Is Netflix Killing the Hype of Steel Ball Run?

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run was one of the most anticipated releases of the 2026 Spring Anime Season. This entry in the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure manga marks a new saga of the story: instead of continuing the previous parts with a new generation of Jonathan Joestar’s distant relatives, it is set in the US in an alternate world, during the 1800s, revolving around Johnny Joestar. From this point on, the following parts will center on Johnny’s descendants.

As this series is also quite beginner-friendly, there were high expectations for its debut on Netflix, and it was poised to be, alongside One Piece’s Elbaf Arc, one of the season’s heavy hitters. However, Netflix recently gave fans disappointing news regarding the schedule of the series, which might have killed the hype for the anime.

Why JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Got So Popular

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a long-lasting manga that has been serialized for almost 40 years. Among Japanese audiences, it is a legendary manga beloved across generations, even though the anime by David Production has attracted younger readers to the franchise.

The animation by David Production was not the first to adapt at least parts of the manga. Studio A.P.P.P. produced a 6-episode OVA in the mid-1990s, covering the second half of the third part (Stardust Crusaders). In the early 2000s, A.P.P.P. adapted the first half into a 7-episode OVA series. In 2007, A.P.P.P. returned to the franchise to produce the Phantom Blood movie, which has never been released in home-video format, even in Japan. While the OVAs were both licensed in the US by Super Techno Arts, they were mostly niche content (they were dubbed and released in chronological order).

Then, in 2012, the series started to receive a new anime adaptation by David Production in Japan. At the time, streaming services were still emerging on the market, and the anime was only distributed simultaneously in the US in 2014, when Crunchyroll streamed Stardust Crusaders, the second season, as Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency comprise a single season. Crunchyroll also began streaming the previous parts at that time. Later, the anime also aired on Adult Swim’s Toonami.

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The anime has had a good reception in Japan and internationally since the first season, and it was able to grow its audience as new seasons were released, turning JoJo from a niche series to something a bit more mainstream over time. Most of this was due to the great quality of the animation and directional choices that kept the “vibes” of the manga, using overexaggeration as part of the aesthetics of the series.

TV Was More Important than Streaming

As mentioned, when the new anime began production, streaming services were still emerging in the global market. Therefore, the Japanese TV broadcast and its related sales were the primary metrics for producers, and international licensing, while already important, was secondary to deciding whether a series should continue production.

Jojo’s seasons would always air on Saturdays in the early hours of the morning in Japan. Since Crunchyroll, from Stardust Crusaders (part 3) to Golden Wind (part 5), added the episodes a few hours following the original broadcast, they would hit the platform on Friday afternoon or evening in the US and many other countries, due to time zone differences. This generated hype for “JoJo Fridays” among fans every time a new season was released, also boosting the series’ popularity, as JoJo Fridays would often become a hot topic on social media.

JoJo Going to Netflix Should Have Been Huge

As the series was growing ever more popular with each new season of the David Production anime, the announcement in 2021 that Netflix acquired the exclusive rights to stream part 6, Stone Ocean, seemed like a landmark. At the time, Netflix was already by far the largest streaming service worldwide, and while streaming platforms were already big before that, the COVID-19 pandemic made them even more popular as people turned to them once most TV channels had to suspend a good chunk of their programs due to safety and health measures.

Stone Ocean streaming on such a large streaming service really looked like the series was transcending its niche status to become one of the most popular anime series in the world. It should have been proof that the anime had become insanely big, or else it would not have caught the attention of such a key player in the entertainment industry. And while all of this might be true, one thing concerned fans: Netflix’s binge-watching model of releasing series, which works very differently from the weekly broadcast anime fans are used to.

Netflix Binge-Watching Model “Killed” JoJo Friday

Before the release of Stone Ocean, some fans still hoped the platform would keep the weekly broadcast format, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Netflix divided the season into three parts: the first one was released in December 2021, the second in September 2022, and the last one in December 2022. The Japanese audience still got a TV broadcast, which began after the global release on Netflix. As mentioned, this part closes the story of the original JoJo universe.

Stone Ocean performed well, ranking 1st in Japan and making it into the top 10 globally and in many countries on the platform in the first week when the first batch of episodes came out. Still, the global ranking was a bit lower than some expected and the series soon left the top 10 in the following weeks. Many argued that, with a weekly broadcast, JoJo would have kept ranking high as new episodes were coming out, and would also possibly have grown in popularity while the season was airing, due to both new episodes maintaining the series on the “New Releases” tab for weeks and fans commenting on social media (as we later saw with Dandadan).

To them, JoJo Fridays was not merely fans discussing on social media, but a cornerstone of the franchise expansion. Furthermore, most fans who had been watching the anime for years missed commenting on episodes on a weekly basis. As episodes were released in batches and people watched them at different paces, many felt that Netflix had “robbed” a vital part of their experience with the series and other fans.

JoJo: Steel Ball Run’s Weird Schedule

JoJo SBR Episode 1 released on March 6, 2026, as a feature-length special;

Netflix only confirmed the second part will be out this year.

As Stone Ocean’s release model sparked discussion among fans, many hoped that the service would “fix” the problem and release Steel Ball Run (part 7) in a weekly model. After all, Netflix has been experimenting with weekly releases for some anime, with good results in a few cases, like Dandadan and Dragon Ball DAIMA. Fans became even more excited after Netflix announced the release date: March 6, 2026, a Friday. This seemed like the return of the beloved JoJo Fridays.

But after the first episode, branded as a feature-length special, came out, they were met with another cold shower. While the first episode was long enough to comprise two episodes and the whole first part of The Steel Ball Run, Netflix didn’t confirm a release date for the second episode. Then, recently, during AnimeJapan, the company announced that the “second part” would release in 2026, without a more detailed release window.

Fans were expecting at least a 12-episode cour, but Netflix is apparently releasing the series in small batches. This made many outraged that Netflix merely released one episode, called it “part one,” and offered almost no insight on how they will handle the next developments. Will all phases of the race be turned into a batch of one long episode? Or will the next events comprise a regular batch of 12 episodes? Instead of generating hype, this leaves many fans confused and some even angry at the service for not only ruining JoJo Fridays, but also delivering the series in a weird schedule without prior warning.

Additionally, before Netflix acquired the streaming rights to the series, JoJo delivered new seasons every two years: Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency were released as a single season in 2012, Stardust Crusaders came in 2014, Diamond is Unbreakable was out in 2016, and Golden Wind premiered in 2018. Of course, the pandemic likely affected production of Stone Ocean, which was released in 2021 but likely initially planned for 2020.

However, from the last batch of Stone Ocean to the announcement of Steel Ball Run in 2025, three years had gone by. While this could be explained by the fact that Steel Ball Run is the beginning of a “new phase” in the series, as it is set in a parallel world and in a new timeline, with counterparts of the previous parts of the manga, some fans still feel that production could have been struggling to find a middle ground with Netflix or perhaps other sponsors.

Nonetheless, even without Jojo Fridays, it seems that the series is trending and getting the spotlight on the service. So, for Netflix, perhaps this model of broadcasting still makes sense in their business, even with so many complaints from fans. For now, all that’s left to do is wait to check the next developments in the series’ release.