Yesterday I watched the long-awaited anime adaptation of Steel Ball Run. I’m already close to finishing the manga so thankfully I can’t be spoiled that much lol.
I started watching the Jojo anime during the summer of 2024 and I was enjoying it from day 1. I think the series’ style is what attracted me to the show and is why I love it.
By the way, I’m not going to summarize the plot of the episode because I think you should watch it for yourself. The episode goes up to Chapter 11 from what I heard, so you could jump into the manga from there. No stands were shown in the episode, as it mainly focuses on Johnny’s backstory, introduction of the major characters, and the first stage of the race. Some stuff gets cut or rearranged for pacing reasons.
Starting with the voices, I think both the sub and dub are phenomenal. I’ve watched the entire series in sub up to this point but I think I’ll watch SBR in dub due to me liking the voices and it being set in 1890s America. Diego, Sandman, Pocoloco, Gyro, and Johnny all sound great in English.
The animation was incredible too, so good I could use some of the stills as my wallpaper haha. The horses seem to be animated using a mix of 3D CGI and hand-drawn artwork, and for the most part it looks great and not out of place! Gyro’s “Spin” technique is portrayed well and looks really cool.
I found Pocoloco really funny with him saying Yo Yo Yo all the time. His scenes in the race were pretty great. Sandman was so cool too, though I wish they included Steven Steel’s explanation of his running technique.
The 1st episode as a whole was amazing, and I really hope the series airs weekly cuz WE ARE NOT HAVING ANOTHER STONE OCEAN AGAIN.