jojo part 7 is a story set in the United States in 1890 about a race from San Diego to New York, covered here from the start line to the 7th Stage at Gettysburg. Steel Ball Run is set in the United States in 1890, and the race runs from San Diego to New York. The starting gun fires on 25 September. This post covers the first half of that story, from the start line to the 7th Stage at Gettysburg, told in scenes, with every major turn behind a tap so you decide how much you read.
Spoilers: chapters 1 to 59 (volumes 1 to 15), the 1st Stage through Gettysburg. The Netflix anime adds an episode every Friday, and the official episode page lists what has aired so far. The current batch is announced to cover only the 2nd and 3rd Stages, per Anime News Network, which ends at chapter 32. Everything from the 4th Stage on is past the whole announced batch. For the Friday schedule and where to start watching, see our Steel Ball Run anime guide.
Pick your path: why it starts over · when it is set · the route · the story in scenes
Reading the story is half of it: YourCrush.AI lets you build Vesna Harrow, the original character at the end of this post, and play your own version of Steel Ball Run.
Which JoJo part is Steel Ball Run, and why does it start over?
Steel Ball Run is JoJo Part 7, the seventh main story of Hirohiko Araki's manga, but it takes place in a new continuity that shares only names and a few Stands with Parts 1 to 6. Its first 23 chapters ran in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2004 with no stated link to JoJo. It was only announced as Part 7 when it moved to Ultra Jump in March 2005.
Steel Ball Run is Part 7 of Hirohiko Araki's JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, a manga about a horse race across the United States in 1890 that hides a hunt for the pieces of a holy corpse. Wikipedia's entry on the manga dates the Jump run from 19 January to 16 October 2004, "seemingly without any connection" to JoJo, and the Ultra Jump run from 19 March 2005 to 19 April 2011. It finished at 95 chapters in 24 volumes, volumes 81 to 104 of the whole series. The same entry says the new universe "is not related to the first six parts in any way beyond references to the names of some of its characters and a scant few recycled Stands". JoJolion (Part 8) and The JoJoLands (Part 9) continue it.
Why start over? CBR's explanation ties it to the end of Stone Ocean, where Pucci's Made in Heaven resets the universe and leaves the old continuity nowhere to go. CBR also says Araki felt the first universe had reached its peak. That is CBR's reading, and it does not quote Araki saying so. What Araki did say, per Wikipedia, is that the theme is "seeking for satisfaction" and "an affirmation that humanity is wonderful", and he made three research trips across the US for the series. The anime of this part is airing now, and it sits in our Fall 2026 anime guide with the rest of the season.
When does Steel Ball Run take place?
Steel Ball Run takes place in September 1890, and the race itself runs from 25 September 1890 to 19 January 1891. Chapter 4 is even titled with the date: "September 25, 1890: Three Hours Before the Start".
The September 1890 setting and the chapter title are both in Wikipedia's chapter list. The finish date, 19 January 1891, comes from Game Rant's race explainer. So if you searched what year Steel Ball Run takes place, the answer is 1890 for the start and 1891 for the finish. The race spans an American autumn and the first weeks of winter, about four months in the saddle. That date is not decoration. It puts the race 25 years after the Civil War, which matters by the time the riders reach Gettysburg.
Where does Steel Ball Run take place?
Steel Ball Run takes place in the United States, across a horse race of roughly 6,000 km that runs from San Diego to New York City. It opens with a 15,000-metre sprint from San Diego Beach and finishes in Manhattan, near Trinity Church.
The official JoJo portal gives the distance as 6,000 km, the prize as 50 million dollars (about 6 billion yen) and the field as 3,852 riders from around the world. Inven Global counts nine stages, through the Arizona desert, the Rocky Mountains, Kansas City, Chicago and Lake Michigan on the way to New York. Chapter 5 is "First Stage: 15,000 Meters" and chapter 32 is "Third Stage Finish Line: Cañon City", per Wikipedia. The Final Stage runs through Manhattan to Trinity Church, per the JoJo fan wiki's race page).
| Stage | Where | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | San Diego Beach sprint | 1 to 12 |
| 2nd | Arizona desert | 13 to 27 |
| 3rd | Rockies, to Cañon City | 28 to 32 |
| 7th | Gettysburg | 56 to 59 |
The chapter ranges follow Wikipedia's volume summaries. This post stops at the end of the 7th Stage. The 8th and Final Stages belong to part 2.
