Steel Ball Run director Kimura calls the Netflix anime a clean slate for JoJo

Yasuhiro Kimura directs and storyboards Steel Ball Run, the Netflix adaptation of Part 7 of Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and he described the new series to Polygon as something close to a blank page for the franchise. Kimura's credits include Plastic Memories and Chaos;Child, and he directed episodes of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, the anime's fifth season. Polygon interviewed him by email about the influences behind the Netflix production.

Araki's saga follows the Joestar family legacy across generations. Steel Ball Run, which Polygon calls the franchise's most compelling entry, moves the story to America in the 1890s and a cross-continental horse race with a $50 million grand prize attached. Paraplegic ex-jockey Johnny Joestar and the charismatic Gyro Zeppeli team up to win the multi-stage race, and the racetrack becomes the ground for a hidden national conspiracy. Polygon describes the part as revisiting Stands, the physical manifestation of a person's fighting spirit, through the lens of a Spaghetti Western.

Netflix and David Production built the adaptation around a two-part premiere that condenses the manga's first two volumes, an opening Polygon credits with smartly handling that stretch of the source material. Kimura said the production made a deliberate effort with the period look. "We've made a conscious effort in the art direction and color design as well, so that viewers can really feel that classic Western atmosphere on screen," he said, citing "the vast land stretching out to the horizon, the dry, dusty air, and the harsh, blazing sun."

Kimura separated this series from his own earlier work on Golden Wind. Steel Ball Run shares core concepts and elements with the fifth season, he said, while the latest anime is essentially a creative clean slate. That distinction matters in a franchise whose parts reuse ideas across radically different settings and casts, and it underpins Polygon's framing of the new run as the return of "JoJo Fridays."

Kimura also spoke about the nuances of animating horses, which the race premise makes a recurring obligation for David Production. His answers in the interview covered the visual approach to the material, and the quotes Polygon published from the exchange center on atmosphere and art direction rather than a step-by-step account of the production work.

The interview turns to what comes after the premiere. Kimura touched on the palpable anticipation surrounding the upcoming 2nd and 3rd Stages, the next installments of the adaptation. Because the conversation focuses on creative intent, it does not lay out what those stages will cover or when viewers will see them.

For now the piece lands on the expectation Polygon states in its own headline: the director says JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is about to get even weirder. What remains open is how much of that arrives in the 2nd and 3rd Stages, and whether the Western atmosphere Kimura built for the premiere holds as the race pushes deeper into its conspiracy.