(stylized in all caps when written in Latin script) is the seventh main story arc of the Japanese manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. Set in the United States in 1890, it follows the journey of Johnny Joestar, a paraplegic former jockey who desires to regain the use of his legs, and Gyro Zeppeli, a disgraced Neapolitan former executioner who seeks to win amnesty for a child on death row. They compete in the titular cross-country horse race for a $50 million grand prize, but find themselves targeted after discovering the hidden agenda of the race's sponsor.
The first 23 chapters were serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump in 2004 under the title of Steel Ball Run, seemingly without any connection to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. However, when the series moved to manga magazine Ultra Jump in 2005, Steel Ball Run was officially announced to be the seventh arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, albeit set in a separate continuity from all the prior arcs. The new continuity that began in Steel Ball Run also serves as the setting for the following arcs of the series, JoJolion and The JoJoLands. Its 95 chapters were combined into 24 volumes (volumes 81–104 of the entire series), following the trend set by the previous part, Stone Ocean, of starting over the volume count. Viz Media has licensed the manga for English release in North America, with the first volume released in May 2025.
Steel Ball Run has been praised for its art, characters, and story. An anime adaptation, Steel Ball Run: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, premiered on Netflix in March 2026.
Plot In September 1890, racing jockeys from all over the world flock to the United States to take part in the Steel Ball Run, a cross-country horse race from San Diego to New York City with a fifty-million dollar grand prize. A paraplegic named Johnny Joestar enters the race to learn about the mysterious Spin ability of a former Neapolitan executioner named Gyro Zeppeli, who temporarily restored Johnny's mobility after one of his steel balls hit Johnny. Although they begin the race as rivals, Johnny and Gyro become friends as they travel across the United States while fending off various assassins, terrorists, outlaws, and other violent competitors. Although the Steel Ball Run is organized by the eccentric promoter Steven Steel, United States President Funny Valentine has engineered the race to serve as a front for collecting the scattered pieces of a 1900-year-old corpse known as the Saint's Corpse (heavily implied to be the body of Jesus Christ). Valentine intends to reassemble the Corpse and gain limitless power through it on behalf of his nation, having already obtained the Corpse's heart.
After Johnny and Gyro encounter the left arm of the Saint's Corpse, it is absorbed into Johnny's body and he develops the evolving Stand, Tusk, allowing him to fend off one of Valentine's subordinates. Later, they meet the spiteful and ambitious racer Diego Brando who obtains the Corpse's left eye, while Gyro gains the right eye. Johnny and Gyro continue the race, encountering other racers, gaining and losing Corpse parts, and enhancing their Spin techniques along the way. Eventually, Valentine succeeds in taking Johnny and Gyro's corpse parts, seizing Diego's eye soon afterward with the aid of his dimension-traversing Stand, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (often shortened as "D4C").
Meanwhile, Steven's wife Lucy tries to uncover and foil Valentine's plan with later assistance from another racer, Hot Pants. However, Valentine discovers Lucy and takes her captive after she fuses with the Corpse and becomes pregnant with the Corpse's head. Diego and Hot Pants ally against and fight Valentine on a moving train, but are overpowered and killed by the president. Lucy begins to merge with the completed Corpse fully, enhancing Valentine's stand with a new misfortune-redirecting ability known as D4C: Love Train. Johnny and Gyro arrive and attempt to battle the seemingly invulnerable Valentine, only for Valentine to overpower them both and kill Gyro. Mourning his mentor and friend, Johnny realizes how to achieve the perfect form of the Spin technique, enhances his Stand, and overwhelms Valentine with his new power. Valentine attempts to feign surrender, and offers to “bring back” Gyro using D4C's trans-dimensional abilities. Valentine draws a gun on Johnny, but Johnny kills him, avenging Gyro, but putting an end to any hope of his return.
The Saint's Corpse separates from Lucy, only to be stolen by an unknown antagonist. Pursuing the thief into the final stage of the Steel Ball Run, Johnny is shocked to find that it is an alternate instance of Diego Brando taken from a parallel dimension by Valentine, wielding a time-stopping Stand known as The World. Johnny attempts to engage the alternate Diego, who defeats him with his own attack and easily takes first place in the race. The alternate Diego brings the Corpse to Trinity Church, only to run into Lucy, who annihilates him by forcing him to merge with the severed head of the original Diego.
As the race ends, the alternate Diego is disqualified after failing to appear for post-race ceremonies, so first place is awarded to the carefree Pocoloco, who had slept through the start of the race and only caught up by sheer luck, while Steven Steel arrives to save Johnny. Valentine's death is covered up as retirement from public life, with concerns over the race placated by the donation of the race's revenue to charitable causes. Johnny, having regained his ability to walk through the power of his Stand and the Spin, leaves America to return Gyro's body to his family. On the boat, he meets the Japanese runner-up racer Norisuke Higashikata. Johnny later marries Norisuke's daughter Rina, leading to the events of Part 8, JoJolion.