What is the Steel Ball Run plot?
Steel Ball Run follows Johnny Joestar, a paralysed former jockey, and Gyro Zeppeli, a master of the Spin, across a $50 million race that 3,852 riders enter. The race turns out to be a front: President Funny Valentine built it to collect the scattered parts of a 1,900-year-old corpse.
That summary is Wikipedia's plot section in two lines, with the rider count from the official portal. Johnny wants his legs back. Gyro wants a pardon. Valentine wants the Corpse. Diego Brando, a British jockey, wants to win and later wants the Corpse too. The race is the frame, and it brings rival riders and the President's agents after the Corpse parts. The scenes below follow that in order.
How does the race start for Johnny and Gyro?
Johnny enters the race because touching one of Gyro's spinning steel balls made his paralysed legs move for a moment. Gyro crosses the 1st Stage line first but is penalised for using his steel balls as weapons, so Sandman is declared the stage winner.
Scene 1: the steel ball at the start line
San Diego, late September 1890. The beach is packed with horses, reporters and riders from every country, and Johnny Joestar watches it all from a wheelchair. He is a former jockey from Danville, Kentucky, born Jonathan Joestar, and he is 19 by most accounts, the age the JoJo fan wiki reads from chapter 64 (his birthplace and birth name are in Wikipedia's character list). A man he had wronged in a theatre queue shot him in the back and left him paralysed from the waist down; who shot Johnny, and whether he ever walks again, has its own post.
Then a stranger with braided hair and gold teeth walks past spinning a steel ball, and Johnny reaches for it.
Spoiler: what happens when Johnny touches the steel ball
His legs move, if only for a moment, per Wikipedia's volume 1 summary. The stranger is Gyro Zeppeli, a master of the Spin, and Johnny decides on the spot to enter the race and follow him until he learns the secret (chapters 1 to 3).
Here is how we imagine Johnny putting it to himself that afternoon, in our words, not Araki's: *"They clap for the cripple who came to watch. Fine. Let them clap. That man knows something about my legs, and I am going to stay close enough to take it."*
Scene 2: a win taken away
Gyro does not want company. He wants the stage. The 1st Stage is a 15 km sprint, and by the finish he is racing three men he will meet again: Diego Brando, the British jockey; Sandman, a Native American who runs it on foot; and Pocoloco, a sharecropper who seems to win on luck alone.
Spoiler: who is declared the 1st Stage winner
Gyro crosses the line first and is penalised for using his steel balls as weapons, and Sandman is declared the 1st Stage winner (chapter 12, "First Stage: Disqualified Victory"), per Wikipedia's chapter list. The anime covers this penalty in Episode 2.
Why does Gyro take a penalty he could have avoided? He is not racing for the stage. Gyro is a disgraced executioner from the Kingdom of Naples, and he enters the race to win amnesty for a boy on death row whom he believes was wrongly convicted, per Wikipedia; who Gyro really is, and how his story ends, gets its own post. His father, Gregorio Zeppeli, trained him as both a doctor and a royal executioner, Game Rant reports. The Spin is that family's art, a technique that "channels rotational energy through Steel Balls", in Wikipedia's words.
In our imagining, Gyro's answer to Johnny's first question is a joke: *"Why do I race? Same as everyone, Johnny: the money. Now stop asking and ride, or go home."*
Our reading, and it is ours: each of the three leads enters this race for something the prize money cannot buy. Johnny wants his legs, Gyro wants a boy's life, and the man who built the race wants something older than the country.
What is the Holy Corpse, and who is hunting it?
The Holy Corpse is a 1,900-year-old body, heavily implied to be Jesus Christ, broken into parts and hidden along the route. Each part gives its holder power. Johnny gains his Stand, Tusk, from its left arm, and the President already holds its heart.
