Steel Ball Run Release Schedule: How Many Episodes & When

New Steel Ball Run episodes come out every Friday on Netflix, with 11 episodes in this run: it started on September 25, 2026 and is scheduled to finish on December 4, 2026. If the weekly schedule holds, six episodes are out as of November 1 and the next one lands on Friday, November 6.

That is the short version. Below are the full date list, why the first episode came out alone back in March, and whether you need to watch Parts 1–6 first.

Steel Ball Run episode release dates

Netflix confirmed the start date, the weekly cadence and the end date. The individual Friday dates below are worked out from those (11 Fridays from September 25 to December 4), so a delay week would push the rest back.

Netflix has not published a global release time we could verify. Netflix anime usually goes live at the same moment worldwide, so the local time depends on where you are. US clocks went back on November 1, so if you watch from North America, the drop may appear an hour "earlier" than it did in October.

Why was there only one episode in March?

The "1st stage" of Steel Ball Run premiered on Netflix in March 2026 as a single 47-minute episode, and then nothing. Anime Corner noted at the time that Netflix's schedule showed no second episode and that dates were unannounced; co-director Yasuhiro Kimura had said each episode takes a long time to make.

In early April, after a lot of fan frustration, Netflix announced that the series would return in fall 2026 as a split-cour, weekly release, and that this had been the plan all along. The current 11-episode batch is labelled the 2nd and 3rd stages.

Our take (opinion): the long wait hurt momentum, but a weekly drop is the right call for Steel Ball Run. This is a race story; each leg needs a week of fans arguing about it. A binge drop would have flattened that.

How many episodes will Steel Ball Run have in total?

Nobody outside David Production and Netflix knows yet. What is confirmed:

• 1st stage: 1 episode (47 minutes), March 2026
• 2nd + 3rd stages: 11 episodes, September 25 – December 4, 2026

Whether more stages follow, and how much of the manga this run covers, has not been officially stated. The Steel Ball Run manga is long, so it would be a surprise if 12 episodes finished it, but treat any "final episode count" you see online as speculation until Netflix confirms it.

Where to watch Steel Ball Run

There is no Crunchyroll or HIDIVE simulcast for Part 7. If you see it elsewhere for free, it is not licensed.

Do you need to watch JoJo Parts 1–6 first?

Short answer: no, but you'll enjoy it more if you have.

Steel Ball Run (Part 7) begins a new continuity with new protagonists, Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli, and a cross-country horse race across 1890s America. You can follow the plot without knowing Parts 1–6. What you lose is the fun of the echoes: names, family lines and visual callbacks to earlier parts.

If you want a fast on-ramp, here is our suggested order (opinion):

We'd pick the middle ground. Part 1 explains the Joestar family idea in nine episodes, and Part 3 is where Stands come from.

What is Steel Ball Run about? (no spoilers)

Part 7 is a horse race across the United States in the 1890s, with a huge cash prize and riders from around the world. Johnny Joestar, a former jockey who can no longer walk, joins the race after meeting Gyro Zeppeli, a mysterious rider with a strange technique involving spinning steel balls. Stands, the series' signature psychic powers, appear later and play a different role than in earlier parts. Our opinion: it's the most mature and best-written JoJo part, and the reason so many fans waited years for this adaptation.

Spoiler-free: what to expect from the remaining episodes

Without spoiling anything: the story is a long, multi-leg race, and the anime is paced around those legs. That is why Netflix talks about "stages". Episodes 7–11 continue the race; a natural cliffhanger at the December 4 finale is likely, but we will not guess where.

More this season

Steel Ball Run is one of four headline shows this fall. See our Fall 2026 anime season guide for the rest, including Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, the other big Netflix anime this season.