Characters
, born Jonathan Joestar, is a former horse racer from Danville, Kentucky, who is paralyzed from the waist down. He participates in the Steel Ball Run to follow Gyro Zeppeli in the hopes of using his Spin technique to regain use of his legs. He uses the Stand Tusk, which allows him to shoot his finger nails as bullets. As the race continues and Johnny begins to understand the Spin, Tusk evolves into different forms, termed ACTs, with differing capabilities, similarly to Koichi Hirose's Echoes. , born Julius Caesar Zeppeli, is a disgraced magistrate and executioner from the Kingdom of Naples, who participates in the Steel Ball Run to free a boy on death row who he believes has been wrongfully convicted. He is a master of a mystical art called the Spin, which channels rotational energy through Steel Balls to produce all manner of effects. Gyro has an acute knowledge of the human body, which combines with his precision, quick judgment, and knowledge of Spin to make him a skilled combatant. Gyro eventually unlocks the Stand-like Spin technique Ball Breaker, which allows him to induce senescence in whatever his Steel Balls hit. is a fourteen-year-old girl married to Steel Ball Run promoter . Steven took the original idea for the Steel Ball Run from Lucy, and later married her both out of gratitude and to save her and her father from the Mafia. After learning of the Holy Corpse, Lucy allies herself with Johnny and Gyro to put an end to the president's ambitions. She later obtains the Stand Ticket to Ride, which allows her tears to take solid form and alter the luck of whatever they touch, before eventually being forced to fuse with the Corpse itself. Diego Brando, nicknamed Dio, is a Steel Ball Run participant from the United Kingdom, and one of Johnny and Gyro's fiercest rivals. After being transformed into a dinosaur by a Stand named Scary Monsters, he inherits the ability for himself by seizing the Holy Corpse's left eye. Diego utilizes Scary Monsters more directly than his predecessor, often partially turning himself into a dinosaur or using miniature dinosaurs to pursue his targets. is a Steel Ball Run participant from the United States. Having sacrificed her younger brother to escape a grizzly bear in her youth, Hot Pants became a nun to atone for her sins before eventually entering the race. She uses the Stand Cream Starter, which takes the form of a spray bottle that can spray human flesh as a foam-like substance that can fuse with people's bodies. is a former Neapolitan royal guard who was exiled for killing his sister's abusive husband in a duel. He is hired by Funny Valentine alongside Stand user Magent Magent to attack Johnny and Gyro. Like Gyro, Wekapipo is not a Stand User, but instead uses Steel Balls imbued with the Spin. His special technique, referred to as Wrecking Ball, allows him to release smaller spheres from one of his Steel Balls if it is blocked or misses, which cause anyone who touches them to become unable to see or feel anything to their left side. is a cowboy and bounty hunter introduced as a leading competitor in the Steel Ball Run. During the first stages of the race, Tim becomes one of Johnny and Gyro's allies while pursuing a murderous competitor. Later, Tim returns to save Lucy after she infiltrates a government building, out of his own romantic feelings for her. Mountain Tim is a Stand User who is able to transport his body through his lasso thanks to his Stand, Oh! Lonesome Me. joins the race after a fortune-teller foretells great luck in his immediate future. Through that sheer luck, he becomes one of the fiercest competitors of the race. Though Pocoloco is a Stand User, his Stand, Hey Ya!, only demonstrates the ability to encourage and suggest ideas to him, relying upon his natural luck. , whose real name translates to Soundman, is a competitor in the Steel Ball Run race. Sandman comes from a Native American tribe in the Arizona desert. Despite being ostracized for adopting the ways of American society, he hopes that winning the race will earn him enough money to buy back his ancestors' land. In addition to becoming one of the fiercest competitors in the race thanks to his running technique, Sandman wields the Stand In a Silent Way, which allows him to create three-dimensional constructs out of sounds and apply their associated effects to whatever they touch. He is eventually hired by Funny Valentine and partnered with Diego Brando, with orders to assassinate Johnny and Gyro. is the 23rd President of the United States, and a former soldier. He uses the Stand Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, which allows him to travel or send things between alternate dimensions when pressed or positioned between two objects, with any counterparts in the same dimension being forced to merge with each other and be destroyed. Valentine later acquires an additional ability named D4C Love Train, which produces a gap in space that redirects any attack toward Valentine to somewhere else in the world. The Boomboom Family are a family of criminals hired by a foreign country to assassinate Johnny and Gyro. At the beginning of the race, they kill several competitors, attracting the attention of Mountain Tim. The family shares a single Stand, Tomb of the Boom, which gives each of them unique abilities related to magnetism. is the patriarch and leader of the family, his wife having left the family to work as a prostitute. He is murderous and greedy, and he and his two sons kill several racers in the early stages of the race. Benjamin's version of Tomb of the Boom allows him to sink metal objects into his skin, which he can disguise himself with or release to attack unsuspecting victims. is one of Benjamin's two sons and displays the same murderous tendencies as his father, in addition to a deep fascination with erotic asphyxiation. Andre's version of Tomb of the Boom allows him to materialize sharp objects from within anyone he touches.