Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Steel Ball Run Resetting The Manga Over Ultimate Soft Reboot Araki Anime

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]So, after writing the same manga series for 20 years, what happens when you promptly decide to stop? Not to write a new manga, but to rewrite the same series over again from the beginning.

[00:00:11]That is what you'll find in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run. Steel Ball Run is the seventh installment of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise.

[00:00:19]A publication that has been serialized since 1987. With Steel Ball Run, the western setting and the focus on a horse race feel completely different compared to the more urban or adventure of the week setting of the previous installments of JoJo's. So far, the series had a lot of action-heavy storylines out in the field and in the wild, but they were all more like random combat situations or battles or quests in search of artifacts. So, these situations of random combat battles or impromptu expeditions are completely different from an organized horse race with clear rules, a pre- designated route, and mostly the same competitors and characters throughout the entire course of the events. That alone gives Steel Ball Run a very different atmosphere. Instead of wandering from place to place in a fairly open-ended way, the story is built around one major event that has structure, momentum, and a destination. That makes everything feel more focused and it also makes the tension feel more constant because the race itself is always moving forward.

[00:01:32]There is always a sense that the characters are being carried along by something bigger than themselves. At this time, I have only seen the first episode of the anime on Netflix, but I have watched the rest of JoJo's up to this point. So, I am coming into this with a good sense of the earlier parts of the franchise, even if I have not seen where this one goes yet. My thoughts here are mainly based on my first impressions of the anime.

[00:02:00]One of the most striking things about JoJo's is the new protagonist. He is a former jockey who lost the use of his legs and was abandoned by his family.

[00:02:11]Everything his life has been about is gone and taken away from him and so Johnny has nothing left anymore. So that is my initial reaction to a protagonist who is paralyzed.

[00:02:23]It's a very different starting point for a JoJo.

[00:02:26]It's unique for a character to be starting after he has already hit his lowest point.

[00:02:32]Most other protagonists of JoJo's start out in a fairly good position where they are confident and somewhat comfortable.

[00:02:40]But Steel Ball Run starts out with Johnny already miserable and defeated.

[00:02:45]Usually these series start out with the main character confident or upbeat or they even start out with the character in good positions. Even if the character starts out unhappy or otherwise not well off, they are still in a relatively good position in the sense that they have way much further to fall over the course of the story. So while a lot of stories do start out with the characters in not great positions, they're not at their lowest point yet. That is what makes Johnny so interesting right away.

[00:03:19]He does not begin as a rising hero with a straightforward path ahead of him. He begins as somebody who has already lost the life he was supposed to have. That gives the story a sense of emotional weight from the beginning because the question is not just whether he can win but whether he can become a person again after being reduced to almost nothing.

[00:03:43]So for things to make sense if any viewers are unfamiliar with JoJo's, I'll have to briefly overview the series.

[00:03:50]JoJo's Bizarre Adventures is a fantasy manga series written by Hirohiko Araki. It premiered in 1987 and has six parts before the series resets with this current iteration. Each part of JoJo's stars a different set of main characters and a different member of the Joestar family. Most of these JoJo's protagonists are a different generation of the Joestar family starring in each successive part and every part up to this installment is a sequel to the previous part. That structure is one of the things that makes the franchise unusual. It is not just one long adventure with the same cast endlessly continuing forever.

[00:04:38]Instead, it reinvents itself while still preserving a family lineage and a shared identity. That means each part can feel fresh while still feeling connected.

[00:04:49]This series is animated by David Productions and the anime looks excellent so far. The character designs look good and do the original manga justice. You can tell David Productions is going to give JoJo's the love and respect it deserves. They're not going to pretend it was drawn ages ago before it actually debuted and was written and then design the characters as if they were made by Fujio Akatsuka or Monkey Punch in 1965. That matters because Steel Ball Run has a very specific visual identity and it needs to be treated like a serious work with its own aesthetic logic. When an adaptation understands that, it helps the whole series feel more alive. It also matters because JoJo's has always been a franchise where the art style is part of the appeal, not just the plot. The way the characters look is part of the storytelling. One thing that's extremely funny is they let a car compete and this was an extremely primitive 1880s car and then it broke down within the first 30 minutes of the race. The tech wasn't ready for prime time at the moment. A race can have some vague similarities to a tournament arc in that often players can be eliminated and unable to continue as the race goes on. It's not obligatory for this to happen to all competitors but it can happen and that makes the plot vaguely parallel to a tournament to some extent. You don't see races that often as the main frame for the combat in anime. So this is what is going to make this anime so unique. The structure is still competitive but it is not the usual bracketed fighting format. The characters are not simply standing in front of each other one by one. They are traveling, plotting, and surviving while the race continues in the background. That makes the action feel more integrated into the world instead of separated from it.

