Without further ado, here is my review of Steel Ball Run.
「STORY」 - 9/10
Steel Ball Run may not be captivating at first though it was very nice to see familiar names of the JoJo universe. Steel Ball Run starts to pick up the pace when stand battles begin. The story arcs are very well written with an excellent cast of minor characters to accompany it.
「ART」 - 8/10
Hirohiko Araki comes back with the art from part 6 and then improves it as we go along the story. From here, we really see how the characters from Part 1 with fabulous bodybuilders evolve to Part 7 with skinny Gucci models. I prefer the latter as it tends to be more glamorous which goes well with the story, at least in my opinion.
「CHARACTER」 - 10/10
Jonathan Joestar was a kind, tall and muscular English gentleman. He would probably be likable in real life but not so much in the manga/anime because he is very one-dimensional. Johnny Joestar in contrast is a short,skinny and paraplegic American asshole who acts very sarcastically to friends and acquaintances, especially to Gyro.
He is only motivated by the chance that he may walk again if he pursues his journey and that's all he really cares about. He is very relatable due to this because he is not some hero out there to save the day, he only wants to benefit himself. He is accompanied by a goofy mentor who is there to babysit him which makes the story all the more fun.
Dio in the form of Diego Brando is a much better villain, if he is even considered as a villain, with an actual motivation to fight with other people unlike his counterpart who was "born evil".
The villain of the story, Funny Valentine, is probably the best character in my opinion. Although Funny's goal is very immoral, he just does so in order to benefit his country as the President compared to Johnny with his goal to harden his flaccid legs. This makes you sort of cheer for both characters which made me give the characters a score of 10/10, I would give an 11 if possible.
「ENJOYMENT」 - 9/10
Nothing much to talk about here as I probably already expressed my love for the manga in the previous sections of the review but I will say that none of the other JoJo parts have really captivated me, they were just fun to read. Steel Ball Run was very enjoyable,introducing a new way stands fight, although the user does most of the fighting instead of the stand. This made the users seem more vulnerable and made it seemed that there are high stakes in each stand fights. JoJo's lives up to its name for being a manga that's over-the-top.
「OVERALL」 - 9/10
I was glad I avoided as much spoilers as possible when reading Steel Ball Run. It is a very fun and enjoyable read. I highly recommend that people read this with the advice I had at the start of the review or if lacking the free time, have someone summarise the story for you.
If I were to rank all the parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure from my favourite to least favourite, excluding Part 8 as it hasn't finished yet by the time I'm writing this review, it would be: 7>5>4>2>1>3.
