Daniel J. D'Arby

"My name is D'Arby, D-A-R-B-Y. The "D" has an apostrophe."

- Daniel introducing himself,Chapter 212

Daniel J. D'Arby (ダニエル・J・ダービー) is a minor antagonist appearing in Stardust Crusaders.

Daniel is an expert and inveterate gambler and his Stand, Osiris, can steal souls. He is a member of the Egypt 9 Glory Gods, and meets the Joestar Group in Cairo. Here, he tricks them into wagering their souls in various gambles.

Appearance
Daniel is a man of average to above-average height and slim to middling build.

He wears dark hair of middling volume, flowing slightly back and apart from his face, and a trim mustache of medium length. A light surface trails from the bottom of his eyes to points aside his mouth; scored by thin, black, horizontal lines.

He wears a light shirt, dark tie, and a vest of a medium color, printed with spirals.

Personality
"GOOD!"

- Daniel J. D'Arby's phrase Daniel J. D'Arby exhibits an affable but sly, knowing character.

Daniel's first and foremost character trait is his love of gambling. He states that he lives for the thrill of gambling (which he recognizes as worthless).This love of gambling is complemented by his enjoyment for cheating, and he proudly admits that cheating is one of his greatest skills shamelessly rigging every game he's seen participating to while justifying himself by claiming that if the cheat isn't exposed, it is "fair" game. His addiction to gambling is such that he can remember specific instances of when he gambled on one. Moreover, D'Arby developed a philosophy comparing gambling to social life, claiming that like gambling, it revolves around fakes and cheats. According to him, those who are stupid enough to be cheated simply deserve it and have no right to complain, exhibiting a belief in a form of social Darwinism. In contrast, D'Arby readily accepts that Jotaro Kujo broke his finger when the student saw through one of his trick as his punishment.

Therefore, D'Arby has also great pride and confidence in his ability, as he calls himself the greatest gambler in the world. D'Arby reveals himself as soon as he wins Polnareff's soul and openly challenges Jotaro's group. When his pride is on the line, D'Arby outright states that he isn't battling the Joestar Group for his master DIO but for his pride as a gambler. During their poker game, D'Arby didn't hesitate to taunt Jotaro through harmless commentaries during their poker to better rub his first victory in his face. However, when the pressure of having to gamble information on The World while Jotaro erased any certainty about his hand proved too much to handle, D'Arby went mad.

D'Arby seems to hold some pride in his family name, making the effort of spelling it to the Joestar group and being angered when Joseph Joestar persists in calling him by the wrong name (which would be perceived as a grave insult to Japanese audiences), though this may have been part of his plan.

Abilities
Daniel's Stand is Osiris, of the power to extract a target's soul when they sense defeat, typically after a game or bet with him; after which it is compressed as one or more casino tokens.

Gambling and cheating: With a flair for deception, Daniel is a skilled professional gambler, confident in his ability to prevail in any type of game and his forte being poker. D'Arby has an exceptionally keen mind when it comes to cheating. He not only made sure that a whole bar was rigged in his favor when he played against the Joestar Group, but could also think of a way to cheat on the spot when playing against Joseph.

Sleight of Hand: D'Arby has an exceptional fine motor skill and sense of touch, enabling him to perform cardistry. He is nimble and precise to the point that he can figure out which page of a book he is on just by touching it with his fingers, and can memorize the order of the cards in a deck by touching them. His nimbleness allows him to perform card tricks in order to cheat and tried to use a second dealing in poker.

Background
Daniel is a man who seems to have a predatory desire for tricking people into his seemingly innocuous games just to steal their souls with his Stand. He then begins goading the loser's friends and family to try winning back the soul, giving him even larger winnings. With this, he has collected several souls, including those of the Moor Family. He shares this interest in collecting souls with his younger brother, Telence, though Daniel has no interest in keeping the souls conscious in captivity, instead of having them in a deep sleep inside his collection. In addition, his collection is meticulously detailed, with every soul's name listed, as well as area and date of capture.

At some point in the past, Daniel had tried to hit on his brother's girlfriend, prompting Telence to savagely beat him up. Daniel would never challenge Telence due to his ability to read minds.

Stardust Crusaders
The Joestar group encounter Daniel while searching Cairo for DIO's mansion. After asking around in a cafè he is sitting in, Daniel tells them he knows the location of the mansion, but refuses to share the information for money. Instead, he tries to convince the group to try winning the information from him in games of chance. He first quickly sets up a game to see which one of two pieces of beef a nearby cat would take first. An impatient Polnareff accepts his bet, as well as the condition that Polnareff bets his soul in return, thinking it is all nonsense. Daniel wins the bet and takes Polnareff's soul with his Stand, Osiris, as well as revealing himself to be one of DIO's men and the owner of the cat involved in the game.

Because of his Stand's nature, the Joestar group had to beat him at his own game to win back their friend's soul. Joseph tries outsmarting Daniel in a game where they put coins in a glass of liquor until someone loses by causing the glass to spill over, but Daniel turns out to be the better cheater thanks to a piece of melted chocolate under the glass.

