Steel Ball Run is the (at the moment this review is being published) last completed arc of the long running Jojo's Bizarre Adventure saga, a franchise that has lasted more than 2 decades. While each part of the series has always had its own contributions and spin on the formula, Steel Ball Run in particular stands out from the crowd for one big reason.

Sometime after concluding part 6 (stone ocean), Hirohiko Araki decided that he was through with the limitations of the weekly serialization format and the shounen demographic, of which he had worked in for several years. He figured that with a series that had gone on as long as Jojo, there was no point in continuing it if the series did not grow up with its audience and become a more ambitious and challenging manga. So to that end, while Steel Ball Run was initially serialized in Shounen Jump for some time, it was eventually moved to its sister magazine Ultra Jump, and announced as part 7 of the Jojo saga.

This turned out to be for the best, because Part 7 is almost certainly the best Jojo part to be completed at this time, and honestly the crowning achievement of Araki as a mangaka.

Inspired by ambitious western storylines, both from movies like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and serialized tv stuff like 24 and Lost, Araki created a sprawling epic that is by far the longest Jojo part at 24 volumes. The story functions as a wildly different retelling of part 1 (phantom blood) in a new universe, and when i say wildly different i mean that. there are no vampires, no ripple, the characters equivalents in the story are completely different and some characters don't exactly function as equivalents at all, the premise of the plot is not the same whatsoever, etc. It is more accurate to say that part 7 borrows various elements from the first four parts and repackages them in a completely new way, while still keeping a number of nods and shout-outs to the old Jojo universe.

Perhaps the best example of the differences between the two is between Jonathan, the main character of part 1, and his equivalent in SBR, Johnny. Jonathan was a enormous hulk of a man, a quintessential british gentleman who was the archetypal hero, pure, selfless, courageous, brave, and noble. Johnny Joestar is a young, scrawny, cynical, ruthless, and cunning paraplegic mostly out for himself. Indeed, while the Jojo's of each part almost always had some sort of flaw, they were all fundamentally heroic and selfless. Johnny, on the other hand, is the most flawed and morally ambiguous of them all, but this only serves to make him more interesting. It is very easy to say that he is the most psychologically complex and compelling main character in the series yet.

This more nuanced style of characterization extends to the rest of the cast as well, with Gyro Zepelli, Johnny's co-star, being immensely charismatic but also highly fleshed out and interesting, being much more than what his initial showy persona would have you believe. Other characters like Diego Brando, the newly reimagined and much more sympathetic counterpart to Dio, Hot Pants, the mysterious racer with a horrible secret, Lucy Steel, a young girl way out of her depth who shows extreme courage in dire situations, and Funny Valentine, the most well-intentioned Jojo villain and certainly one of its memorable and charismatic.

No longer shackled with the restraints of the shounen demographic, the story deals with adult subject matter much more openly and maturely than the previous parts of the series (keeping in mind that Stone Ocean is probably one of the most adult shounen stories ever), such as domestic abuse, sexual relations (both consensual and otherwise), homosexuality, etc. However Araki uses this newfound freedom carefully and responsibly for the most part, never indulging in the excesses that a lot of seinen manga, even ones that are overall pretty good, seem a bit too willing to dive into. The series still feels like Jojo with all its wonderful peculiarities, but simply more dense, adult, and without limits as to what subject matter can or cannot be depicted.

As good as a manga as it is however, there are a few things keeping it from being perfect.

Firstly, it is important to talk about Araki's art, which had been going through a process of continuous evolution that seemed to reach its zenith in SBR. Now with much more time to work on the pages, even with the increased page count, the art in SBR is far more lavish, detailed, and realistic than in previous parts, with some incredible craftsmanship in some pages. However, unlike some artists such as Makoto Yukimura and Takehiko Inoue who have unquestionably only gotten better with time, Araki's artistic evolution has come with its ups and downs. While the overall drawing and visual storytelling have overall improved quite a lot, the variation in character faces is much worse now, with many characters looking very similar to one another. This is honestly disappointing as Jojo was always a manga that had a lot of diversity in the character designs, and now not only do a lot of the characters look quite similar, their faces aren't even as expressive as they were before. This is an area Araki will probably improve in with time, but as good as the art in SBR is overall, it unfortunately is not an improvement in all areas.

As i've already said, SBR is by far the longest Jojo part. While this is in large part because of the story's legitimate length and complexity, and mostly the result of a more dense and meticulous storytelling approach, the manga does drag a little bit in a few places. this is mostly evident in the final stretch of the manga, with the last confrontations being extremely decompressed and taking quite a long time to end. they are still fun to read but honestly could have been shorter than they were.

Overall however, even with these caveats and other nitpicks and flaws I could point out (such as the uncomfortable sexualization of Lucy Steel in promotional art and the story itself, which wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't only 14 years old), SBR still stands as the best Jojo part, and a display of how much Araki has grown as a storyteller and artist throughout the years. It is a complete success as an evolution of JJBA, keeping most things that were good about the previous parts but with much more sophisticated storytelling and mature storytelling sensibilities. Of course, not everyone is going to enjoy this new type of Jojo, but if you are a fan of the series you should at least give it a read.