle. There was something shockingly fresh about that structure. It wasn't just power crashing into power. It wasn't spectacle for spectacle's sake. It felt like the fight was unfolding on two planes at once: the physical and the mental.
Alex, meanwhile, found the whole uproar amusing.
If a format where the "main body" stayed behind, watching and giving orders while its partner went out front to fight wasn't something that could work, then how had Pokémon become one of the biggest phenomena on the planet? The more he thought about it, the funnier the comparison became. At its core, the two systems did share something: the user in the back, the fighter in the front, and intelligence deciding everything in the middle of chaos.
Of course, in Alex's mind, the comparison made more sense with the manga than with the anime. On the page, the use of tools, specific abilities, terrain, and improvisation gave battles a strategic flavor that genuinely resembled JOJO at times. The anime, though... that was another story. There were fights so absurd, decisions so forced, and resolutions so lazy that even remembering them made him want to curse. Even so, when Ash's story finally came to an end, that old bastard still couldn't hold back his tears. He really cried. Not much, just enough to make him irritated with himself afterward.
Maybe that was why, in that moment, lying in the small room behind the office, Alex suddenly turned his head and asked the mature woman beside him, who was still trying to catch her breath,
"Do you think someone my age can convincingly play a ten-year-old kid?"
She opened her eyes halfway, looked at him like she'd just seen a ghost, and didn't answer right away.
Ten years old?
The body Alex had built for JOJO was far too solid, far too hard, far too outrageous to match the image of a child. There was nothing about him that suggested innocence or fragility. He was the kind of presence that stepped into a frame and dominated it, not the kind that could sell the fantasy of a boy just beginning his journey.
Her silence answered before her voice ever could.
Alex understood immediately.
His dream of playing that legendary boy from Pallet Town was dead before it had ever really lived.
He still considered alternatives. Maybe a charismatic champion. Maybe an elite trainer. Maybe someone wrapped in enough aura, status, and power to carry the screen without needing to fake youth. But the more he thought about it, the less he liked any of the options. None of them really appealed to his taste.
In the end, he let out a long sigh and settled on the most practical conclusion of all.
At worst, he'd play Professor Oak.
And if he was going to go completely insane, then he might as well make Aunt Delia the official love interest.
The image in his head was so ridiculous that even he had to stop himself from laughing.
At the same time, elsewhere, Bruce Walts, who had played Caesar in Battle Tendency, was watching the episode with his fists clenched tight. His body trembled faintly, not from fear, but from excitement.
"It's going to blow up," he muttered to himself. "Part Three is absolutely going to explode."
Even though the first two parts of JOJO had never become overwhelming sensations, the character he played had still brought him invitations, visibility, and new opportunities. Bruce had personal reasons to root for the franchise, but at that moment what dominated him was something even simpler: he recognized the feeling of something standing on the edge of becoming huge.
Mark, on the other hand, was rubbing his temples with a bitter expression.
He understood the logic behind the release schedule very well. The productions under Alex's company followed a weekly format, while most shows on the market still operated on a far more conventional release rhythm. On top of that, this time the immediate competition wasn't some monster on the level of Bleach. That was why Sabrina had approved placing his new drama in the same window.
On paper, it had seemed safe.
In practice, after seeing that first JOJO episode, Mark was no longer so sure.
"I'm starting to think Sabrina miscalculated..."
Around him, nobody seemed interested in caution. Talita, Sam, and the others all wore the same unmistakable expression of people who had already been hooked. The impatience on their faces was almost childlike.
"Stop complaining and play the next episode already," someone snapped.
Mark glanced around and felt a wave of helplessness. Somewhere along the line, even his own side had been won over by the enemy.
If the first episode existed to introduce Stands as a combat system, then the second episode was there to do something perhaps even more important: solidify Jotaro as the new protagonist.
And it did so flawlessly.
When Kakyoin, still recovering, saw Jotaro tear the flesh bud DIO had planted from his forehead even while risking his own life, he was left utterly stunned. It wasn't an exaggerated reaction. It was the kind of shock that came when someone suddenly watched the entire structure of the world they understood tilt out of place.
"Why... why would you risk your own life to save me?"
As always, Jotaro kept his hands in his pockets and turned his face away, pretending indifference. But by then, that pretense fooled no one.
"...No idea. I don't really get it myself."
And it was precisely then that Holly, passing by the doorway, overheard his answer. When she looked at her son, there was no surprise in her expression. Only a gentle smile, soft with pride.
"But I do," she murmured to herself. "Jotaro... you're still such a kind boy."
That line wasn't just maternal tenderness. It was a key. A quiet revelation that rearranged everything the audience had seen up to that point. The violent delinquent. The rude young man. The cold-eyed boy with heavy fists. Beneath all of that, there was still someone incapable of turning away from another person's suffering.
Later, when the second episode reached its midpoint and Holly began to collapse under the pressure of a Stand her body couldn't control, the tone of the story shifted completely. The fever, the trembling, the sense of urgency, the desperation thickening the air - everything shoved the narrative toward its true axis.
Bell, in the role of old Joseph, looked like he was on the verge of falling apart on screen.
