Spoiler warning: anime episodes 1 to 4. If you haven't watched yet, shoo, shoo! Go watch first!
Running toward the same finish line doesn't mean starting for the same reason. For Johnny Joestar, this race is hope that he can move his legs again. Gyro Zeppeli, on the other hand, aims to win but also runs with a purpose of his own.
One is trying to take back a lost life, and the other runs toward his goal with his true thoughts hidden behind a playful expression.
So the two are less friends who clicked from the start than partners who joined hands because each had something the other needed.
✦ Steel Ball Run at a Glance
The basic setup from episode 1
The Steel Ball Run, held in 1890 America, is a race of about 4,000 miles across the North American continent. The prize for winning is $50 million. Johnny, once a genius jockey, had fallen into despair after suffering paralysis from the waist down.
Then he touched Gyro's steel ball (a metal sphere) and experienced his legs moving for a moment. Johnny thinks that a way for him to walk again is hidden in the ball's 'spin,' and decides to enter the race to find out its secret.
✦ The Two Types at a Glance
This post's reading
Among fans, there's an interpretation that classifies Johnny as INTP 4w3 and Gyro as ENTP 7w8. Some see Johnny as an ISFP, but in this post I'll read him through the INTP 4w3 lens.
Johnny INTP 4w3, a Jockey Trying to Get Himself Back
What brings INTP to mind is that Johnny doesn't simply accept the steel ball's power as a miracle. After the astonishing experience of his legs moving, he begs Gyro to tell him the steel ball's secret.
When refused, he doesn't stop at being discouraged; he jumps into the race itself to catch up with Gyro. It's an attitude that he has to understand the phenomenon in front of him and work out its principle before deciding his next move.
It's not that he lacks feeling; he thinks that to really grasp hope, he has to know how it works.
✦ Type Notes
INTP, ENTP, 4w3, and 7w8
Enneagram type 4 has a strong desire to find its own identity and meaning, and 4w3, with the 3 wing added, attaches to that a wish to prove its value through achievement. For Johnny, the identity of jockey was once the center that explained his life.
But when he could no longer use his legs, that life collapsed all at once. The brief miracle the steel ball showed doesn't mean only the possibility of regaining the ability to walk.
It looks like proof that he can accomplish something as he once did, and a path to getting back his lost self.
Reading the 3 wing's drive for achievement only as 'wanting to become famous' would be too narrow. The achievement Johnny is reaching for now is closer to a real sense that he can reach a goal by his own strength than to people's applause.
The reason he accepts even a dangerous cross-continental race once the steel ball shows possibility is that he can't leave that possibility as only someone else's explanation.
So Johnny's start is far from a noble mission. He didn't set out in the race from the beginning meaning to help other competitors. What he needs most right now is to get his own life back in his hands. I think this is what makes Johnny more interesting.
He isn't a finished hero; he's a person who, to climb out of despair, grabbed onto his own desire first. His goal is so desperate that his vision may sometimes narrow, but that very desperation is what put him back on a horse.
Gyro ENTP 7w8, an Adventurer Who Finds a New Path When the Board Gets Tangled
Gyro moves to the opposite rhythm of Johnny. His words and actions are both sly, and when he uses the steel ball, he finds a move the opponent doesn't expect rather than going head-to-head.
Linking this to ENTP traits, a way of quickly coming up with other possibilities in the situation in front of him and bending existing rules to build a solution fits well. His laugh, 'Nyoho,' is also a small marker of how much Gyro acts in his own way.
Enneagram type 7 has a strong drive to keep options wide open and avoid being stuck in a stifling situation. 7w8, with the 8 wing added, contributes the boldness of moving the board toward the direction he wants rather than just turning thoughts over.
In the first stage, Gyro takes the lead by using the steel ball cleverly, but he is ruled to have used a weapon to interfere with another competitor's run and receives a penalty that drops his ranking. Here, Gyro doesn't spend time stuck on the ruling.
He collects himself again and proposes that Johnny cooperate to win the next stage.
The ranking drop from the penalty was the price his strategy paid. But rather than dwelling on feeling wronged, he immediately finds a way to make up for it in the next stage. This is Gyro's strength.
When a plan goes wrong, he doesn't stubbornly push the original move; he reads the situation anew and rearranges his options.
Still, it won't do to see Gyro only as a lighthearted prankster. The director also found Gyro's charm in his unpredictability. He smiles warmly one moment, then turns into a cold and threatening figure when a life is on the line.
Jokes aren't evidence that Gyro lacks seriousness; they're closer to a way of keeping his own pace even under tension.
The Moment Different Goals Turn into Cooperation
✦ What Each Wanted from the Other
An alliance where interests lined up
The two's deal becomes clearer in episode 2. When Gyro, the winner of the first stage, drops in ranking because of the penalty, he extends a hand to Johnny so they can get through the next stage together.
For Johnny, Gyro is the person who can teach him the technique of spin, and for Gyro, Johnny is a partner he can cooperate with in the race. They didn't join hands because friendship came first; their interests lined up.
But starting from shared interests doesn't mean the relationship necessarily ends as pure calculation.
In episode 3, the two camp in the desert and keep practicing to learn spin, and Johnny catches a glimpse of part of the real reason Gyro entered the race.
Soon the eldest son of the Boom Boom family appears, asking for help because he was bitten by a poisonous lizard, and the two fall into the trap the family set and must get through the crisis relying on each other's skills and judgment.
Two people who were competing on horseback turn into partners cooperating to survive. Gyro ends up teaching Johnny spin rather than showing off his knowledge one-sidedly, and Johnny clings to making that skill his own.
In episode 4, 'Devil's Palm,' Johnny, Gyro, and even the Mountain Tim team are driven into a corner by the magnetic attack the Boom Boom family created.
In that crisis, a change occurs in Johnny's body and his Stand awakens, and he takes a step forward from someone who watched Gyro's technique to someone who jumps into the fight himself.
The race began because he wanted to walk again, but now learning to survive and move forward by his own strength has begun too.
✦ How the Two Relate
From shared interests to cooperation
In my view, the charm of Steel Ball Run isn't that Johnny and Gyro run together because they understood each other from the start. Johnny chases the possibility of getting back his lost life, and Gyro entered the race to achieve a purpose of his own.
Their goals differ, but by trading skills and perspectives the other lacks, both start down a road neither could have taken alone.
That's why I expect this race won't end as a mere contest to decide who's the faster jockey. Johnny set out to walk again, but while running he also has to learn anew what kind of person he will become.
Gyro, too, holds his own reasons behind his light way of talking and unpredictable techniques. Running toward the same finish line, yet each person's purpose differs.
The process of the two closing that gap as they run together is probably the real fun of this story.
That's all for this post. See you next time.
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🌐 Korean version: 죠니와 자이로. 같은 경주에 뛰어든 다른 이유 — 《스틸 볼 런》 MBTI·에니어그램 분석
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