Steel Ball Run

Originally thought to be a "standalone alternative universe", Steel Ball Run (スティール・ボール・ラン) has been officially declared a part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series starting from volume 5 – incidentally also the same volume the series underwent the change of moving its serialization from Weekly Shonen Jump to Ultra Jump, a seinen magazine. Aside from the chapters being longer in page count, the switch from a weekly magazine to a monthly one had a noticeable impact on the art, as Araki seems to go for a more detailed, "naturalistic" look for his characters – the shift in style can be seen starting from volume 7-8. Steel Ball Run final chapter was published in Ultra Jump edition 04/2011. This is the first part of the manga to be set in the SBR universe.

Many familiar faces seen in the previous parts of the JJBA can be found in Steel Ball Run right from the start – characters such as Abdul from Part 3 have their own alternate universe counterpart appearing in the story.

In effect Part VII is somewhat like an alternate version of Phantom Blood while Part VIII: JoJolion can be seen as an alternate version of ''Diamond is Unbreakable. ''

The "Steel Ball Run" Universe
After Pucci is killed by Emporio at the end of Stone Ocean, the universe's full transformation was halted and as a result became surprisingly similar to its "original self". The story this time around begins in 1890. The series stars Gyro Zeppeli, who uses a set of steel balls with a special kind of spin, and Johnny Joestar (an alternate universe Jonathan Joestar), a former hot-shot jockey whose career ended early due to paraplegia. They race, along with others, in a mad-dash across America for 50 million dollars and possibly something else...

Trivia

 * This is the first time since Battle Tendency that a Zeppeli has been in any of the story arcs in the series and is also the first time in the series that a Zeppeli would be introduced as the main protagonist instead of a JoJo.
 * Along with this this is also the first Part where a JoJo acts as a supporting character and not as the main  protagonist though this later changes when Steel Ball Run was revealed to be the next arc of the JoJo series.

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