The Best Time To Watch Steel Ball Run is...

[00:01] Ball Run was yesterday. The second best time is today. Coming not at the start of an anime season, which would have had it show up like in a couple of weeks from now, Steel Ball Run coming in to decide, "No, actually we're going to be

[00:15] earlier than everybody else. We are going to lead the pack, so to speak, on just going to go balls to the wall from the get-go. Literal steel balls to the

[00:27] >> [music] >> is already out, and it is up and available for us to watch on Netflix. And you want to know the greatest freaking thing about this whole thing besides the fact that it is essentially

[00:42] best freaking thing is that you can go on to Netflix right now, and you can search up Steel Ball Run, and then available to you is only a single episode. [music] You may not understand why that's

[00:57] exciting. For too long now, Netflix has had a bit of a bad habit when it came to seasonal anime, and that habit [music] used to be, "Oh hey, we're going to get

[01:09] the North American distribution rights for this anime. We want it for our streaming service." But then the anime season starts, and then they don't release any of it. And they continue to not release any of it until near the end

[01:21] of the season, where they drop the whole dang thing at once. Or in general, just all at once. They'll take a whole series, chop it up into little and then release it piecemeal, but in large, if not in like episode to episode chunks,

[01:35] in large chunks of like six to 12. This is what happened with Stone Ocean, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure [music] part six. And from a watching perspective, >> [music] >> which is kind of terrible. JoJo's

[01:52] Bizarre Adventure has been on and off the air for a very long time. David Productions has slowly been adapting the legendary manga that started way way back in the '80s and has essentially never stopped since, only you know

[02:05] adjusting slightly for different parts, new cast, new locations, new weird and bizarre to go on. So they've been adapting it for for a while, and then eventually you get to part six, which was Stone Ocean. And Netflix decided,

[02:19] "Hey, this JoJo thing's pretty popular. We're going to take it. We're going to else, and then we're going to put it on our service, but then we're going to do it by our terms." And that uh kind of did not do JoJo in the West [music] much

[02:33] favors. Why? Because part five came out, and part five was probably the peak thus far of JoJo popularity. Not only because part five of JoJo itself was an amazing series, but also because it was built on the back of the hypes from all of the

[02:48] previous JoJos before it. Every JoJo happened to do better than the part before it. And then you got to part six, and Netflix killed it. Because they release everything in batches." And [music] it was kind of random and

[03:02] sporadic, and then there was no anticipation. There was no way to like happened, the way to discuss the episodes that as they happened. People had gotten so used to, after five whole parts of JoJo, being able to talk and

[03:16] discuss the adaptation on an episode by episode basis, only then for part six to come around and everything just got dropped in the middle of nowhere, and of the thing. So like I know that Netflix's model has worked for a lot of

[03:31] have done very very well on Netflix when they like drop multiple episodes at once, but some people are good with it and other people are not. And I'm not entirely sure that anime people are the ones that are good with this sort of

[03:44] batch release drop, cuz it essentially means that you need to know when this then when it does happen, you need to be able to watch all of it kind of as soon as possible. Cuz especially in this era of social media where everything gets

[03:57] on what happens, you kind of need to watch it as soon as possible. And that's Netflix shows, especially when they're hour-long episodes and they drop a whole season on you, cuz that's a lot of time. You got to sit It's like a whole night,

[04:12] maybe you don't have the time to watch it all in one sitting. And then what the going to not pay attention to social media so you don't get spoiled. That's what some people do. But then others, you know, you do it long enough and you

[04:25] just don't care anymore." >> [laughter] Netflix that I was really into, and then I was just like, "You know what? I just can't care about this cuz I couldn't find the time in the first little bit of

[04:39] then I'm like, "Well, if I can't figure it out here and I'm already spoiled and and by the time I get into it we're already past it, then I'm just not going to care." And I feel like that has happened to a lot of people and why JoJo

[04:51] part six didn't do well. But now we have Steel Ball Run. And I know I've been and I really shouldn't because technically Steel Ball Run is both JoJo part seven and also [music] its own completely different and

[05:06] separate thing. When Steel Ball Run was first released in manga format back in Japan, it was not advertised as JoJo part seven because the mangaka did not want it tied to previous iterations of JoJo. He wanted, "Hey, I would like to

[05:20] have this new project that is pretty much JoJo, but also I don't want people to feel like the baggage of the last like 20 some odd years of manga >> [music] >> is going to be a detriment to them going

[05:34] forward. I don't want them to feel like that they need to go back, especially younger fans that are coming in, and it's like they were not even alive. I was not a I was not alive when JoJo part one started. I was not alive. So it

[05:49] "Hey, I would like to make this new essentially JoJo part, but I don't want to call it JoJo part seven. We're just going to call it Steel Ball Run." And like, "But it really is JoJo part seven, so let's just call call it what it is."