Jotaro then challenges Daniel at poker, which the gambler comments on is his strongest game. After Jotaro foils his attempt at second dealing by breaking his finger, Daniel is visibly shaken and declares that he is no longer fighting for DIO, but for his pride as a gambler. He splits Polnareff's and Joseph's souls into five chips each for them to use. They then get a nearby boy to deal the cards for them. Jotaro loses with his pairs of eights and nines to Daniel's queens and jacks. As it turns out, Daniel owns the entire cafè and "everyone within a stone's throw of it". He confidently tells himself that no matter who Jotaro picks to deal the cards, he will only get bad hands.

In the second round of the game, Jotaro refuses to look at his cards, saying he will play with the ones he has, which frustrates Daniel. Jotaro begins raising Daniel with his remaining "soul chips", as well as Avdol's and Kakyoin's souls, without a single twitch. He also promises to give up Kakyoin's soul instead of his if he forfeits the poker game. This, along with Star Platinum fetching Jotaro a cigarette and a drink without Daniel's immediate notice, confuses him and causes him to have doubts about whether he truly is in control of the situation anymore. Daniel's four kings was apparently a guaranteed win, but he begins wondering if Jotaro really has one of the three possible hands that could beat him, or if Star Platinum had switched the cards without him noticing. As Daniel is about to call, Jotaro raises his mother's soul, demanding Daniel meet his raise with information on DIO's Stand. This causes Daniel to panic, knowing that if he were to tell, DIO would have him killed for betraying him. Daniel tries to force himself to call Jotaro's bet, but he falls apart completely and becomes a hysteric mess, admitting defeat in his heart. Polnareff, Joseph and the hundreds of other souls Daniel had collected over the years were freed from his collection.

JoJo RPG (SFC)
Daniel J. D'Arby is encountered in a bar earlier in the story and challenges the player to pick out a certain tarot card. The other player characters lose and have their spirit taken (Represented by their mental points dropping to 1) but the last player character wins on the final turn, restoring their mental points and moving the story on.

Daniel does not cheat all in said game and no explicit mention is made of his Stand, nor does he go insane after being beaten.

Cult Jump (GB)
Daniel appears as one of the ten characters from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise who appears on the game.

Heritage for the Future (PS1/DC/Arcade)
Daniel, along with his cat and his Stand, make a cameo in the game's continue screen, asking if the player wishes to continue (In the English locale, he asks 'Continue?' while in Japanese, 'Game no tsuzukeru ka?'). If the player lets the timer run down, Osiris takes their soul away compressing it into a poker chip. In the updated game and HD rerelease, Daniel appears on the main menu. When the player selects a mode or when they continue, Daniel shouts his signature phrase, "GOOD!"

In the PSX version's Super Story Mode, Daniel is encountered as a boss with three different minigames, all of them the same as the manga. the first two games are rigged as they were in the manga, so the player will always lose, but the Poker minigame allows the player to win once they unlock and choose the "Bluff" option.

However, if the player replays the minigames via the Boingo Book menu, this time the player can win said minigames to see optional different endings, and can also win the poker game legitimately by forcing Daniel to run out of coins to bet with.

All-Star Battle (PS3)
Daniel appears in the game as the host of the game's Customize mode. His taglines are available for use in Player Cards as well. He also appears as a support character in Campaign mode. When he appears, he challenges the player to pick a card from a set of ten. 9 of them have Daniel on them whilst one has Iggy on it. Getting a Daniel card will give the player a support item for free whilst getting an Iggy will get the player nothing.

Eyes of Heaven (PS3/PS4)
Daniel appears in the game's story mode twice, both of which are in Morioh. His first appearance led to capturing the soul of Jotaro's future daughter, Jolyne Cujoh, as a hostage before Jotaro could stop it from happening, in a vow of revenge for his humiliation by him. He's soon defeated again, which forces him to give back Jolyne's soul, before disappearing. He later reappears back in Morioh, now holding a Corpse Part in thanks to Heaven Ascension DIO. Defeated by Jotaro once again, he gives his corpse part to Jotaro and tells him that the only other person who knows DIO's weakness is Enrico Pucci, before disappearing once again.

Gallery
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Trivia

 * Araki created the character of D'Arby to have a showdown between a well-established cheater like Joseph and someone else who could be his equal.
 * Although his relationship with his younger brother is questioned and somewhat unexplained, he once was savagely beaten by Telence T. Darby after he tried to steal Telence's girlfriend.
 * The coin game he plays against Joseph is inspired by the 1968 movie Farewell Friend / Adieu l'ami by Jean Hermin where it is used multiple times by Charles Bronson's character.
 * In the colored editions of the manga and in the OVA, the cards D'Arby uses resemble a pack of blue-colored Bee playing cards.
 * In the TV anime, the animation for his hand movements was motion captured from an actual magician.
 * Curiously, despite his right hand's fingers still being in-tact, he still grabs and holds cards with his left hand in his reapparance in Eyes of Heaven.