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Considering the title, you’d think that nothing JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure could throw at fans would be surprising. After all, if it isn’t being 'bizarre,' is it really JoJo? However, I honestly thought the anime adaptation would end with Part 6, so the announcement in April 2025 that we’re getting a Steel Ball Run anime caught me off guard. In many ways, it could be the strangest JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure arc.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run feels like a huge departure for the series. After Stone Ocean brings time travel into the series and effectively breaks the cycle of destruction that has followed the Joestar family for generations, it felt like the end of the family’s grand adventures. In fact, when Steel Ball Run was first published, it didn’t have the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure moniker attached. It felt like a totally new story from Hirohiko Araki set in a new world – and it kind of is.

See, Steel Ball Run takes place in the 1890s, right around the same time as the events of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. This helps establish it as a hard reset of the series, set in a new continuity that springs up from the end of Stone Ocean. Instead of showing us a new generation of Joestars who have inherited the iron will to do good from Jonathon, we see a totally new incarnation called Johnny Joestar who has entered a cross-country horse race from San Diego to New York City. Steel Ball Run is so different from what came before that I couldn't imagine fans falling for it the way we did with the rest of the series.

It is also one of the strangest arcs in the JoJo’s series, which is saying something. It focuses on an attempt to revive the Holy Corpse, which is the body of Jesus in all but name, and brings alternate dimensions into a story that already has a dinosaur riding a horse, a strange power derived from spinning balls, and a main character who shoots fingernails like bullets from his hands. Because it is so weird and jumps into a separate continuity from the proceeding arcs, I always thought it wouldn’t get an anime adaptation.

I’m incredibly glad to be wrong on that front because Steel Ball Run is, in many ways, a celebration of everything that came before it in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Johnny is basically an American Jonathan Joestar, learning the power Spin from Gyro Zeppeli. Spin here takes the place of Hamon energy from Parts 1 and 2 of JoJo, but Steel Ball Run also features the strange Stand abilities that became the focus of the story from Part 3 onward. It is the only arc in the series that comes close to using both supernatural abilities like Hamon and the Stands that became the series’ trademark from Stardust Crusaders onward.

There are references to JoJo’s characters sprinkled throughout Steel Ball Run, but it is a pseudo-retelling of Phantom Blood with an Old West twist. Diego Brando is similar to Dio in his backstory and motivation but with a significantly less murderous intent. Gyro Zeppeli fulfills the same role of mentor as Will Zeppeli but is more of a friend than a teacher. 

I went into Steel Ball Run expecting to feel disappointed that it didn’t continue the series’ trademark bloodline and push the series into the future, but, actually, this is probably the best-written arc in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The threats are big but the stakes feel personal. Araki has mastered the art of introducing a new protagonist and immediately making us fall in love with them and Johnny Joestar is possibly the best example of that. You can see how Jonathan, the original protagonist of the series, forms the basis for this Joestar but he has more depth and is far more interesting than any JoJo until probably Giorno in Golden Wind.

So yeah, I went into Steel Ball Run’s manga thinking that it would never get an anime adaptation. It was weird even for a series with Bizarre in the title and so different from what came before that it threatened to leave existing JoJo’s fans behind. But what it became was the perfect reset of a series that has been going strong since the 80s. Steel Ball Run celebrates everything great about JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and manages to elevate it to new heights. This is the perfect jumping-in point for fans intimidated by the series’ long history and strange characters and I can’t wait to see it animated.

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