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| Steel Ball Run JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 9 Cast, Plot, Netflix Release and What Comes Next. |
Steel Ball Run: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is now the latest major chapter in the anime franchise, but the numbering is already causing the sort of confusion only JoJo could produce. Despite sometimes being searched as JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 9, the 2026 adaptation of Hirohiko Araki’s seventh manga part is officially classified as Season 6 of the television anime. Produced by David Production with Warner Bros. Japan and released globally on Netflix, the series began with a double-length premiere in March before returning on September 25, 2026, for an 11-episode weekly run covering the second and third stages of the Steel Ball Run story.
Set in an alternate 1890 United States, Steel Ball Run swaps the franchise’s familiar urban settings for a sprawling Western landscape and one rather unreasonable sporting challenge: a roughly 4,000-mile horse race from San Diego to New York City. The prize is a staggering $50 million, which naturally attracts a colourful collection of racers, opportunists and people who seem to regard basic survival as an optional extra.
At the centre is Johnny Joestar, a once-promising jockey whose career and life are shattered after he becomes paralysed from the waist down following a shooting. His fortunes begin to change after meeting Gyro Zeppeli, a mysterious racer who uses steel spheres powered by the supernatural martial art known as the Spin. When Johnny touches one of Gyro’s spinning spheres, he briefly regains movement in his legs, giving him a tantalising reason to enter the race.
Johnny joins Gyro not simply to chase the enormous prize money but to understand the Spin and find a possible route towards recovering the use of his legs. What initially looks like a brutal cross-country competition gradually becomes something much stranger.
The racers encounter supernatural threats, rival hunters and dangerous secrets, while powerful artefacts become increasingly important to the wider conflict. The Devil’s Palm, an anomalous and deadly desert region, is among the places that gives the journey its distinctly JoJo flavour: beautiful scenery, terrible danger and absolutely no reason to assume anyone is having a relaxing holiday.
The series also represents a notable change in tone for the franchise. Steel Ball Run moves into seinen territory, allowing its story to explore more mature themes and considerably harsher material than some earlier parts. Its mixture of historical Western imagery, supernatural combat, racing and elaborate character drama gives the adaptation a very different atmosphere from the previous JoJo arcs without abandoning the eccentricity that defines the series.
Shogo Sakata voices Johnny Joestar, portraying a disgraced former jockey whose determination grows from his desperate hope of finding a way to walk again. Yohei Azakami voices Gyro Zeppeli, the confident foreign executioner whose mastery of the Spin makes him both Johnny’s teacher and his most important ally during the race.
Kaito Ishikawa voices Diego Brando, the calculating British jockey whose ambition makes him one of Johnny and Gyro’s major rivals. Masaaki Mizunaka voices Sandman, a Native American runner who enters the competition without a horse and depends on his extraordinary running ability, hoping to use the prize money to reclaim his ancestral land.
Kenta Miyake voices Pocoloco, the unusually relaxed racer whose decision to enter comes after a fortune teller predicts an extraordinary run of luck. In a race this dangerous, having good luck is probably one of the more sensible qualifications.
As for the next JoJo anime season, there is currently no confirmed renewal beyond Steel Ball Run. If the anime continues, the next adaptation would move to Part 8, JoJolion, which would technically become Season 7 of the television anime rather than Season 9. There are also no official announcements for a release date or confirmed television voice cast for that story at present.
JoJolion would represent another sharp change in setting and style. The story moves back to Morioh, Japan, in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, replacing the historical American race with a supernatural mystery involving family secrets, identity and a strange conspiracy. Its central character is an amnesiac man discovered buried in the ground, whose investigation into his past eventually leads towards the Higashikata family and the mysterious Locacaca fruit.
The potential cast is another area where speculation has already started, although nothing has been confirmed for a future anime production. Nobunaga Shimazaki could be considered for Josuke Higashikata because he has previously voiced the character in official JoJo video games.
Other game performers, including Chiba Shigeru as Norisuke Higashikata and Mitsuki Saiga as Joshu Higashikata, could theoretically be considered too, although television anime productions can conduct fresh auditions rather than simply carrying over game casting.
There is also no official JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Season 7 or JoJolion release date. A future adaptation would require another substantial production period, particularly given the visual demands of JoJo’s elaborate supernatural abilities. Based on the production scale involved, a release in late 2028 or 2029 would be a reasonable expectation rather than an announced date. For now, however, that remains speculation, not a confirmed schedule.
Steel Ball Run is a fascinating choice for JoJo’s next big anime chapter because it changes almost everything without throwing away the franchise’s strangest habits. A 4,000-mile horse race sounds straightforward until supernatural powers, political schemes and mystical artefacts turn it into something considerably less sensible. Johnny and Gyro also give the story a strong central partnership, while the Western setting makes the adaptation visually distinct from what came before.
The biggest question is whether the anime can maintain the manga’s dense storytelling without making the race feel like it has been travelling since the 19th century. The move into a more mature demographic also suits the material, particularly when the story becomes darker and more dangerous. If the current adaptation lands well, JoJolion would be an entirely different beast: stranger, more mysterious and probably even harder to explain to someone who has never watched JoJo.
For now, Steel Ball Run remains the story to follow, with its September 25 return continuing the 2026 anime run on Netflix. And if the season has you wondering whether JoJo should really be counted by manga parts, television seasons or whatever numbering system survived the last Stand battle, that is probably a debate worth having. Which part of Steel Ball Run are you most interested in seeing adapted, and would you want JoJolion to follow next?