LEDOOO-GEN

After finishing Diamond is Unbreakable, it took me almost 6 months to start reading Vento Aureo. As much as I hate Giorno and the bad ending, I thoroughly enjoyed that part. With a lot of pain and effort in my heart, I managed to postpone reading Stone Ocean until August, and in just 2 weeks I finished it. Unlike Vento, I didn't even give it a sad review on Instagram, but the truth is that I loved it... with nuances. The formula for the villain of the week tasted old from Diamond, and Araki felt the need to start from scratch and do something new. But of course, the goat shoots the bush, and Steel Ball Run ended up being Jojo's Bizarre Adventures: Part 7. And it is the best of all by far. Welcome to 1891. Although it is much more enjoyable having read the previous 6 parts, Steel Ball Run does not require any prior knowledge to enter it. Set in its own continuity, it is a what if where Araki explores what would happen if the events that caused Phantom Blood had never happened. Instead of the stone mask, the hamon and the rivalry between Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando we have a monumental horse race across the United States. Of course, each of the participants will be willing to do anything to win, and many of them are playing for more than just the prize money in the competition. Throughout Steel Ball Run, Araki puts into practice everything he learned during the previous 6 sagas, and the experience shows. It's not just that his drawing is better than ever (and with excellent official coloring that I recommend to all of you for your first reading) but that SBR could almost be defined as a "Jojo's Greatest Hits". It's a huge homage to his creation, bringing back many of his best (and least used) ideas while putting a new spin on everything. To highlight the two most important ones, the plot revolves around a journey just like in Stardust Crussaders and Vento Aureo, but its execution refers us to the structure of Phantom Blood or Battle Tendency. Far from becoming another "Monster of the Week", all the clashes contribute in some way to the central plot and affect the manipulations that surround the competition. Second, instead of a huge group where several characters are wasted, it focuses on only two. Gyro and Johnny have fantastic chemistry, their interactions harking back to the bond Joseph and Cesar formed in Battle Tendency. As a icing, both the secondary and the villain enjoy a lot of time on the screen, distancing them from the putties that we were used to in previous sagas and turning them into authentic characters. Don't let their looks fool you. If Jolyne didn't exist, I would fearlessly say that Lucy Steel is the coolest female character in all of Jojo. However, the biggest change from Steel Ball Run is in the tone of the story, and the best comparison I can think of would be the contrast between the original X-Men trilogy and Logan. Both the product and the characters remain the same, but how their actions are presented to us changes. The madness, the poses and a slight aftertaste of "enemy of the week" are maintained, but this time the action is much drier. Until now we could end almost any fight with the typical happy fanfare or gag, but Steel Ball Run tastes like... loss. SBR is a story about what we must sacrifice to progress, and even when we survive it's because someone had to die in our place. Without calling them storytelling prodigies, most of SBR's enemies are highly humanized, and not infrequently we'll feel uncomfortable watching them die. The extra development that was previously reserved for specific enemies or the "final bosses" here is the usual. Ringo Roadagain, Diego, Funny Valentine, Wekapipo, Sandman, Hot Pants... they all die horrible deaths during the series, and no matter how hard they try to kill Gyro and Jonhy we can't (or at least I can't) watch them die without feel sorry that things turned out that way. Jojo is still Jojo, but what was once an Ora Ora Ora has turned into a self-defense homicide, and it's something I'm glad Araki experienced. Steel Ball Run has some of the best fights in the entire series, but it's not the battles that stick in the memory. What really lasts are the little moments between Gyro and Johnny, and everything they have to lose to achieve their dreams.