The first episode of Battle Tendency introduces not only Joseph Joestar, but also his pickpocket-turned-friend Smokey Brown. The narrative sets Smokey up to be Joseph’s sidekick by structuring his intro scene almost exactly the same way as the meeting between Jonathan and Speedwagon in part 1, but unfortunately, Smokey doesn’t actually get to do much.

We get a small moment that depicts the racism Smokey would’ve had to face in the 1930s, and the epilogue notes that he became the mayor of New York, but his role in the story is almost nonexistent. It would’ve been interesting to see him in person during part 3, at least.

Early in Jojolion, the Higashikata family is overtly hostile towards their newly adopted brother Gappy. One of the first and most deadly opponents Gappy faces is Daiya, whose stand “California King Bed” can capture and erase memories.

Daiya’s battle is fascinating because it’s more psychological than physical and focuses on her blindness. Her yandere attitude is actually endearing once she allies with Gappy, and her memory-stealing power would’ve been immensely useful for unraveling the tangled web of mysteries surrounding Gappy’s past and the Rock Humans. We might see more of her in the future, since part 8 is still running, but it’s not guaranteed.

Female JoJo characters are hard to come by, especially female villains. So it’s too bad that Midler, the High Priestess’ stand user, doesn’t get any lines or even a real character design during her one appearance in Stardust Crusaders.

Araki redesigned her with a star-themed belly dancer outfit for the arcade game and included her in a few pieces of official art, but we still wish Midler had gotten as much screen time as her stand did.

This traditional cowboy fits right in with the Wild West setting of Steel Ball Run, but doesn’t get much time to enjoy it. Mountain Tim serves as an undercover investigator for the sheriff and eventually helps protect Lucy Steel, who he secretly loves. He seems to be a heroic alternate universe version of Hol Horse, calling back to Araki’s scrapped plan to have Hol Horse join the Crusaders.

It would’ve been fun to keep seeing Tim investigating behind the scenes while Johnny and Gyro collected corpse parts, but the decision to give that job to Lucy may have been better in the long run. At least his final battle against Blackmore was amazing.

Fugo is part of Vento Aureo’s main cast and receives equal billing with the rest of Bucciarati’s gang in the anime’s promotional material, but he essentially falls off the face of the earth about 1/3 of the way through the story. We only get to see his toxic stand, Purple Haze, in one battle before Fugo refuses to defy the boss and the rest of the squad leaves him on the island alone.

Araki had originally planned to have Fugo betray the group, but didn’t want to write such a dark scenario at the time and wrote him out of the story instead. We’re not sure we would’ve wanted to see the toxic boy become a villain either, but at least the light novel Purple Haze Feedback gives Fugo the attention he deserves.