"JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure," often abbreviated as JJBA, is Hirohiko Araki’s magnum opus of supernatural battles, eccentric fashion, and outlandish powers that’s been running since 1987 and has become one of the most beloved franchises in anime.
During a JOJODAY fan event in April 2025, an anime adaptation of “Steel Ball Run” was announced. Set in 1890s U.S., the seventh part of the JJBA series follows paraplegic former jockey Johnny Joestar and mysterious mystic artist Gyro Zeppeli as they compete in a transcontinental horse race with a prize of $50 million that slowly unravels into a shadowy conspiracy. After much anticipation from fans, the premiere episode dropped March 19 on Netflix to near-universal praise, earning a 99% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 9.6 out of 10 on IMDb. For many, the episode was well worth the wait—stunning animation, high energy, good pacing—JoJo’s part seven was already proving to be a masterpiece.
All seemed to be well for the JoJo community…until it began to question episode scheduling.
For TV anime airing on Japanese networks and simulcast on services like Crunchyroll, a weekly schedule is standard and almost always announced upfront. It’s essentially a given that fans will know when an episode of their anime will air and on which days the releases are slotted into.
But for Netflix, a steadily growing pattern of vague and at times absent release schedule information has left the anime community perpetually braced for the worst, so when the company went silent on when episode two of “Steel Ball Run” would be coming, the internet did what the internet does best.
On nearly every X, TikTok, and Instagram post Netflix posted in the week after episode one dropped, JoJo fans flooded the comments with threats ranging from cancelling their subscriptions to using distorted text and Egyptian hieroglyphics seemingly in attempts to curse the company. Most notable among these warnings was a picture of the series protagonist, Johnny Joestar, edited to have glowing red eyes and a near creepypasta feel taken from a video by TikTok user @luca.vg, who portrayed Johnny as an anti-piracy screen meme.
For context, anti-piracy screen memes are a genre of horror videos that depict fake, unsettling warning screens designed to frighten users who play pirated video games. In this case, it is an on-brand and truly bizarre way for fans to let Netflix know just how they feel.
One week of silence turned into two, and by then the starting pistol of memes spreading had well and truly been fired. The official Spanish KFC X account even joined with two hilariously (and slightly disturbing) edited videos featuring the “Steel Ball Run” cast, the restaurant and various KFC food products, March 31 and April 6. A24 studios also got in on the fun, replying with a picture that says “Beef Season 2” in the style of anime’s font under a Netflix post about BEEF season two.
But beyond the memes, fans expressed genuine frustration.
Ian Groom, a senior studying media arts production and the current vice principal of the anime club, has been a fan of JJBA for three years, having first gotten into the series during part six, “Stone Ocean.” But after reading the manga, “Steel Ball Run” soon became his favorite, which left him eager to see the series animated.
“OK, I’m waiting for that to be animated,“ Groom said. "It’s going to be great; it’s going to be peak. I hope Netflix doesn’t mess it up as they did with ‘Stone Ocean’ and their batch releases.”
Silence from Netflix continued to linger, and it became clear there was no plan.
Thankfully, fans were finally appeased by Netflix with an official statement from the company’s anime-specific X profile April 6 with details on episode two and future episode releases.
“Thank you for all the incredible support for Steel Ball Run JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,” Netflix wrote in a statement. "The series is currently in production and will be available for everyone to enjoy. We are planning a split‑cour release across the entire run of episodes. The next cour (2nd stage) will begin streaming in fall 2026 on Netflix, with one new episode released each week. This release schedule is part of our original plan and reflects the wishes of the production committee.”
Now under posts, fans and social media users alike will see a much more friendly Joestar smiling away at the good news. For Netflix’s sake, I hope they keep that jockey smiling.