[00:06:51]Every confrontation has to happen within the frame of the journey and that gives the whole story a different rhythm. It feels less episodic and more like a long pressure cooker. Gyro's design is vaguely similar to Caesar's but is different enough to stand out. He has long hair and stubble as well as goggles placed on his hat and yep, those are the most notable differences.

[00:07:17]That kind of design makes him feel like a clear callback without making him feel like a copy. The details make him feel more rugged and more suited for his harsher western environment. He does not look like someone from an elegant urban setting. He looks like someone who belongs on the open frontier where survival depends on toughness and improvisation. That helps the story's world feel more coherent. A character's design is not just decoration in JoJo's.

[00:07:46]It is part of the storytelling language.

[00:07:49]Another notable thing about this installment of the series is that characters from earlier series in the franchise are being reused. It's doing this with a lot of the main characters.

[00:08:01]Johnny Joestar, Gyro Zeppeli, and Diego Brando are the characters Jonathan Joestar, Caesar Zeppeli, and Dio Brando being reused. So, in some sense, these are alternate universe takes on the same characters being reused with different life circumstances and put in different situations in a different story. Which is fitting because the last installment of the series ended with a total universe reset and a totally different universe being created. So, this installment may take place in that new universe with a totally different continentality and history. And this allows the story to start fresh and therefore with a new beginning.

[00:08:46]Giving the story more flexibility to move in various directions.

[00:08:50]Reusing characters in new works is something all the great manga artists do. So, it really shouldn't be a surprise to see it being done here in this work. That kind of reuse is like variation. It lets the author explore the same dramatic shapes in new circumstances.

[00:09:07]A character can feel familiar in outline while still feeling new in execution.

[00:09:13]That is especially effective in series like JoJo's where the audience is already conditioned to look for echoes, parallels, and symbolic repetitions. Dio in part one was a pure vampire villain, but Diego in part seven is a greedy competitor.

[00:09:30]He seems like just another competitor competing in the race. So, I don't know if he'll do worse as the series goes on, but so far he doesn't seem particularly villainous.

[00:09:43]That uncertainty is part of what makes him interesting. The audience knows the name, and the name carries a legacy, but the character is not simply the same old role repeated mechanically. Instead, he exists in a new social and narrative environment. That changes what the person means. In one context, this signals pure evil and domination. In another, it can signal ambition and competitiveness, or danger without immediately making the character feel a full villain. So, this installment takes place in 1890, and therefore takes the series back to its roots as a historical epic set in the past, particularly the late 19th century. So, after almost 20 years, the series has an opportunity to go back to its roots and start anew. This series is written almost 20 years after the debut of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and over 20 years after the author's debut in 1981.

[00:10:43]And after all that time, this will be the first JoJo series moved to another magazine other than Shonen Jump. This is the first installment of the JoJo series to be published in a seinen magazine 20 years after the franchise began.

[00:10:58]>> [snorts] >> Only the first 23 chapters were published in Shonen Jump. The rest were published in a seinen magazine, Ultra Jump. So, given that the series is published in a different magazine with an older demographic, the author is free to write the series in a different way and do different things that wouldn't have been done in a shonen magazine. And the series is a seinen manga from here and out. That matters because it signals a change in what the story can be. It can be more patient, more experimental, and more willing to focus on character psychology, and slow-building tension.

[00:11:40]The move to a seinen magazine fits Steel Ball Run because this is the story that feels less like a conventional battle adventure, and more like an epic about endurance, identity, and transformation.

[00:11:54]It has the freedom to be a strange, serious, and ambitious all at once. And that is part of what makes it feel like such a major story.