Vanilla Ice

Vanilla Ice (ヴァニラ・アイス) is an antagonist featured in Stardust Crusaders.

Vanilla Ice is the last Vampire created by DIO and the deadliest of his minions.

Appearance
A very tall, muscular man, Vanilla Ice keeps tan, slightly wavy collarbone length hair. He wears two metallic heart-shaped earrings, and a light head piece carrying a heart crossing his forehead.

He wears a sort of leotard, wide-necked; on top of which a dark and leather-like tailed, open, waistcoat-esque piece; and a metallic sash that leaves a large heart over his right breast and a smaller heart at the base of his abdomen, also secured by a band around his waist. Bare-legged, he wears dark, mid-calf height boots.

Personality
Vanilla Ice is defined by his fanatical and single-minded loyalty to DIO. When DIO relates that he might want blood to heal, Vanilla Ice uses his Stand to sever his own head and fill an urn with his own blood. This is heavily implied to be a test of loyalty, as DIO promptly revives Vanilla Ice as a Vampire without drinking the offered blood.

Although Vanilla Ice is normally a calm, reasoning and collected individual, he flies into a tremendous rage when DIO is disrespected in any way, shape, or form. When Iggy creates a sand construct of DIO in an attempt to take Vanilla Ice off-guard, the latter immediately abandoned his Stand in favor of beating Iggy to death with his bare hands and feet, stating that Iggy deserved a more drawn-out death than the simple annihilation brought by Cream's void form.

It is also implied that Vanilla Ice is somewhat absent-minded, being prone to using his Stand's void form to punch through walls instead of using the door.

Abilities
Vanilla Ice's Stand, the profoundly destructive Cream, can swallow itself and its master to become a spherical void of nothingness that obliterates everything in its path. Its only weakness is that it cannot see where it is going when in void form, forcing Vanilla Ice to temporarily expose himself in order to plot Cream's course.

After being made into a Vampire by DIO, Vanilla Ice adopts a standard set of vampiric powers and weaknesses.

Stardust Crusaders
Vanilla Ice is introduced as a human, reporting the defeat of Telence T. D'Arby to DIO, outside the door to his chambers. After being allowed to enter, Ice was told the reason for D'Arby's defeat was because he was unwilling to give his life for DIO. He was then asked if he would surrender his blood in order to heal DIO's neck wound. Without hesitation, Vanilla Ice proves his loyalty by cutting off his own head and allowing his blood to spill into an urn for his master to drink.

DIO, amused by this, refuses to take the blood of such a devout servant and decides to heal himself using someone else instead. Vanilla Ice is brought back to life from the blood his master poured into his body. After his revival, he was dispatched to take care of the Joestars. He activated his Stand; Cream, before leaving to do DIO's bidding (prompting DIO to lament that he forgot to use the door in his haste).

Vanilla Ice's first targets were Iggy, Jean Pierre Polnareff and Muhammad Avdol. Though he was aiming to dispatch all of them at once with a surprise attack, he only manages to kill Avdol, who shoved Polnareff and Iggy out of the way before the attack hit.

In a rage, Polnareff retaliated with a barrage from Silver Chariot, wounding Vanilla Ice's shoulder and demolishing the wall of the room he was in. After nearly being killed by another of Ice's attacks, he and Iggy fled. Instead of pursuing them directly, Vanilla Ice sent Cream to the front door, where he waited in his Stand's void form. Contrary to his expectations, the duo decided to go for DIO instead of fleeing - thus, Vanilla Ice gave chase, destroying most of the mansion with his Stand's powers. After getting ahead of them, Ice erases part of Polnareff's foot to prevent him from running away again.

Thanks to a distraction from Silver Chariot, Iggy uses The Fool to hide and to create a replica of DIO to trick Vanilla Ice. Although briefly shocked by his master's appearance, Vanilla Ice quickly destroyed the clone; he explained that he saw through the ruse because of the sunlight in the room and because he knew DIO trusted him too much to interfere in the battle. Enraged because he had to destroy DIO's image in self-defense, Vanilla Ice exited Cream and viciously beat Iggy to the point of near-death. After turning his attention to Polnareff, he was skewered in the mouth by Silver Chariot's sword after using the sand in the room to track Cream's movements. Due to Ice's newfound immortality, he survived the attack and destroyed part of Polnareff's left hand by drawing it into Cream's mouth.

He then wounded Polnareff in a quick succession of attacks, breaking his right arm and absorbing part of his leg and cheek. He then began moving in a spiral movement around the room with Polnareff and Iggy at the center; by doing so, Vanilla Ice would kill them without leaving himself vulnerable. Unable to escape, Polnareff told Iggy to use his powers to escape and warn the others - but the dog's pride caused him to save Polnareff instead. This caused Iggy to die from over-exertion, prompting an enraged Polnareff to skewer Vanilla Ice through the head and snap his neck.

