The Wait Is Over, Netflix's Most Anticipated Western Is Back With Near-Perfect Return

Published Sep 27, 2026, 11:20 PM EDT Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows. A top-notch Western series just returned to Netflix with a new season. The Western genre's massive cultural footprint is disproportionate to the surprisingly brief historical era it draws inspiration from. The actual American frontier era lasted for roughly thirty years, from the end of the Civil War to the closing of the frontier in the late 1890s. Despite this narrow window of time, the mythology of the lone cowboy in a lawless borderland filled with bandits has dominated global cinema, television, and literature for well over a century. No other genre has managed to transform such a limited era into a universal set of narrative boundaries so effectively. The Western reached its cultural zenith in the mid-20th century and steadily declined after the 1970s, but it never truly vanished. After the traditional iconography of the Stetson hats and steam trains faded, new movies and television shows adapted the Western's themes and tropes into entirely new settings. This subtle reinvention is brilliantly showcased in the bleak neo-Western landscape of No Country for Old Men, the modern outlaw drug-empire of Breaking Bad, and the vast, outer-space frontier of the sci-fi anime masterpiece Cowboy Bebop, for example. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Western influences reach their peak in the Steel Ball Run arc, where Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli as rugged gunslingers who race across a dust-choked 1890s America. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Is Back On Netflix JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run Premiered On September 25 The highly anticipated continuation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run arrived on Netflix on September 25 with the second and third stages of the series' epic cross-country race. Moving away from the traditional all-at-once binge model, Netflix is releasing this new batch of eleven episodes on a weekly schedule, with new episodes dropping every Friday. Animated by the acclaimed studio David Production under the direction of Yasuhiro Kimura and Hideya Takahashi, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run continues Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli's grueling horse race across a 750-mile desert and their encounter with the dangerous "Devil's Palm". The titular Steel Ball Run intensifies as protagonists Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli face the hazardous Devil's Palm phenomenon. As the supernatural elements of the race begin to unfold, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run introduces major franchise antagonists and allies like Mountain Tim, Hot Pants, and the overarching villain of this chapter, Funny Valentine. This segment of the adaptation is critical, as it transforms the horse race into a Stand-powered battle for survival and a conspiracy involving the collection of the Holy Corpse Parts guarantees immense power to whoever assembles them. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run Still Has Plenty Of Material To Adapt Steel Ball Run Is Only Beginning To Pick Up Speed David Production faces a rather daunting journey to complete the remaining six stages of Steel Ball Run's original ninety-five manga chapters. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's epic horse race will likely continue to be divided in a multi-part, split-cour rollout that could extend past 2028, grouping the mid-race skirmishes like the Chicago chapters into a single batch, followed by a final climax in the streets of New York. Adaptation choices from previous arcs suggest that the next stages will be faithful to the source material, but with streamlined pacing. Some explicit content, excessive violence, and real-world copyright-protected musical references will likely be altered or omitted. David Production combines traditional hand-drawn character close-ups with stylized three-dimensional CGI models for the horses to sustain the frantic momentum of the race without sacrificing visual detail. Stand manifestations like "Scary Monsters" or the reality-defying properties of "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" will likely make the most out of sudden camera perspective shifts and high-contrast color palettes to maximize the advantages of the animated medium. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run's first two stages already use dynamic motion-blur techniques and split-screen panels to emulate the exact layout of the manga panels so the pacing of the race transfers perfectly to animation. Will you be watching JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run? JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run is available to watch on Netflix. TV Show(s) JoJo Bizarre Adventure Video Game(s) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R Created by Hirohiko Araki Character(s) Will A. Zeppeli, Jonathan Joestar, Giorno Giovanna, Jotaro Kujo, Joseph Joestar, Jolyne Cujoh, Johnny Joestar, Josuke Higashikata, Gyro Zeppeli