[06:03] And then we started calling it JoJo's part seven. But because it's basically designed to not be tied into anything else, it is not necessarily within the same universe as any other part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you can get

[06:17] into and watch Steel Ball Run without having watched anything else. It helps if you've seen other parts of JoJo and a character shows up a legally I say a legally distinct, but he's ripping off his own characters. A legally distinct

[06:32] You could be like, "Oh, that's a reference to this other guy." He's these new and wacky and bizarre circumstances. And that's helpful. It's kind of a a nice little nod to the past, but you don't necessarily need that. I

[06:48] mean, it is pretty cool that we have a new Joestar, that we have a new Zeppeli, that we have a new Dio, and that's really cool and all. But if you don't you don't have the history of JoJo behind you, I don't think that that's a

[07:03] detriment to the series. Would it be nice to have? Yeah. But I'm not going to expect anybody to go back and watch six whole parts of JoJo before this, or read don't need to. You can get into Steel Ball Run and watch this wacky and

[07:16] bizarre race through the Americas without having of watched anything else. Cuz not having read Steel Ball Run, I have I don't believe that much is going to happen to make you wish that you have experienced other parts of

[07:30] mangaka is going for here. So what is Steel Ball Run? Steel Ball Run is [music] essentially Wacky Racers. If you've ever watched Wacky Racers, it's a combination of that and a reverse Cannonball Run. A Cannonball Run is an

[07:44] automotive It's an unofficial automotive race from New York to California that is supposed to be, "Hey, get from point A to point B as fast as possible." people did Well, first of all, it's

[07:57] It's not an official race. People just time themselves, and then it's all kind but everybody takes it very seriously. Cannonball Run as as fast quickly as possible?" And you know, some guys kind

[08:11] lockdown in COVID and cuz nobody was driving on the roads, and that includes Cannonball Run cuz we're starting in California. We're starting in San Diego, you're going all the way to New York. And they put a big chunk of prize money

[08:25] on it. But you have all of the individual racers on it that it's like essentially the late 1800s, it's wacky racers. You have one of our main guys, Zeppeli, who has two magical steel balls, and they can do bizarre and weird

[08:40] things. You have an Indian man who is deciding not to race with a horse, but his own two legs, and he's perfectly freaking capable of doing all of that cuz he's essentially a terminator. You have another guy that has some of the

[08:53] greatest luck in the world such that utter amounts of happen to keep him in the race, and it is glorious and amazing. And our first episode is a double-length episode, and it just shows the first leg of this race. So you have

[09:08] going to be racing across the Americas, and they're going to be trying to fight powers, there's going to be wacky stuff that happens. You're going to have the people running the place being like, "What the hell is even going on?" It is

[09:22] just going to be wacky races. It is going to be wacky. It is going to be freaking horribles. Cuz that's the thing, not all these characters are great. We have freaking Johnny Joestar here, and he's a dick.

[09:35] >> [laughter] >> He's the most dickest Joestar I think some of the Joestars have been dicks before in part, but not many to the [music] So with a luck we're going to get a reasonable

[09:51] redemption arc with this bastard who ended up losing his ability to I his legs, but is now in the fight anyway because [music] he found a guy with magical balls that he thinks can fix his legs. The Zeppeli who controls the magic

[10:03] balls is just like, "Nah, get out of here, kid. You bother me." But, we don't magic balls. I'm waiting for a stand to the show up, and then we're just going to have a good time. That is what JoJo is. That is what Steel Ball Run is going

[10:17] to be. It is going to be a good time. You need to enjoy the ride. You need to sit back along with everybody else on that freaking train in the lap of luxury, and you need to enjoy this ride across America because it is going to be

[10:32] always been insane, will always be insane, and is going to just be probably one of the most interesting things that happens this season. No, I have to take that back. I know what else is coming this season, and it fascinates

[10:46] me that JoJo might end up just being a blip. That Steel Ball Run might be a blip in everything that is going on in this upcoming season. And that's ridiculous to me because it's JoJo, and not only is it JoJo, it is good JoJo.

[11:00] Steel Ball Run is a really good part. I really love Stone Ocean. Stone Ocean is one of my favorite parts, and it's also why I was extremely salty on how it was adapted. It was adapted fine, how it was released uh and presented to the Western

[11:14] public. Thank you, Netflix. Uh not a fan of that, but Steel Ball Run has the potential to be the most popular JoJo animated part because it is so It is so easy to watch, and now it is on Netflix. And if you're not already doing

[11:28] that, you should have started, and you need to go do that. Go watch Steel Ball Run. And if you get really into it, go back and watch JoJo or rewatch JoJo. going to be references to so much JoJo history that having a rewatch would be

[11:41] great. So, if you have the time, and maybe now is the best time to do it going to be watching everything else in the new season, go do that. So, thank patrons who help make videos on this channel possible. A very, very special

[11:55] thank you to patrons like Ryffenbonaparte, Omar Showman, Ross Emerson, Hector Montemayor, Aiden, and Siriyamakou because I can't do this without your support. And however much you are able to help out, I am eternally

[12:07] because it means that I can go and talk about more JoJo. And so, until next about more JoJo. And so, until next time, watch more JoJo, and stay frosty.