After years of speculation and anticipation, david production is finally animating STEEL BALL RUN JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, the seventh part of Hirohiko Araki's long-running manga series and what's generally considered to be the pinnacle of the mangaka's storytelling and artistic talents. This excitement has, however, long been undercut by trepidation. While well-acted and conceptually engaging, the previous JoJo's anime, Stone Ocean, was criticized for its more limited visuals and Netflix's batch release model. Compounding this fear is the fact that the framing device for Steel Ball Run is a cross-continental horseback race with a thousand contestants. Horses are so difficult to animate that finding a competent animator was one of the final hurdles in the anime industry-focused anime Shirobako.

There were a wealth of reasons to go into Steel Ball Run with mitigated expectations, which is why I'm so thrilled to say that this extra-long premiere is incredible by any measure!

While the animation on the horses can look a little clunky in wide shots, it never distracts from a scene in a close-up. Even when rendered in CGI animation, they blend into the art style and direction of Steel Ball Run, feeling more like an artistic choice than one driven by necessity. In fact, Steel Ball Run might include the best action in a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. While the character designs remain as complex and informed as ever, like Gyro's belt buckle pointing to his crotch or Johnny Joestar's having a distinctly American flag-inspired color palette, none of the unique character details are lost while in motion. Furthermore, the anime expertly dials up the tension with clever editing tricks, like the tried-and-true color palette swap in the episode's climax, and regularly uses pop-in panels evocative of the manga to provide a different character's perspective without transitioning to an entirely new shot. I really cannot stress how good Steel Ball Run looks despite its characters constantly being in motion for the entire back half of the episode, and david production has earned every bit of praise heaped upon it for pulling off what feels like a miracle.

The sound, from the voice acting to the musical cues, and even the use of it to emphasise the narrative of the episode, is also a masterwork. I was nothing short of delighted when I realized that having an announcer comment on the events of the horse race on screen was an elegant and diegetic replacement for supporting characters routinely commenting on the action in a JJBA fight. While we've yet to get a formal OP or ED, the musical cues in this episode imply that both will be tremendous. Diego Brando's dark and ominous theme immediately establishes him as a villain, even if his motivations are less than nefarious in this episode, and Gyro's sax and piano-heavy theme hits just as hard as Giorno's during the many iconic reversals in Golden Wind.

While the voice acting in the Japanese version of this premiere is as excellent as you'd expect from a JJBA installment, I especially want to call out the performances in the English dub. Kaiji Tang's turn as Gyro Zeppeli oozes confidence, and it's exactly what I was hoping for. It drives home the dirty-hot appeal that makes Gyro one of the sexiest men in anime or manga. Daman Mills also conveys the desperation driving Johnny Joestar in his journey to heal his paralyzed legs. Damien Haas's performance as Diego Brando is clearly informed by Patrick Seitz's take on Dio in the original timeline, while also being original, and the range Jamieson Price gives Steven Steel had me cracking up within the first few minutes of the show. While I was also a little worried about how the dub would handle minority characters like Sandman and Pocoloco, Alejandro Ruiz and Cedric Williams do great jobs, respectively, in these roles.

I'm also overjoyed with how quickly the themes of this entire storyline surface immediately in this episode. It's quickly established that the most PR-friendly version of America can inspire people to follow their dreams, though that's immediately undercut by Sandman, whose character directly opposes these purported ideals and is implied to be suffering because of them. With so much of the thematic underpinnings of this entire story focusing on fatherhood and how difficult it can be for a young man to abandon his need for his father's approval, Johnny's monologue about how he became a man is also a standout in this episode.

Not everything in the Steel Ball Run manga is perfectly adapted into this anime, though. The scene where Gyro decides to take a stuffed animal and a comic rather than tools of convenience establishes the fun side of the character in the manga, whereas this scene feels more like an interstitial moment to get from one big scene to the next in the anime. Also, while I adore the dub and will likely watch most of the series in this format, I noticed spoken words not syncing up with a character's lip flaps a bit too often for my liking.

Even with these criticisms, the premiere of Steel Ball Run brought me so many little moments of joy to more than make up for them. While present in Stone Ocean, I love that characters can swear in this dub, and it goes a long way into making them feel like real athletes vying for dominance in a high-stakes competition. I love all of the references to characters from past JoJo's entries, like Avdol and Enya, and the routine fake-outs where they actually play very minor roles in this particular story. Hell, it's exciting to see a character named “Zeppeli” running around in a JoJo's anime again, after their series absence after part two!

More than anything, though, I love the stupid audacity of so many little decisions in this episode! It's so on the nose that Pocoloco, whose power is having good luck, would get “777” for a race number, and that Gyro inexplicably has a gold grill on his teeth with his own name on it! These little touches are so much fun and make these characters and world feel so much more informed and expansive than they have any right to be, and immediately serve as a reminder of why I love Araki's writing so much.

My only fear now is how david production will maintain this level of quality as the series goes on, especially given the currently unknown release date for episode two. However, if every new installment is going to be this good, I'm more than happy waiting as long as this magnificent team needs to do it right. Put simply, the Steel Ball Run anime is finally here, and it's everything I dreamed it would be.