A Letter from the Past

By 1888, seven years have passed since Dio entered the Joestar household, and a killer known as Jack the Ripper stalks the city. On the surface all seems well: Jonathan is the hero of a rugby final at Hugh Hudson Academy, feeding the ball to Dio for the winning score before graduation, and the two young men have excelled in law and archaeology. Dio has even begun calling George father rather than lord. Yet Jonathan still feels no warmth toward him, and with good reason, since Dio is merely biding his time until he is old enough to seize the family fortune.

George has fallen ill, his condition steadily worsening. Testing the Stone Mask with a drop of his own blood, Jonathan watches tentacles briefly emerge before subsiding. He then stumbles onto a case holding a letter Dario Brando wrote from his deathbed years earlier, and is horrified to realize the symptoms it describes match his father's exactly. Confronting Dio, Jonathan learns the truth: Dio murdered his own father and now intends to poison George the same way. When Dio strikes him, the far stronger Jonathan hurls his rival down from the second floor and vows to have the medicine analyzed and see him jailed. Dio resolves to finish Jonathan before any proof can be found.

Jonathan tells George he is bound for London for a few days and warns him to accept treatment only from the doctors he has brought. In his absence, Dio reads Jonathan's notes on the Stone Mask and plots to kill him with it, so the death would look like a research accident. In London, the carriage driver refuses to enter the perilous Ogre Street, so Jonathan pushes on alone. He witnesses the district's savagery, is set upon by three men, and dispatches a kempo master with a single blow before facing an attacker whose spinning bowler hat conceals a blade. Though the hat gashes his arm, Jonathan drops the man with a heavy kick. The stranger, calling himself Speedwagon, calls off the surrounding mob, impressed that Jonathan held back his strength, and agrees to lead him to the oriental shop.

Back near the mansion, a drunken and guilt-ridden Dio decides to test his plan for killing Jonathan. He places the Stone Mask on a vagrant and forces the man to stab his companion, and a burst of light signals the mask's activation as tentacles pierce the man's skull. The victim seems to die, then rises with his aging reversed to youth, feeling no pain even after Dio splits his hand, and drives his fist deep into a wall. He seizes Dio and begins draining his blood, but the rising sun disintegrates him before Dio loses consciousness. Dio returns home to find Jonathan already waiting for him.

Jonathan and Dio win their final rugby match before graduating. Jonathan discovers Dario Brando's old letter and recognizes that George's illness mirrors it, exposing Dio's poisoning scheme. After Jonathan throws Dio from the upper floor, he departs for London to gather proof of the oriental poison. He survives an assault in Ogre Street and befriends Speedwagon. Dio tests the Stone Mask on a vagrant, watches the man transform into a bloodthirsty being, and is nearly killed before sunrise destroys the creature.

First broadcast on October 13, 2012, the episode was written by Yasuko Kobayashi and covers chapters 6 through 10. It opens with JoJo ~Sono Chi no Sadame~ and ends on Roundabout. This installment marks Speedwagon's debut. The adaptation streamlined several manga beats, shortening Dario's flashback and trimming the sequence in which Dio buys poison from Wang Chan down to a few brief shots.