Stardust Crusaders is one of the few parts that gets a good amount of flak for the minor
villains you see.
Which I can see in some cases.
While I’m not as interested with those villains, I like what they were used for and what energy
was given for the fights they were in.
That goes with fights like Wheel of Fortune and The Sun.
While Part 3 had its fair share of serious moments, it also had a lot of comical moments
with them.
Which was fine, but this was before Dio’s elite.
While we had a moment or two where it seemed like we lost a member, we got that member
back.
Once the 9 Glory Gods of Egypt were introduced, it was a game changer.
Or well, in my opinion you only have about of the four posing a ridiculous threat in
my opinion.
You can try to figure who I’m not taking as seriously.
But, I think that having N’Doul as the first Glory God was probably Araki’s best foot
forward.
With how much power, and effect he’s had, he’s one of the best Glory Gods.
The portrayal of the 9 Glory Gods is shown off as if every stand user they will encounter
in the volumes or episodes after are going to be on the same calibre of N’Doul.
Some of them are made for impactful mental fights, and some are there to define specific
characters.
N’Doul has all the important aspects we get from the other Gods, and he does this
as natural as possible.
He’s not only the one God to have all these notable traits, but he’s also the one God
to fight the whole Stardust Crusaders.
Jotaro, Kakyoin, Polnareff, Joseph, Abdul, and Iggy were all present and he could’ve
taken four of the 6 mentioned.
The two he couldn’t take out were the two that defeated him.
N’Doul and Geb are shown to be this powerful force during the fight, but we were able to
get that even before the Crusaders known exactly what’s going on.
This one small scene where you see N’Doul against a fly.
He almost catches it on his own, which by itself seems crazy since he’s blind.
The fly gets away, and he talks about how he needs more practice maybe.
But, instead of trying to catch it again, he bounces a rock off the ground to exactly
strike where the Fly would be.
How he’s able to be so vigilant and precise without requiring vision foreshadows that
he’s not like any of the other stand users they’ve encountered.
He’s also one of the very few villains to have damaged and impact on the Stardust Crusaders.
Along the lines of Stand users like Vanilla Ice, Midler, the Darby’s, and a very few
others.
Now, getting down into the fight itself.
This battle while being an engaged physical fight, is an intense taxing mind battle.
Even before seeing Geb attack anyone, you can see Jotaro and Joseph being overwhelmingly
confused on how a member of the Speedwagon foundation could drown in the desert.
I still don’t understand how the fish got involved, but I think it was probably done
to make the scene even more bizarre.
With what happens once Geb attacks, it immediately puts everyone into defense mode where they’re
all trying to figure what should they do.
It’s a fast stand that’s strong enough to rip someone’s head off and put it into
a canteen, so you know why they’d be on such high alert.
There’s not much they can do while being cautious because they don’t know if that
Stand would be able to combat their stand.
They’re also extremely weary since they know that this stand user doesn’t care about
who they’re going for, and confused because by process of elimination there should’ve
only been one enemy left.
There wasn’t a single clue about the 9 Gods since they had no reason to think there would
be more than the tarot card stand users.
So, while staying on high alert they try to think of ways to approach or find the user,
and that was the probably one of the most logical things to do with all the information
they’ve compiled over the time of the journey.
Yet, this is something that went completely past what they know.
In the midst of talking about Kakyoin being hypocritical, Geb forming right under their
noses.
Taking Kakyoin out of the picture was a huge power move for the plot, but also a huge move
from N’Doul to show what they’re against.
Polnareff running instead of trying to defend Kakyoin had shows a feeling that we’ve seen
from Polnareff a couple of times, and that’s him being afraid of the unknown.
Since he doesn’t understand how the stand works or where it’s coming from, the only
thing he could do is run.
He almost loses his foot, but everyone gets into the buggy.
For what happens after, it’s N’Doul showing the gap of intelligence and power between
him and the Crusaders, but it also shows how N’Doul can lose focus at times if he’s
making light of a situation or he’s too focused on one thing.
Once everyone else is incapacitated and Joseph is being as useful as he can, it’s a fight
between Jotaro and N’Doul.
Iggy is also there, but not willingly.
One thing that I will continuously think of in this fight is the range.
N’Doul was 4kilometers away from the Crusaders, rounding it down that’s 13 thousand feet.
He was destroying the Crusaders and he was nowhere near them.
If N’Doul was on kill mode the whole time, it would’ve been game over for everyone.
Now, on Jotaro and N’Doul.
