A Man Possessed by an Evil Spirit (Episode)

A Man Possessed by an Evil Spirit (悪霊にとりつかれた男) is the twenty-seventh episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It is also the first episode of Stardust Crusaders. It covers Chapter 114 through half of Chapter 117 of the manga.

Summary
Several years after the events of Part 2, a group of fishermen submerge a coffin from the water off the coast of Africa with the name DIO written on it. Some time later, the boat is discovered by the Speedwagon Foundation void of its passengers, though the coffin had been found empty.

In the year 1987, 17-year-old delinquent, Jotaro Kujo, grandson of Joseph Joestar, is sent to prison after beating up three armed men and a trained boxer. Despite Holy's insistence, he refuses to leave, claiming that he is possessed by an evil spirit. To demonstrate, he takes a prison guard's gun and shoots himself in the head, but the bullet is stopped by a mysterious floating arm that only he and his mother can see. Holy mentions that his grandfather also possessed similar powers.

Joseph arrives in Japan with a mysterious partner and is greeted by Holy. The three head to the prison, where Joseph confronts Jotaro and asks him to leave the jail cell. Jotaro refuses at first due to his "evil spirit" and takes the pinky off Joseph's prosthetic hand. Joseph reveals his partner to be an Egyptian fortune teller by the name of Muhammad Avdol, whom also reveals a spirit of his own. Avdol's spirit manifests itself as a humanoid with a bird-like head and the ability to produce flames. The spirit launches a projectile of flames causing Jotaro to get pinned against the back wall of the jail cell. Having no other choice, Jotaro releases his own spirit and briefly engages Avdol, but not before the latter halts the fight after pointing out that he had accomplished his goal of removing Jotaro from the cell.

The group leaves the prison and at a local cafe, Joseph demonstrates using his Stand, Hermit Purple, that the sudden appearance of their strange manifestations had erupted from the recent resurrection of the Joestar Arch-nemesis, Dio Brando. Joseph also reveals that this link is due to the fact DIO had managed to take over Jonathan's body. Somewhere else, DIO lies in the shadows fully aware that the group had been watching him with Joseph's Stand. DIO walks off mentioning that while this may be fate, he had already prepared to take care of the Joestars.

Manga/Anime Differences

 * Rather than appearing at the end, the discovery of DIO's coffin appears at the beginning of the episode.
 * A scene is added, showing Holy talking to officers in the police station before they escort her to Jotaro's cell.
 * In the anime, Jotaro is seen reading Baoh in his cell instead of Shonen Jump. This is much like when Joseph reads it in the first episode of the adaptation of Part 2.
 * In the anime, when Jotaro is pinned against the wall by Magician's Red's Red Bind, he kicks a table that hits a toilet and frees himself. In the manga, Jotaro kicks the toilet itself.

Commentary
"In this first episode, I am the director. Frankly, it is quite dense, beginning with the minor characters in the boat scene. We had the same tension than the previous series. The making of this episode took more time than most.

To be precise, one must know that an anime uses three different frames for lips synchronization. For this episode, we went up to four frames. This is extra work for the key animator, for an ultimately discrete result. We then went back to normal for the remainder of the series, except the close-ups chosen by the director.

With this series, we sought to reach a Western aesthetic by observing animation processes used in foreign series and movies. In fact, to apply too many "anime-esque" tropes would have worked against JoJo. It was already the case in the first series, but some motions were still not realistic enough. The goal of this season was thus to improve this aspect as much as possible.

Regarding the animation, we had to manage 12,000 drawings like madmen. That was crazy. (laughs) But the benefit (if there was any?) was mainly towards Magician's Red's flames. In the end, everyone survived (laughs), and I am very satisfied with the first episode. It is a major work and a long series, and we had to jump into the fray and have a good start. Mission accomplished."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries

Trivia

 * This is the first episode to introduce the inclusion of "Stand info cards", which appear after commercial breaks.