Location from Steel Ball Run by Hirohiko Araki
Gyro's homeland — the Italian kingdom where the Zeppeli family serves as royal executioners, where a boy named Marco waits on death row, and where everything Gyro is running toward and away from began.
Naples exists in Steel Ball Run primarily as Gyro's origin and motivation. The Kingdom's legal system condemned a boy named Marco to death — a child caught in political machinations who was probably innocent. Gyro's father, as chief executioner, would carry out the sentence. Gyro couldn't stop it through the legal system, so he left Naples to win a horse race in America, because the prize and prestige would give him the political capital to demand Marco's pardon. The Zeppeli family's Spin tradition was developed here — generations of executioners who perfected rotational techniques to deliver the most precise, painless deaths possible. The irony of developing the ultimate technique of life and movement from the practice of killing is central to Gyro's character. Naples also connects to Wekapipo's backstory — as a former royal guard who left after the system failed his sister. The Kingdom represents institutional power that functions perfectly and morally fails completely.
An 1890s Italian kingdom of sun-bleached stone, Mediterranean light, and old-world aristocratic hierarchy. The Zeppeli estate includes both the family home and the execution grounds — a place where the Spin was perfected not for combat but for the precise, merciful killing of condemned prisoners. The cells where Marco sits waiting are cold and damp. The court where his sentence was decided is ornate and indifferent.
Also known as: Naples, The Kingdom of Naples