(Spoilers for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure parts 3, 4, and 6.)
When watching Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, a couple of things stuck out to me as weird. And I don’t mean in the standard JoJo’s way either. The narrative flow is what seemed a bit off to me.
Avdol’s double death was odd, the focus on Polnareff over Jotaro seemed out of place, and in all honesty, some people’s Stand changed abilities partway through the story. (I’m looking at you, Hermit Purple.) But for me, the most bizarre in about Stardust Crusaders is Anne, The Runaway Girl, who leaves, returns, and leaves again.
I believe it is likely that this part of Jojo’s had its beginning and ending planned, but the middle was whatever Araki came up with along the way. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it led to the weirdness I mentioned earlier. Araki probably just wanted to use her and couldn’t think of a way to make her relevant, so he wrote her out.
In this post, I want to throw out a couple of ideas for how Anne could have been vital to Stardust Crusaders instead of a bizarre footnote. (I promise I’ll stop using this pun.)
Stairway To Heaven
Early on, it would be pretty easy for DIO to track the gang since they tried to take the most direct and obvious ways to travel from Japan to Egypt. However, their movements became harder to track after the battle with Deep Blue Moon.
How are you meant to find a handful of people in the middle of the ocean? I’ll tell you! You Need a homing beacon.
Sure, DIO can track them with Jonathan’s Stand, but his followers wouldn’t be able to get that information fast enough to intercept the gang. In a later part, it is established that Stand Users are drawn to each other, but it’s never portrayed as being as easy as it is for DIO’s followers.
So, what if Anne was a mole, planted to lead DIO’s followers to the gang.
How would she do this, you ask? With her Stand, of course!
Her Stand would be named Stairway To Heaven. (Surprisingly, this name isn’t officially used in the series. It was almost used in Part 6, but it didn’t stick). This Stand would allow the User to be tracked by any persons of their choosing or to be tracked by anyone they have met. This would be the reason Anne had to come into contact with the gang in the first place.
As Part 3 progressed, it became clear that Anne developed a crush on Jotaro, so that could be the way to defeat her or get her to switch sides.
KidzBop
In this scenario, Anne would be on the squad in place of Iggy. (Or, in addition to him, depending on how you feel.) So, here’s a what-if for Anne developing a Stand and staying with the guys.
If Anne developed a Stand mid-story, the Stand Arrows would have to be introduced, or Ann could get a story arc similar to Trish’s.
I saw on a Tumblr post a few years ago that theorized a Stand for Anne named KidzBop. The Stand would have the ability to poorly copy other Stands. I feel that giving her this Stand would make her somewhat useful in combat.
Get Yo Dog
Iggy is a bit of a handful. He is violent, disobedient, and loves to fart in Polnareff’s face. The gang would have probably left him behind if they didn’t need the Stand power he brings to the table.
The thing is that later we find out that Iggy is kind of a prev and likes it when pretty girls fawn over him. This doesn’t really lead anywhere. It’s just a one-off gag, but what if the team used this to keep Iggy under control?
This would work like a double Stand situation, similar to the Kira-Killer Queen-Stray Cat dynamic. Anne could command Iggy, who in turn commands his Stand, The Fool. We know this would work because Iggy is also shown to be weak to children as well.
Also, Iggy would probably live through Part 3 as a result. When the gang enters DIO’s mansion to fight, I doubt they would bring a girl without a Stand into battle. She would likely be told to wait outside, and since Iggy was so injured from his battle with Pet Shop, they would be more likely to leave Iggy with her.
Dear Future Wife
This is less about how Anne’s role in Part 3 could have been altered and more about giving her a role later that retroactively brings meaning to her appearance in Part 3. The main protagonist of Part 6 is Jolyne Cujoh, Jotaro’s daughter with an Americanized spelling to her name. What we don’t know is who her mother is. The woman is simply known as Jotaro’s ex-wife and Jolyne’s mother.
Well, actually, we know a couple of things.
- She is Italian-American
- She had to give birth to Jolyne 5 years after part 3.
- As far as we know the relationship, everything was legal age-wise.
- She doesn’t have a Stand.
These conditions don’t necessarily exclude Anne from being Jolyne’s mother and Jotaro’s future ex-wife.
Sure we met her in Hong Kong, but we also meet Polnareff there. We’re told that Hong Kong is super international and full of people from all over. The father that Anne is running away from could be Italian or even Italian-American and was only in Hong Kong temporarily for work.
We never actually learn how old Anne is. Heck, the manga doesn’t even bother to name the girl, but we get a couple of hints. There is an uncomfortable shower scene where Anne gets attacked by Forever, the pervy Orangutan. Not only does this animal pick up on some pheromones indicating that Anne is old enough to-You know what, no.
I’m not trying to put logic behind a primate assaulting a child. There’s a better way to do this.
Anne has boobs. It’s shown in that scene I just mentioned, and Jotaro could tell she was a girl because he felt them under her shirt. That stage of puberty starts from 8 to 13, plus the fact that Anne says she won’t be able to disguise herself as a boy for much longer, we can assume she is on the older end of that spectrum. If we are generous about her age, Anne could be 18 when Jolyne is born.
You can kind of tell that this last scenario was the one I’ve thought about the most. I don’t actually ship them. I just honestly thought that was the direction Anne’s character was going because I could understand any other reason for her characters to be there otherwise. I was surprised when I found out that Jolyne’s mother was some nameless woman.
Though, I suppose it’s still possible that the anime might make Anne Jotaro’s ex-wife. After all, Anne didn’t have a name until the most recent anime, so maybe Jotaro’s ex-wife’s name will be revealed to be Anne. It’s more likely that the identity of Jolyne’s mom is just like the identity of Josuke’s savior: a random person who wandered into the story. In a way, I guess that’s who Anne was as well.
This was originally going to be a standalone post, but the more I wrote, the more I realized that this would fit my If I Could Rewrite series. Like I said, I wanted to keep If I Could Rewrites focus more on story arcs but considering both posts I’ve done so far haven’t stuck to that model, maybe I’ll rethink that.
I Think Thinks 