Scene 3: the arm in the desert
The 2nd Stage crosses the Arizona desert, and it is where the race stops being only a race. A bounty hunter, Mountain Tim, is deputised to look into the murders of riders, and the Boomboom Family attack Johnny and Gyro with a shared magnetic Stand (chapters 13 to 19). A Neapolitan terrorist, Oyecomova, goes after Gyro in the Rockies (chapters 20 to 23), per Wikipedia. Then, in the sand, Johnny finds something that should not be there.
Spoiler: what the race is really for
Johnny absorbs the left arm of the Saint's Corpse and gains the Stand Tusk (chapters 24 to 27). The race is a front. Funny Valentine, the 23rd President of the United States, engineered it to gather the scattered parts of a 1,900-year-old corpse, "heavily implied to be the body of Jesus Christ", and he already holds its heart, per Wikipedia. He means to reassemble it and gain limitless power "on behalf of his nation". How the President's story ends has its own post.
Why build a race to find a body? Valentine needs thousands of people to search a continent without telling any of them what they are looking for. Araki said Valentine's patriotism and goals "seemed just and might align with those of leaders in the real world", and that what makes him evil is that he exploits powerless people, per Wikipedia's production section. A race with a fortune for a prize is that exploitation in plain sight.
Scene 4: the dinosaur village
On the 3rd Stage, in the Rockies, a whole village goes wrong. The people in it are turning into dinosaurs under the Stand of Dr. Ferdinand, called Scary Monsters (chapters 28 to 31). Diego Brando, 20 in the JoJo fan wiki's reading of chapter 64, rides into it as one of the race leaders and comes out as something else.
Spoiler: what Diego takes from the Corpse
Diego takes the Corpse's left eye and keeps the dinosaur power for himself, while Gyro gets the right eye, per Wikipedia. From here on Diego is a rival in the race and in the hunt. What becomes of Diego is its own story, and it has two endings.
In our imagining, Diego sizes up the leads that night: *"Joestar rides on a dead man's arm and Zeppeli on a trick from Naples. I ride on what I took. We will see which of us is still in the saddle in New York."*
Who attacks Johnny and Gyro on the road to Gettysburg?
Between the Rockies and Gettysburg, Johnny and Gyro face Ringo Roadagain, their former rival Sandman, the Neapolitan Wekapipo and the veteran Axl RO, and Johnny's Stand grows stronger along the way. At Gettysburg, President Valentine takes most of the Corpse parts for himself.
Ringo Roadagain is a gunslinger whose Stand, Mandom, rewinds time by six seconds, and he traps Johnny, Gyro and the nun Hot Pants in a forest (chapters 33 to 35, "A Man's World"). The cursed tree Sugar Mountain later gives the pair two Corpse parts (chapters 45 to 47). Wekapipo, an exiled Neapolitan royal guard who also uses the Spin, attacks with his Stand Magent Magent (chapters 51 to 54), all per Wikipedia. Lucy Steel, a 14-year-old girl, learns of the President's plan in this stretch and is hunted by his agents for it (chapters 36 to 39 and 48 to 50).
Scene 5: Sandman turns
The man who won the 1st Stage on foot comes back. Sandman races to buy back his ancestors' land, per Wikipedia, and the Corpse is worth more than any prize to a man with that goal.
Spoiler: which rival turns on Johnny and Gyro
Sandman turns on Johnny and Gyro, and they beat him in "Silent Way" (chapters 40 to 44). Johnny's Tusk evolves when Gyro teaches him to use the golden ratio, the Golden Rectangle, and Johnny ends the fight once Tusk reaches ACT2, per Wikipedia's volume 11 summary. The JoJo fan wiki places ACT2 in chapter 43 and the end of the fight in chapter 44, consistent with that volume.
Gyro teaches Johnny because he needs him alive. A partner who can only follow is a liability across a continent. One whose Stand keeps growing is the reason they both reach the coast.
