Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 7: Steel Ball Run vol. 5

I think we were all right to suspect otherwise at first, but it turns out that young Lucy Steel actually does love her older husband, and organizer of the Steel Ball Run Race, Steven.  Why else would she try to break into a federal building in order to find out what the President of the United States is up to and whether or not her husband’s life is at risk.  This not only puts her right in the middle of the race to acquire the parts of the mysterious saint, but also the Stand User known as Darkmore who can literally walk amongst the raindrops.  Whether or not Lucy lives to ensure her husband’s survival depends on whether or not she can meet up with Johnny and Gyoro in time.  Speaking of which:  Those two are still dealing with Diego “Dinosaur” Brando as his powers have made him into a more resilient and dangerous threat than they first thought.

Vol. 5 doesn’t do a whole lot to shake things up after the previous volumes.  You know the drill:  A new Stand User crosses the protagonists’ path, they find out what that ability is, and then they deal with it in a way that shows them to be cleverer than their opponent.  That formula hasn’t worn out its welcome yet in this particular “Part” (and the series as a whole), but there’s not much more to say about how it’s being done here.  Save for the fact that the volume ends with Johnny and Gyoro at the mercy of an unknown power, and the latter promising the former to take him to the next level by teaching him more tricks of his trade.

Well, there is the business with “Dio” as mangaka Hirohiko Araki looks to be making this iteration of the Joestar family’s longtime foe into something more interesting than he initially appeared to be.  Giving him dinosaur powers was certainly A Choice, but we actually see him deal with his first setback here and come up with a reasonable enough strategy to bounce back from it.  This gives the implication that Araki is going to continue building up Dio into a genuine threat even as he struggles to get there.  That sounds interesting and given that we’ve got seven more volumes in this “Part” to go, he’s at least got plenty of room – and patience from me, for now – to try and pull it off.