However, Vanilla Ice rose once again, more determined than ever to finish off his enemy. Unfortunately for him, Polnareff had finally deduced that Vanilla Ice was turned into a vampire by DIO, due to Vanilla Ice's ability to recover from several fatal injuries. With that in mind, Polnareff avenges his fallen comrades by taking advantage of Vanilla Ice's newfound fatal weakness to sunlight, using Silver Chariot to slice a nearby curtain and flood the room with sunlight, which vaporizes much of Vanilla's right arm and left leg. After curtly goading Vanilla to attack him, Polnareff uses Silver Chariot to nudge the crippled vampire into the light - disintegrating him instantly and putting an end to DIO's line of vampire servants.

In the OVA
Vanilla Ice appears in the 1993 episodes of the OVA, his sole appearance being in the episode "The Warrior of the Void: Vanilla Ice". He serves the same purpose as in the manga: A servant of DIO who battles Polnareff and kills Avdol and Iggy.

In the OVA, Ice slices Iggy in half and kicks the dying dog's corpse into a wall out of anger for the dog daring to defy DIO.

His death in the OVA differs heavily from the manga. In the OVA, Polnareff repeatedly stabs Ice in a rage after seeing him murder Iggy, before slicing Ice's head in half.

JoJo RPG (SFC)
Vanilla Ice appears as the game's penultimate boss before DIO. As a boss, Vanilla Ice is the second most difficult character to beat, as he has a large amount of health. He uses his Stand to attack.

The main difference from the original story is that all 6 heroes battle Ice at once and that he does not kill Avdol and Iggy straight away. Both stay alive for the remainder of the game.

Heritage for the Future (PS1/DC/Arcade)
Vanilla Ice appears in two "forms" in Heritage for the Future. The first is the standard character which can be selected on the main menu for Story Mode or versus play, and the second functions as the 'Mini-Boss' which occurs before the final battle with DIO.

These two "forms" are more or less identical in appearance, but the Mini-Boss version of Ice can use alternate special attacks and super moves that do greatly increased damage. As a CPU boss, he uses his Stand's void more often to attack, generally by either moving in a straight line on the bottom of the screen or sweeping from top to bottom in an arc. His supers both involve more drastic movement. One super has him void-warp around in a spiraling circle, just like in the manga and anime.

Vanilla Ice's Story Mode starts after the Joestar party has infiltrated DIO's mansion in Egypt. The Vampire is able to eliminate one hero after another, until he fights Jotaro himself to the death. Afterwards, Ice reports his success to DIO. According to his ending, the Stand Vampire blood which transformed Ice took complete control of him afterwards, and he became DIO's slave forever.

If other characters, such as fellow villains in the game fight him in the game's Story Mode, the spiralling grooves from his attacks are not present in the stage.

Strategy
Vanilla Ice is predictably one of the most powerful fighters in Heritage for the Future, arguably much more deadly than his Mini-Boss appearence if used by a skilled player.

Aside from commanding powerful array of physical attacks, Vanilla's specialty, much like in the manga, is to use the powers of the "void" to crash into his opponents and damage them. He can take the form of the void ball while on the ground, in mid-air, and even change directions in the middle of a charge. This allows a player with quick reflexes to counter an oncoming attack, juggle an opponent into the air with careful timing, or even retreat in the face of danger.

Caution is advised however, because unlike the manga, Vanilla Ice is STILL vulnerable while in his "void ball" form, and can be hit by projectile attacks (or even certain physical attacks, if the angle is correct).

Ice can also take the full form of his Stand Cream, who possesses very powerful and far-reaching attacks, but it comes at a steep penalty in speed.

As noted before, Ice really shines in the hands of experienced players, as he benefits greatly from the Tandem mechanic. Unlike other fighters, who can attack faster when using the Tandem, this ability allows Ice and Cream to attack the opponent simultaneously for long and brutal combos. While this takes careful timing to execute properly, Ice is more than capable of depleting half of the opponent's energy in a single flurry of blows.

All of this gives Vanilla Ice the tools to be one of the most deadly characters in game, when played properly.

All-Star Battle (PS3/PS4)
Vanilla Ice returns as DLC character on the PS3 title. He was confirmed along with Anasui for the 4th campaign. He, DIO, Old Joseph, Johnny and Gyro are the only characters to have two different styles (Stand and Vampirism Powers in the case of Ice and DIO). Most of his attacks from the previous game returns, but made slower to balance him out. He now has the ability to drain blood which he does by grabbing his victim up from the nick, whilst also whispering "Lord DIO..." (much like DIO did to Joseph Joestar. This is also the first time in any Jojo media that Ice is seen draining blood).