Scene 6: Gettysburg
The 7th Stage reaches Gettysburg, a battlefield 27 years old. Axl RO, a Civil War veteran, attacks with a Stand called Civil War that turns "things they had previously discarded" against his targets (chapters 56 to 59), per Wikipedia.
Spoiler: who holds the Corpse after Gettysburg
Valentine takes most of the Corpse parts for himself at Gettysburg (chapters 56 to 59), per Wikipedia's volume 15 summary. Johnny's Tusk reaches ACT3 in chapter 59, per the JoJo fan wiki, consistent with that volume. The leads leave Gettysburg stronger and with less of the Corpse than when they arrived.
Valentine wins Gettysburg without riding a mile of it. He holds most of the Corpse, and the race turns toward Philadelphia. The race reaches Philadelphia in part 2 of the story.
How YourCrush.AI lets you chart your own stage of the 1890 race
You build a guide for a race of your own, then ride one stage with her. YourCrush.AI drafts a character's description, backstory and greeting from just a name and an image, so you start with a full draft and edit it. YourCrush.AI keeps pinned memories, so the canyon she warned you about on day one still matters on day ten. YourCrush.AI lets you branch a story, so you can take the short route and the long one and see which secret she tells you on each.
No Steel Ball Run character has a chat page with us, and the leads belong to Araki. This recipe is an original adult in the same world and year. Paste it into the character creator and change what you like.
Name (32 of 40 characters): Vesna Harrow, the Route Surveyor
Behaviour mode: natural · Category: Anime
Traits (5): Intelligent, Curious, Sarcastic, Calm, Honest
Speaking style (4 words): precise, wry, low, unhurried
Description: Vesna Harrow is 36, a cartographer hired the summer before the great race to survey a coast-to-coast horse race route before the riders arrive. She knows every river crossing, every dry stretch and every town that will water a horse for a price. She trusts measurements over people and says so. She is dry, exact and hard to impress, and she laughs once a day at most. She wears a long canvas coat, a surveyor's chain at her belt and a notebook she never lets out of her sight. She treats you as the rider she has agreed to guide through one stage of the race, for a fee and a share of nothing else.
Backstory: The organisers hired Vesna to map the route. While she worked, she found survey stakes from another team along the line, set in places no horse race needs: dry wells, rock shelves, a cave mouth. Nobody she asked would say who placed them. You hired her at the San Diego start because she was the only guide who did not lie about the desert. You have crossed one desert stage together. She has not told you what she found, and you have not asked yet.
Greeting: *Vesna unrolls a map across your saddle and pins it with two stones.* "Three routes east. The short one crosses a canyon the organisers swear is dry. My survey says otherwise, and so do the stakes someone hammered in last month. Pick a route and I'll tell you what I'm not supposed to."
Frequently asked questions
Is the JoJo Part 7 anime out?
Yes. The 1st Stage landed on Netflix on 19 March 2026 as a single 47-minute episode, according to Anime News Network. The 2nd and 3rd Stages then roll out weekly on Fridays starting 25 September 2026, for 11 episodes total. Our anime guide breaks down the full schedule.
How many chapters and volumes is Steel Ball Run?
Steel Ball Run runs 95 chapters across 24 volumes. Those are volumes 81 to 104 of the series as a whole, per Wikipedia.
Is Steel Ball Run available in English?
It is. VIZ Media publishes the English edition, with volume 1 out on 27 May 2025 and volume 9 dated 22 September 2026, per Anime News Network's encyclopedia.
How many riders enter the Steel Ball Run?
3,852 riders enter, per the official JoJo portal. Some fan pages list 3,652, but the official figure is 3,852.
What is the prize for winning the Steel Ball Run?
The winner takes 50 million dollars, roughly 6 billion yen, per the official JoJo portal. Lower numbers get passed around, but the portal and Wikipedia both land on 50 million.
Who wrote Steel Ball Run?
Hirohiko Araki wrote and drew it, and he took three research trips across the US while working on the series, per Wikipedia.
Every guide in Steel Ball Run
Steel Ball Run
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