Devil (Episode)

The Devil is the eighth episode of Stardust Crusaders and the thirty-fourth episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It covers the most of Chapter 133 through the first half of Chapter 136 of the manga.

Summary
Jotaro's group arrives in Singapore, and when they run into Anne again, decide to take her with them. They then check into a hotel, but due to the overcrowded hotel preventing them from getting rooms close to each other, they split up. Polnareff enters his room and discovers an eerie looking doll with a spear on its back sitting on his nightstand. He then promptly orders whoever's hiding in the fridge to come out, and confronts Devo the Cursed. Polnareff reveals that all the beverages in the fridge were on the counter; A dead giveaway that there was someone in it. After a short introduction, Devo attempts to attack Polnareff with his Stand, but is anticlimactically overpowered by Silver Chariot and severely wounded. He then escapes via the hotel room's balcony, verbally cursing Polnareff. Polnareff then finds that his ankle has been sliced deep, and in response, he calls Joseph and Avdol while he bandages himself. After Polnareff makes a second call to room service for medical assistance, Avdol explains Devo the Cursed to Joseph, stating that he is an assassin hired by criminals from all over the world and that his Stand is powered by a grudge.

Concluding that it's dangerous for any of them to be alone, Joseph calls Jotaro to have all four of them meet up in Polnareff's room. Meanwhile, Polnareff searches for his room key, which he spots under his bed. However, as soon as he crawls under the bed to retrieve it, he hears footsteps and suddenly finds himself tied to the underside of the bed and blinded by shampoo. Something then begins sawing off the legs of the bed, which ends up pinning Polnareff to the floor. The attendant Polnareff called is promptly killed with a razor slicing through his face. The murderer reveals itself as the doll Polnareff had found earlier, possessed by Ebony Devil. Polnareff tries to attack the doll with Silver Chariot, but as he is unable to see his enemy, the attempt is futile. Silver Chariot fights the doll, only managing to break its spear as the battle wreaks havoc in the hotel room. The doll runs amok, soaking the entire room with the beer and other drinks from the fridge. This is done with the intent of frying Polnareff with a short-circuiting hairdryer. However, just as the doll drops the hairdryer, Polnareff reveals he was purposely scattering the shards of the bedroom mirror to let himself see above the bed. Chariot immediately skewers both the hairdryer and the doll's head, before slicing the doll to pieces. The scene cuts to Devo hiding in a bathroom stall, having been left a mangled corpse as an employee checks on him after hearing screaming.

Polnareff then joins up with the others and soon faces interrogation from the police over suspicions of killing a little boy in his hotel room and the death of Devo in the hotel bathroom stalls. The Speedwagon Foundation agents bail him out without issue. Later, Joseph divines with the use of a TV and receives a message claiming that Kakyoin is a traitor. He concludes there must be something more to the story, and the episode ends with a cut showing Kakyoin with Jotaro outside the hotel, the former with a menacing look on his face.

Commentary
"Episode 8 is appreciated overall by the fans and I must admit that I like it too. We mainly like it for its action, whirling in every direction, like a roller coaster of anime. The animation is not the only factor of the success, the sound effects were also very inspired.

Yasufumi Soejima was in charge of the storyboard and the direction. He is a man full of ideas who managed to show us new ways to approach things. He is a real model as a creator, simply speaking. He was here for every step of the storyboard quality control and in the inclusion of the details; I have a strong memory of it. This episode was conceived around Soejima's ideas.

Overall, this episode was really a difficult one. We had to keep the balance between the craziness of the action and the rest of the scenes to harmonize everything coherently. We owe their adjustments to Takahito Katayama, here an animation director assistant. All this must have been a difficult ordeal for the animators, but they are certainly satisfied at the sight of their work."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries