JoJo Steel Ball Run Anime Premieres September 25
The wait finally has a date. The STEEL BALL RUN JoJo anime kicks off on September 25, running for 11 episodes with new episodes streaming weekly every Friday. The announcement came with a brand new trailer during Anime Expo 2026.
Three additions to the voice cast were also revealed. Tomoaki Maeno plays Mountain Tim, Tomokazu Sugita voices Funny Valentine, and Yoko Hikasa takes on Hot Pants. Sugita as Valentine is the kind of casting fans have been dream posting about for years.
Why Steel Ball Run is the big one
Among JoJo fans, Steel Ball Run is widely treated as the peak of the entire series. It resets the story in an alternate universe, trades city blocks for a cross country horse race, and gives us Gyro Zeppeli and Johnny Joestar, two of the best written leads in the franchise. Adapting it well is one of the highest stakes jobs in anime right now, and the trailers so far suggest the production understands that.
An 11 episode opening run also tells us the adaptation is being split into stages rather than rushed, which fits a story built around the legs of a race.
Stages two and three refer to how the adaptation divides the race itself, mirroring the checkpoint structure of the story. It is a smart framework, because Steel Ball Run is less a single sprint than a series of escalating duels strung along the American frontier, each with its own Stand user and its own flavor of menace. Adapting it in labeled legs sets audience expectations honestly: this is a long journey, and the production intends to run all of it.
The premiere date and cast were reported by Anime Corner.
My take: Steel Ball Run is the best thing Araki has ever written, and 11 episodes at a weekly pace is the right way to start it. September cannot come fast enough.
