Daniel J. D'Arby
Daniel J. D'Arby is a minor antagonist in Part III: Stardust Crusaders. He is an American professional gambler, and an enemy of the protagonists.
Personality
Daniel J. D'Arby is a calm and collected man with a very sharp mind, but becomes angry every time someone says his name wrong. He describes himself as living for the cheap thrills of gambling, but this does not seem to deter him from cheating in every way he can to ensure his victory. Cheating was one of D'Arby's greatest skills, something he proudly admits, while his eyes aren't deceived easily in case someone decides to cheat against him. He sees no problem at all in cheating in games, because according to him, the cheated player deserves it for being gullible enough to not notice anything wrong in the first place. Jotaro describes him as one of the most dangerous stand users, having almost defeated the entire group without violence.
Synopsis
History
Daniel is a man who seems to have a predatory desire for tricking people into his seemingly innocuous games just to steal their souls with his stand, he then begins goading the loser's friends and family to try winning back the soul, giving him even larger winnings. With this he has collected several souls, including those of the Moor Family. He shares this interest in collecting souls with his younger brother, Terence, though Daniel has no interest in keeping the souls conscious in captivity, instead having them in a deep sleep inside his collection. In addition, his collection is meticulously detailed, with every soul's name listed, as well as area and date of capture.
Stardust Crusaders
The Joestar group encounter D'Arby while searching Cairo for Dio's mansion. After asking around in a cafè he is sitting in, D'Arby tells them he knows the location of the mansion, but refuses to share the information for money. Instead, he tries to convince the group to try winning the information from him in games of chance. He first quickly sets up a game to see which one of two pieces of beef a nearby cat would take first. An impatient Polnareff accepts his bet, as well as the condition that Polnareff bets his soul in return, thinking it is all nonsense. D'Arby wins the bet and takes Polnareff's soul with his Stand, Osiris, as well as revealing himself to be one of Dio's men and the owner of the cat involved in the game.
Because of his Stand's nature, the Joestar group had to beat him at his own game to win back their friend's soul. Joseph tries outsmarting D'Arby in a game where they put coins in a glass of liquor until someone loses by causing the glass to spill over, but D'Arby turns out to be the better cheater.
Jotaro then challenges D'Arby at poker, which the gambler comments on is his strongest game. After Jotaro foils his attempt at second dealing by breaking his finger, D'Arby is visibly shaken and declares that he is no longer fighting for Dio, but for his pride as a gambler. He splits Polnareff's and Joseph's souls into five chips each for them to use. They then get a nearby boy to deal the cards for them. Jotaro loses with his pairs of eights and nines to D'Arby's queens and jacks. As it turns out, D'Arby owns the entire cafè and "everyone within a stone's throw of it". He confidently tells himself that no matter who Jotaro picks to deal the cards, he will only get bad hands.
In the second round of the game, Jotaro refuses to look at his cards, saying he will play with the ones he has, which frustrates D'Arby. Jotaro begins raising D'Arby with his remaining "soul chips", as well as Avdol's and Kakyoin's souls, without a single twitch. He also promises to give up Kakyoin's soul instead of his if he forfeits the poker game. This, along with Star Platinum fetching Jotaro a cigarette and a drink without D'Arby's immediate notice, confuses him and causes him to have doubts about whether he truly is in control of the situation anymore. D'Arby's four kings was apparently a guaranteed win, but he begins wondering if Jotaro really has one of the three possible hands that could beat him, or if Star Platinum had switched the cards without him noticing. As D'Arby is about to call, Jotaro raises his mother's soul, demanding D'Arby meet his raise with information on Dio's Stand. This causes D'Arby to panic, knowing that if he were to lose, Dio would have him killed for betraying him. D'Arby tries to force himself to call Jotaro's bet, but he falls apart completely and becomes a hysteric mess, admitting defeat in his heart. Polnareff, Joseph and the hundreds of other souls D'Arby had collected over the years were freed from his collection.
Stand
His Stand, Osiris, is a very big humanoid figure with muscular arms, a face resembling a mask, and mist instead of a lower body, much like how the genie from Arabic folklore is portrayed today. It has the power to extract a person's soul from his body if certain demands are met, upon which is compresses it into a poker chip for D'Arby to put in his collection..
In Video Games
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (SNES Game)
D'Arby is encountered in a bar earlier in the story and challenges the player to pick out a certain tarot card. The other player characters lose and have their spirit taken (Represented by their mental points dropping to 1) but the last player character wins on the final turn, restoring their mental points and moving the story on.
Daniel does not cheat all in said game and no explicit mention is made of his Stand nor does he go insane after being beaten.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future (PS1/DC/Arcade Game)
D'Arby, along with his cat and his Stand, cameo in the game's continue screen. If the player lets the timer run down, Osiris takes their soul away compressing it into a poker chip. In the updated game and HD rerelease, D'Arby appears on the main menu. When the player selects a mode or when they continue, D'Arby shouts his signature phrase, "GOOD!"
In the PSX version's Super Story Mode, D'Arby is encountered as a boss with three different minigames, all of them the same as the manga. the first two games are rigged as they were in the manga, so the player will always lose, but the Poker minigame allows the player to win once they unlock and choose the "Bluff" option.
However, if the player replays the minigames via the Boingo Book menu, this time the player can win said minigames to see optional different endings, and can also win the poker game legitimately by forcing D'Arby to run out of coins to bet with.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle (PS3 Game)
D'Arby appears on the game as an explanatory character in one of the game menus CUSTOMIZATION MODE, guiding the player to edit the characters lines and size of in-game kanjis (SFX) and also appears as a support in campaign mode.
Gallery
- D'Arby OVA.jpg
D'Arby as seen in the 1993 OVA adaptation.
Daniel in Heritage for the Future.
Trivia
- Although his relationship with his younger brother is questioned & somewhat unexplained, he once was savagely beat by Telence T. Darby after he tried to steal telence's girlfriend.
- Perhaps the reason why D'Arby lost so much of his composure in his poker game with Jotaro was that he thought that Star Platinum had the same ability as Dio's Stand, The World. This however, was proven to be true later in the story.
References
