The director Yasuhiro Kimura mentions that he had to restructure the early chapters of Steel Ball Run for the anime. It no longer begins with Sandman in Episode 1.
"I wasn't able to read it in real time during its serialization, so during New Year's break while working on Part 5 I finally sat down and read it. I remember enjoying it so much that I read it all in one go.
…But when I first started reading, I remember wondering, 'Is this really JoJo?' (laughs). That question has weighed heavily on us during this adaptation. As the story progresses, it does transition into the familiar JoJo-style Stand battles, but at the beginning there's hardly any hint of that. It's clear that Araki-sensei originally wanted to draw a "race story." After all, the first character to appear isn't Gyro or Johnny, but Sandman. As a fan just reading the manga, I didn't think twice about it. But approaching this as the newest JoJo anime season, we realized the early chapters would need restructuring. Actually working on it, the story composition has been quite a challenge. We have to reproduce the same exhilaration the original gave readers, so we can’t change it too drastically."
- From Anime Key Animation Collection AAA2 (September 25, 2025)
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