"I knew it... I knew this could happen!" he shouted, his voice cracking under panic. "I was always afraid she wouldn't be able to resist the influence of DIO's evil spirit... and now... now..."
But Jotaro didn't let him finish. He grabbed his grandfather's wrist firmly, his expression hard as stone, though his eyes no longer hid the tension.
"Then say it," he ordered. "What's the solution?"
Joseph looked up. The grief was still there, but now something sharper had appeared alongside it: resolve.
"There's only one way. Find DIO... and kill him."
And just like that, without fanfare, the story truly entered its main route.
It was also at that point that the audience began to understand Jotaro more clearly. Not as a traditional hero, and certainly not as a direct heir to the old-fashioned code of gentlemanly virtue, but as something else - something rougher, more twisted, more modern, and precisely because of that, more magnetic.
Peter, who played Hitsugaya in another production and had already earned a reputation as one of Alex's fiercest defenders, sat nodding to himself in front of the screen, full of certainty.
"It's the same logic as that comment about Joseph in the last part," he said. "His personality may be the complete opposite of a gentleman, but the Joestar family's sense of justice is still there."
Teacher Hugo, seated nearby, picked up the thought in a more measured tone.
"The issue with the first part may have been that the protagonist was... too calm."
What he had actually wanted to say was boring. He thought it, weighed the word for two seconds, then chose something more tactful instead. Even so, everyone understood.
In real life, someone upright, honorable, and decent like Jonathan was easy to admire. He was the kind of person who inspired instant goodwill. But fiction didn't operate by the same logic as real life. Audiences went to fiction to find exactly what everyday life rarely offered them. Exaggeration. Contrast. Personality. Memorable flaws.
Jonathan was admirable.
Joseph was entertaining.
Jotaro, however, was the type of character who stepped onto the screen and stole all attention without asking permission.
By the end of the episode, thanks to the information Kakyoin provided, the group reached the conclusion that DIO was most likely hiding in Egypt. From there, the core team was finally assembled.
And before departure came one of those scenes no one expected to take seriously, yet it ended up branding itself into everyone's memory.
Avdol spread the tarot cards out and told Jotaro to draw one.
When the Star card appeared, he raised his voice with solemnity, almost like a priest giving a name to a legend.
"The Star...! Then the name of your Stand shall be - "
The declaration came.
And one second later, countless viewers nearly choked in unison.
Because instead of sounding like the elegant, powerful "Star Platinum," the name came out of the dub actor's mouth in such a strange, heavy, bizarrely stylized way that it sounded closer to a mangled incantation than actual English. Something between "Sutaa Purachina" and a phonetic fever dream too ridiculous to describe without laughing.
The effect was devastating.
A lot of people spat out their drinks. Others started repeating the pronunciation out loud, trying to decide whether it was intentional or not. The most impressive part was that the international version wasn't any better. Ordinary dialogue sounded normal enough, but the moment the characters shouted their Stand names, the pronunciation became a spectacle in itself - so weird it was almost hypnotic.
Teacher Heleno, who had a good ear for English, stared wide-eyed and burst out laughing.
"But... wasn't it supposed to be 'Star Platinum'?"
It only got worse when people realized it wasn't an isolated case. Magician's Red came with the same twisted, theatrical delivery, too exaggerated to be an accident. The most obvious conclusion was simple: Alex had done it on purpose. Not just in the local version, but in every version. Bell and Henry had recorded those names so many times that they had apparently started carrying that same bizarre pronunciation into their speech off set.
And as if that weren't enough, the next sequence pushed everything to an even higher level.
With Jotaro's execution theme roaring in the background, the official introductions hit the screen one after another, each character paired with their Stand and its defining ability. Star Platinum, with insane precision and monstrous power. Hermit Purple, bound to spiritual perception and its peculiar capabilities. Magician's Red, commanding flames with absolute authority. Hierophant Green, elegant and treacherous, lethal from long range with Emerald Splash.
When the introductions ended, the four of them stood lined up before the Joestar mansion. Shoulder to shoulder. Perfectly composed within the frame. And then, in synchronization so ridiculous it had to be deliberate, they all stepped forward with the same foot.
It was impossible not to laugh.
But it wasn't mocking laughter. It was that confused kind of reaction born from seeing something that looked cringe for a moment... only to become absurdly stylish the next. There was something about that obsession with poses - on both the villains and the heroes - that started off strange and ended up irresistible.
Then the transition came.
Star Platinum appeared with his fist raised. Beside him, the stat panel flashed across the screen.
Destructive Power: A.
Speed: A.
Range: C.
Stamina: A.
Precision: A.
Development Potential: A.
For a moment, it felt like the whole world paused.
Then, in the very next second, the flood of reactions erupted like a volcano.
That wasn't the stat sheet of a balanced protagonist. It was a monstrosity. A set of numbers that looked like it belonged to a final boss, not the hero right at the beginning of the journey. And because Alex himself was playing Jotaro, the audience reached the inevitable conclusion with the merciless speed only viewers ever seem to manage when they smell favoritism.
He had buffed his own character without a shred of shame.
And the worst part was that he had done it in such a brazen, entertaining, effective way... that nobody could stop watching.