Who Will Be the Judge!?

Walking to school, Jotaro is struck when a green-uniformed student swipes a brush across a drawing of him, slicing his leg in the matching spot. He tumbles down a long staircase, softening the fall by catching a branch with Star Platinum. The new student then tends to the wound with a handkerchief and gives his name as Noriaki Kakyoin.

At the nurse's office later, Jotaro finds the nurse in a frenzy, having stabbed a fellow student with a pen. A note on the handkerchief warns that Kakyoin means to kill him, and Kakyoin soon appears at the window. He had planted Hierophant Green inside the nurse to puppet her body, and when Jotaro yanks the Stand free with Star Platinum, Kakyoin retaliates with Emerald Splash, hurling Jotaro across the room. Declaring that the invisible nature of Stands makes him the one to pass judgment, Jotaro breaks loose from Hierophant's tentacles and pummels the Stand until Kakyoin collapses unconscious.

Rather than leave him, Jotaro carries Kakyoin back to Joseph to press for answers about the attack and DIO. At the Kujo estate, Joseph explains that DIO seized control of Kakyoin's mind by planting a flesh bud in his brain.

Noriaki Kakyoin debuts as an enemy, using Hierophant Green to possess a school nurse and attack Jotaro. The episode delivers the series' first Emerald Splash and Jotaro's first Star Platinum barrage. Jotaro defeats and captures Kakyoin instead of killing him. Joseph reveals that DIO controls his victims through a flesh bud embedded in the brain, setting up Kakyoin's eventual freedom and alliance. Brief glimpses of Enya the Hag and Vanilla Ice foreshadow later enemies.

The second Stardust Crusaders episode, and the twenty-eighth overall, covers the back half of Chapter 117 through Chapter 119. The adaptation adds a tea ceremony between Joseph and Avdol, places a Vanilla Ice look-alike beside Enya, and inserts original flashbacks during Jotaro's speech. Holy's humming is swapped from The Loco-Motion in the manga to the J-pop song Aoi Sangoshou. In his commentary, Naokatsu Tsuda recalled storyboarding this early episode with the series' first ORA ORA, noting a two-second slow-motion punch built from 450 frames.