There were three things that majorly defined the fight, and two those were out of the box
tactics.
N’Doul had made Geb kick up sand high enough so it would fall on Iggy and Jotaro.
By doing that, he was able to hear the sand raining down on them, and could sense them
through the sound.
That’s one of the smartest tactics I’ve seen in Part 3, and I am happy that it happened.
For a good amount of the fight, I was on N’Doul said because of how intelligent he’s being
presented to be.
With being able to combat the entire team, and taking out 3 of the members, you have
to give him credit.
Now, what combats N’Doul is how unorthodox Jotaro can be.
In the next fights against the other Glory Gods, Jotaro has shining moments.
These shining moments happen because of Jotaro doing things that no other person would do.
Most of these things can either put himself in danger or others, but if there’s a chance
of Jotaro and others prospering for it, then he’s down to take that chance.
Since Jotaro was being given up by Iggy, and N’Doul was coming after him, he solved two
issues with one tactic.
And that tactic?
HE THREW IGGY.
With how hard he threw Iggy, he’s forcing N’Doul to recall Geb to defend himself,
and Iggy must try to get a grip and use his stand against N’Doul to stay alive.
It’s genius, and something that not everyone would think of to do since it’s so unconventional.
To be honest, I stopped everything once he threw Iggy had to sit down for a bit because
it seemed comical, but it was a smart decision the whole time.
Once N’Doul and Iggy defend themselves from each other, N’Doul notices that Jotaro is
gone.
He gets overwhelmed trying to search from him, but then we all see where he is.
This is the third and final thing that defined the fight, was the silent stand off between
Jotaro and N’Doul.
Looking at the manga, you can see the tension purely off of the sound symbols alone, adding
on to that you have Iggy who’s on the edge look at the stand off happen.
This is what we finally built up to, and now we’re ending it off with not only a signature
stand off, but a battle of the mind too.
Jotaro goes without saying anything for 13 pages, and N’Doul is the only one talking
because he realized that Jotaro got the drop on him.
Now, it’s a western draw, and the walking stick is the counter.
This is something that I credit the anime for, but still believe that the manga had
done this better due to the tone that Araki set being formulated and executed better.
When there’s major moments in the manga, you know it’s important due to how space
is taken up.
The attack almost took up two whole pages, but the draw itself took up four pages.
The ease in tone after the draw is an extreme calm tone.
In a fight like this, you would think that the fighters would have a sort of Joseph and
Wamuu tone going with how good the fight was, but it’s completely shifted once N’Doul
attacks himself.
Once that happens, N’Doul sheds light on everything that’s been going on and what
led up to him coming for the Crusaders.
N’Doul was a man who had never feared death.
There was never anyone that wasn’t a stand user that could combat him.
He was even above the law since he could do everything under their nose.
But the one time he had he wished to not meet his fate, was when he was under Dio.
Dio was the first person to acknowledge the value of N’Doul, and he praises Dio for
being the God of the forsaken ones.
He says that evil needs a saviour as well.
Jotaro sees it as Dio making people into fanatics, but N’Doul isn’t technically wrong.
While Dio is using the stand users for his own personal gain, he’s only using them
because he sees potential in what they do.
He comforts them for what they are, and needs them because of who they are.
He wants to them to embrace their evil and build upon it.
While he is manipulating them, it wouldn’t be a surprise to them.
They’re evil, and he’s evil, so it only makes sense that it would happen.
Though, that’s something that I’ve never thought of really.
You don’t associate a term like God for someone like Dio, you think of the other guy.
But to think of an evil counter part that’s exactly equal in the eyes of his followers,
it’s new and interesting.
The arc is finished up with Iggy showing his companionship with Jotaro, and doing Iggy
things with it.
It’s possible that he now respects Jotaro for defeating someone that made him cower
in fear, but he’s still Iggy so he’s still going to do what he does.
This arc was one of the most eventful ones you’ll see in Part 3, and what it did held
weight.
He set a tone that made the reader or watcher think that there was going to be enemies like
N’Doul that would possibly have the same amount of impact.
While that isn’t the case, it did a great job for what it was going for.
I appreciate N’Doul and everything he did.
Well, except for what he did to Kakyoin, but at the same time he gave him some cool scars
so we’re good.
Thank you N’Doul.
Thank you all for watching, I hope you enjoyed.
If you like character or arc analysis, I have a playlist with few of my others.
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with the same interests.
Hope I see you all in the next one.
Until then, peace out and God speed.