SC Episode 35

D'Arby the Gambler, Part 2 (ダービー·ザ·ギャンブラー その②) is the thirty-fifth episode of Stardust Crusaders, the eleventh episode of the Egypt Arc, and the sixty-first episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. It covers last four pages of Chapter 213 through Chapter 216 of the manga.

The battle against Daniel J. D'Arby continues. Jotaro challenges D'Arby to a game of poker. However, poker is the game D'Arby is the best at and the gambler will gladly cheat to steal the souls of the surviving heroes.

Summary
Before the game of poker begins, Jotaro shows off how precise Star Platinum's eyesight is and after D'Arby briefly shuffles a deck, guesses every card's position correctly. Although D'Arby argues that he only needs to hide the cards from Star Platinum, Jotaro precise that his demonstration is a warning against cheating. As Jotaro checks the deck of cards, D'Arby prepares himself, revealing that his uncanny sense of touch will help him memorize the deck. The preparations complete, D'Arby declares the game open.

D'Arby wins the right to shuffle and deal first. However, Jotaro immediately spots his attempt at a "second dealing", purposefully keeping a card for himself. For that, Star Platinum breaks his finger. Having learned his lesson, D'Arby declares that he's now fighting out of personal pride as a gambler and not for DIO anymore. The gambler splits Polnareff and Joseph's souls into six poker chips each and gives Jotaro six blank chips to represent his soul so that they can make bets more seriously. For their part, Jotaro and Avdol get a boy near the café to deal for them.

In the first turn, Jotaro loses three chips in his first hand against D'Arby, giving the gambler full confidence that he will beat Jotaro. Then, D'Arby is dealt with four kings in his second hand. However, he then notices that Jotaro is not even bothering to look at his cards and the student assures everyone that the cards are fine as they are. This troubles D'Arby as a gambler and he begins to worry when Jotaro bets the rest of his soul and, with Avdol's full confidence, raises him the Egyptian's soul. D'Arby recomposes himself as he knows the boy and everyone else in the café area in his employ, and the boy is sure he has dealt Jotaro a worthless hand. Guessing that Jotaro is attempting a worthless bluff, D'Arby calls but also raises Jotaro all six of Joseph's soul chips. To undermine Jotaro psychologically, D'Arby suggests that they bet Kakyoin's soul.

Surprisingly, Jotaro calmly accepts to call and bets Kakyoin's entire soul, shocking D'Arby by his nerves. As Jotaro and Avdol argue about the morality of such an act, D'Arby catches a glimpse of Star Platinum who lights Jotaro's cigarette up. The gambler realizes that Star Platinum is extremely fast and the possibility of Jotaro having switched out his cards right under his nose takes root in his mind. Becoming nervous, D'Arby tries to reassure himself as he considers the near impossibility of such a feat, but he nearly breaks down when he notices that Jotaro is now suddenly sipping a cocktail without him having noticed. Angry, D'Arby tries to end the turn but Jotaro then declares that he's going to raise his mother Holy Kujo's soul. In return, Jotaro demands the secret of DIO's Stand. D'Arby is shaken to the core as he does know DIO's secret ability but runs the risk of being executed for leaking it. At wit's end, D'Arby tries to call but psychologically breaks down under the pressure. He subconsciously folds and releases both Polnareff and Joseph.

Avdol looks at Jotaro's cards, realizing that he had a worthless hand all this time. Jotaro thus admits he never once looked at his cards to keep his cool and laments that they will not be able to interrogate the now-insane D'Arby for information on DIO's Stand. The boy accomplice runs away from the scene, screaming in terror after witnessing his boss being reduced to a loon after the game. In the end, the group leaves the café safe and sound, but not having progressed one bit in their search for DIO.

Commentary
"With everything happening while sitting in the same location, the layout was apparently more troublesome than ever.

Our chief animation director, Masahiko Komino, directly managed the episode. It's a part of the story he particularly appreciates and he's effectively put everything in it.

I liked Daniel's transformation, who's all bleached at the end of the game. Also there's the ending where Iggy then looks from the corner of his eye, that's him all right. He's really well made for this, it's easy to use this dog to punctuate a scene as we like (laughs).

Daniel's ability is really fearsome. Had he not bent to Jotaro's bluff, he would have annihilated the group in one move with a disconcerting ease. It's a really powerful enemy. There wasn't a Stand fight properly speaking, but the situation was more critical than ever. A struggle that has taken a form different than usual, but where the tension was real."

- Naokatsu Tsuda, Blu-Ray limited edition commentaries

Trivia

 * In the first round, D’Arby wagers three chips of Polnareff’s soul, however, the third chip has red stripes when he holds it in his hand, the color of Joseph’s chips.
 * D'Arby's internal monologue says that Jotaro would have had to secretly swap out all five of his cards to make a hand that could beat his own. However, based on the bad hands Jotaro got, he would have only needed to swap three cards to make 4 Aces, or four cards to make a Straight Flush or Five of a Kind.
 * The entire episode was greatly updated in the Blu-Ray release; featuring animation touch-ups, Jotaro's smoking being uncensored and several scenes change entirely.