His HHA has him use his Stand, Cream, to devour his victim before spitting them out, reminiscent of his devouring of Avdol's freshly severed arms. His GHA is using Cream to carve a violent closing spiral on the opponent before thrashing them (in exactly the same fashion he did to Polnareff and his earring as well as the Capcom game).

Vanilla Ice is also the only character whose Stand's activity has a time limit, at first Vanilla Ice had a bar over his HHA/GHA bar representing the time limit for Cream to be active, due to recent DLC fixes, the bar now fades away confirming the amount of time the player uses Cream to attack. After using any attack that requires Cream's special ability, Vanila Ice's face will appear outside Cream's mouth looking for the opponent (representing the "weakness" of the Stand).

Vanilla Ice has special intro dialogue with Part III DIO before the fight starts, wherein both men acknowledge this fight as a training match. When Ice wins, he pledges eternal loyalty to DIO.

Although his default hair color is dirty blond in ASB, his unlockable Color D changes his hair color to white and his clothes to pink, the same ones seen in the Capcom games and the OVA.

In the English dub of the game, the subtitles of his default opening line read "Let's kick it on time...", a clear reference to the opening lyrics for his namesake's, Vanilla Ice's song Ice Ice Baby.

Eyes of Heaven (PS3/PS4)
Vanilla Ice was confirmed for the game alongside DIO.

Unlike the previous game, his main color scheme is now based on his anime appearance, including the effects of Cream's ability.

In the story mode, he is revived by DIO (in his Heaven Ascension form, but from alternate world where he finally conquered the world) and now able to fight in a daylight thanks DIO's new godlike powers on him, similar to the way how Kars becomes immune to the daylight after using the Red Stone of Aja implanted Stone Mask on him. He is seen in the last part of Chapter 2, set in Part 5/Vento Aureo timeline in Italy, backing a now revived and brainwashed Bruno Buccellati to kill the heroes and to get the Saint Corpse Parts from them. However, he and Buccellati are defeated by Polnareff and Giorno Giovanna as they retreat via teleportation by DIO. Before Ice retreat after Buccellati first, he is asked by Polnareff about his true loyalty, the late-DIO or "that man". However, Ice only says that he only loyals to one person, without telling them "that man" they speak of is none other than his master DIO, Ice knows this and depart afterwards.

Tournament
Vanilla Ice is paired with Jotaro in the Eyes of Heaven tournament.

Trivia

 * Vanilla Ice holds the record for the greatest number of protagonist kills in Part III, having killed both Iggy and Avdol. In comparison, DIO only kills Noriaki Kakyoin, although he comes dangerously close to killing Joseph Joestar.
 * In the OVA, Vanilla Ice kills Iggy far more brutally. In the manga, he indirectly forces Iggy to exhaust himself defending Polnareff, while in the OVA, after being blindsided by an attack from Iggy, Ice uses Cream to eradicate his lower half from behind and kicks his body into a nearby pillar.
 * Furthermore, in the OVA, he dies in a different way. In the manga, Polnareff forces him into the light of the sun let in by the holes in the wall that Ice created himself, while in the OVA, Polnareff simply stabs Ice repeatedly before slicing his head in half.
 * In the North American localization of Heritage for the Future, his name is "Iced"; possibly to avoid a lawsuit by his namesake, rapper Vanilla Ice.
 * Incidentally, one of his win quotes ("You had a problem.... I just solved it.") is still a reference to the namesake singer, as it is derived from a line from his hit song "Ice Ice Baby".
 * In Heritage for the Future, Vanilla Ice can use his Stand even after being de-aged by Alessi, implying he was either born with or developed his Stand ability at a very young age.
 * In All Star Battle, Ice can drain blood from his opponent despite that in canon, he has no idea that he is a Vampire. This was most likely added to justify his use of the Vampirism style along with the Stand style. Though it could also be reflexive, as the first instinct of the homeless man DIO turns into a Vampire using the Stone Mask in Phantom Blood was to drain blood from DIO, despite there being no way either one of them knew what was going on.
 * He and Enrico Pucci share the same voice actor in different games, Sho Hayami, who voiced Vanilla Ice in Heritage of the Future and Enrico Pucci in All-Star Battle.
 * Sho Hayami returned to JoJo for a third time, as he reprises the role of Vanilla Ice in the anime adaptation of Part III.
 * This makes Vanilla Ice the only character to have their voice actor from Heritage for the Future reprise their role for the anime, more than 15 years after it was released.

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