After dropping exactly ONE episode in March and then going radio silent for five months, Netflix is finally letting JoJo out of the stable.
Steel Ball Run 2nd & 3rd STAGE premieres this Friday, September 25, on Netflix worldwide — 11 episodes, releasing weekly every Friday through early December, in both English and Japanese from day one. The race is back on, and this time there’s an actual schedule attached.
Wait — what happened back in March?
Quick recap of the crime: on March 19, Netflix released a single 47-minute special covering Stage 1 of the race… and then nothing. No date. No schedule. No explanation. Just five months of silence while one of the most anticipated anime adaptations of the decade sat there gathering dust.
Fans, understandably, lost their minds. “WHERE IS JOJO” got memed directly into Netflix’s mentions until the streamer confirmed in April that weekly episodes were the fall plan all along — sure, Jan — and then at the Steel Ball Run panel at Anime Expo 2026, they finally locked it in for real: stages 2 and 3 airing consecutively, 11 episodes total, weekly Fridays beginning September 25, plus a brand-new trailer.
When to watch
Circle it, set a reminder, tattoo it on your arm: Friday, September 25. New episodes drop weekly through early December, and both the English and Japanese audio will be available from the start — no dub-waiting torture this time.
If weekly releases sound familiar, that’s because Netflix learned its lesson the hard way. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean got chopped into awkward batches, and fans hated it. Weekly Fridays is how anime is meant to be consumed — one episode, seven days of feral theorizing, repeat.
The Devil’s Palm
The new trailer and preview images throw Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli into the roughly 750-mile desert crossing at the heart of this batch — including the stretch ominously known as the Devil’s Palm, where a string of unsettling incidents makes it very clear this race is about a lot more than the $50 million prize.
New faces joining the race
Three heavy hitters from the manga are finally making their animated debut:
- Tomoaki Maeno (Zhongli in Genshin Impact) as Mountain Tim
- Tomokazu Sugita (Gintoki himself) as Funny Valentine
- Yoko Hikasa as Hot Pants
They join the already stacked cast: Shogo Sakata as Johnny Joestar, Yohei Azakami as Gyro Zeppeli, Kaito Ishikawa as Diego Brando, Rie Takahashi as Lucy Steel, Kenta Miyake as Steven Steel, Masaaki Mizunaka as Sandman, and Kenichiro Matsuda as Pocoloco. English dub voices for the new trio haven’t been announced yet, but expect those closer to premiere.
Who’s making it
Still David Production, still in very good hands. Yasuhiro Kimura and Hideya Takahashi (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind) are directing, with Toshiyuki Kato as series director, Yasuko Kobayashi handling series composition, Daisuke Tsumagari on character design, and Yugo Kanno — the man behind the music of Stardust Crusaders, Diamond Is Unbreakable, Golden Wind, and Stone Ocean — composing the score. If the music doesn’t go hard, I don’t know what to tell you.
New to the race? Here’s the deal
Steel Ball Run is Part 7 of Hirohiko Araki’s legendary JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The manga ran from 2004 to 2011, and an alarming number of fans consider it the best part. Set in 1890s America, it follows washed-up jockey prodigy Johnny Joestar and the mysterious Gyro Zeppeli as they enter a transcontinental horse race — except the race is a front for something much bigger, much darker, and much more JoJo. No spoilers. You’ll see.
Is it going on my watchlist?
Immediately. Eleven weekly episodes, the Devil’s Palm crossing, and Tomokazu Sugita voicing a character named Funny Valentine — a name that has never once belonged to an innocent man. Friday cannot come fast enough.
If you never caught the 47-minute first episode, it’s sitting on Netflix right now. Consider this your official notice: the stable doors open Friday. See you at the starting line.
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