JoJo Part 7: Steel Ball Run Manga Review
The year is 1890. A very extensive and strenuous horse race, which is about 6,000 kilometers long, is taking place in San Francisco, California. The destination? New York City. What will the winner get? 50 million USD.
The participant count is way over the roof of the earlier estimates. Hundreds of people from all over the world have come to participate in this esteemed race: A famous jockey from England, a master of Spin hailing from the Kingdom of Naples, an old horse racer from Japan, a nun from the Vatican, a native Indian who runs barefoot, even a former horse racer who can’t walk and many, many more!
But, is the race is all there is to this manga? If you have even a simple idea about JoJo, you know the answer, and if you don’t, read along.
After the mind-blowing ending of Stone Ocean (JoJo part 6), this is yet another roller coaster ride. This JoJo part is so compact that if you start even one chapter, you will be restless until you finish the whole thing. The art is so magnificent that it feels like you’re watching the race live.
The character design in every JoJo part is new and one of the manga’s bestselling points; but the art style in this JoJo part is unparalleled to its predecessors. Stone Ocean was so beautifully drawn that I thought Araki (the creator of JoJo) had done his best art but I was obviously wrong. If you read the colored version of Steel Ball Run, it will feel like the characters are glowing! And the diversity Araki brings in every part is incredible. No matter what he writes about, he owns it. This is the best JoJo part, in my opinion.
Contrary to the previous JoJo parts, we have only one JoBro here- Gyro Zeppeli. But, when you know him, you’ll know that any more JoBro here is unnecessary. Gyro and Johnny Joestar (JoJo) complement each other. One is very confident and the other lacks it, one is a hot headed while the other is cold. If you think Joseph and Caesar are the best JoJo-JoBro combination, I think you will change your mind after seeing Johnny and Gyro.
After the inclusion of Stands in JoJo, this is the first JoJo part where the part’s name doesn’t have any similarity to the main JoJo’s Stand name, but it has similarity to Gyro’s Stand. Although Johnny is the JoJo here and is supposed to be main protagonist but Gyro seems like the one. Gyro is very charismatic, confident, short-tempered, heck, he has even the Joestars’ battle cry!
Gyro appears with a lot of mystery and a bad temper but as the story progresses, the audience sees his funny side. He even writes songs! If I had to describe him in a word, I would say, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Yeah, he is so good that you need that big a word to describe him! Seriously, you cannot not love Gyro. He has so much influence in this part that Johnny seems like a shadow of him. He is undoubtedly the best JoBro (Sorry, Bruno. You’re second).
Araki did a remarkable job in character development in this part. But he could focus a little more to some other racers, too. Some of the characters in this part will be easily in the top 10 JoJo characters list. Gyro and Johnny’s characters are made with so much love and passion that it’s palpable. Their backstory and their transformation are magnificent.
There is a character named Diego Brando-whose nickname is, not surprisingly, Dio- who is made in the OG Dio’s style, which is lauded by most fans but I feel it would better if Araki had stopped bringing Dio up in every other part. Nonetheless, Diego is a very interesting character and adds a lot of value.
The “villains” in this part have a stark dissimilarity to their predecessors, in that, although a lot of them work for the main villain, but most of them have their own motives and own goals. Also, they only seem like villains because the story is told from Johnny and Gyro’s perspective.
Trust me, if the story was told from the side characters’ perspectives, you would fine Johnny and Gyro to be villains. This is one of the best traits of this manga. This part doesn’t have a lot of humanoid Stands and the fights are not won by brute force of the muscles but most of them are psychological battles, and the fights are more intense than ever!
One cannot talk about Steel Ball Run and not mention its main antagonist. He is one of the best antagonists I have ever seen in anime/manga, and is definitely the best in JoJo. If you think somebody other than him is the best in JoJo, then you probably haven’t read Steel Ball Run. But I also think his character has a little stain in it for a decision he took near the end but apart from that, he is fantastic! He is the President of the United States of America, a civil war veteran. He is very ideological and a patriot. He has so much love for his country that he literally has his country’s flag tattooed on his back! And, obviously, his Stand is super powerful!
SBR has a lot of tragic backstory but that doesn’t mean every chapter is written in a serious tone. There are a lot of comedic element. It has an arc based on a folklore and has an excellent reference to Pulp Fiction. These two arcs are so fun to read!
I cannot call SBR “perfect” for some decisions taken at the end of the manga, but I will say this- among the numerous stories I have read, Steel Ball Run is one of the very best.
