Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 7: Steel Ball Run vol. 2

It came down to the wire, but Gyoro Zeppelli pulled off a win for the first stage of the Steel Ball Run race.  Or did he?!  The race’s organizers are stumped by this man’s mysterious past and unpleasantly surprised by how his entry has upset the expectations for the event.  Even if they’re going to put the screws to Gyoro, that just means he’ll have to play smarter and harder.  Which is easier said than done when it’s revealed that there might be some genuine killers among the race’s participants.  It also turns out that these killers may have supernatural powers that allow them to take down their prey in unexpected ways.  Even if legendary cowboy Mountain Tim winds up on their side, Gyoro and his unexpected partner Johnny Joestar are going to be in for the fight of their lives.

Vol. 1 of “Steel Ball Run” was a refreshing change from the previous arcs of “Jojo’s Bizarre Aventure,” giving us a brand new era, new characters, and a setup that wasn’t predicated on increasingly complex, outlandish, and protracted battles.  Vol. 2 sees this arc shift back more towards what you’ve come to expect from this series as Gyoro and Johnny face off against some genuine villains here.  What’s more is that this volume also features the formal reintroduction of Stands to this run with some intriguingly oddball ones for Johnny and Tim and appropriately menacing ones for their antagonists.

It all makes this volume feel a bit More Of The Same compared to the previous one, but there’s still stuff setting it apart.  The race is still ongoing amidst all of the battles, and while that serves to drive the plot, we also get some key information about Gyoro’s backstory too.  The battles themselves are also pretty well staged and don’t overstay their welcome – particularly the two-parter that wraps up this volume.  Still, I find myself curious to see what “Steel Ball Run” will look like in vol. 3 as we’ve reached the point where mangaka Hirohiko Araki started publishing the series monthly instead of weekly.  That’s a big change and I wonder what kind of changes we’ll see in his storytelling after that.