What Is the Devil's Palm in Steel Ball Run? Why It Matters

The Devil's Palm is a mysterious and dangerous area of the American desert that Johnny Joestar and Gyro Zeppeli encounter during the Steel Ball Run race. It matters because it is one of the first major signs that Part 7 is not simply a cross-country horse race: supernatural forces are tied to the land, and surviving them can change the people caught inside.

Netflix is now putting the Devil's Palm directly at the center of Steel Ball Run's 2nd Stage, which begins streaming September 25, 2026. The official synopsis describes the roughly 750-mile desert crossing as home to an area feared by that name and warns that the incidents there force Johnny and Gyro to realize the race is more than a competition.

What Exactly Is the Devil's Palm?

At the anime's current point, the safest spoiler-light answer is that the Devil's Palm is an abnormal desert region connected to the supernatural mystery running underneath the Steel Ball Run. It is not merely a nickname for a difficult stretch of terrain. The location behaves in ways that cannot be explained by the ordinary dangers of the race.

That distinction is important for new viewers. Steel Ball Run begins with a grounded hook: thousands of competitors racing across the United States for an enormous prize. Johnny's interest in Gyro's Spin already introduces something unusual, but the Devil's Palm makes the larger supernatural direction much harder to ignore.

Why Is the Devil's Palm Important in the 2nd Stage?

The official anime material specifically highlights the Devil's Palm when describing the 2nd Stage. Johnny and Gyro must cross roughly 750 miles of desert, and ominous events begin to reveal hidden motives surrounding the race. In other words, this is where the story starts widening beyond who can reach the next checkpoint fastest.

It also gives the race a different kind of danger. A competitor can prepare for heat, exhaustion, navigation and rival riders. The Devil's Palm introduces threats that cannot be handled with normal racing strategy alone. That shift is one reason the upcoming batch is important to the identity of Part 7.

How Is It Connected to the Saint's Corpse?

This is where the larger mystery of Steel Ball Run comes into focus. The official JoJo portal confirms that pieces of a 'holy corpse' are scattered across North America. Legend says that whoever gathers the entire corpse will receive a thousand years of glory and prosperity.

The same official glossary reveals that President Funny Valentine, the race's patron, has a hidden objective: finding those scattered remains. That means the enormous race and the supernatural mystery are not two unrelated plots. The journey across America is taking competitors through territory connected to something far more valuable than the advertised prize money.

For anime-only viewers, it is better not to know every consequence in advance. The essential point is that the Devil's Palm belongs to the Corpse mystery that increasingly drives Part 7. The anime's 2nd Stage is positioned to start making that connection much more visible.

Does the Devil's Palm Give People Stand Powers?

The Devil's Palm is closely associated with Steel Ball Run's supernatural abilities, but reducing it to a simple 'place that gives everyone a Stand' misses the point and can spoil how Part 7 reveals its rules. The manga gradually explains the relationship between unusual locations, the Corpse and the abilities that emerge around them.

If you are following the anime, the most useful approach is to treat the Devil's Palm as a catalyst. People who pass through its influence can experience extraordinary effects, but the exact outcome is not identical for every person. The story deliberately reveals those mechanics through encounters rather than presenting a rulebook first.

Is the Devil's Palm the Same as Gyro's Spin?

No. Gyro's Spin is a technique based on precisely rotating his steel balls to transmit rotational energy and create different effects. The official JoJo glossary describes the steel balls as weapons whose inherited rotational technique can affect bodies and objects and can be used in combat.

The Devil's Palm belongs to a different supernatural thread. This distinction matters because Steel Ball Run develops multiple systems and phenomena that can overlap without being the same thing. Readers who want the mechanics of Gyro's technique can also read AnimeSparks' existing Spin explainer.

Why Johnny Is Especially Important to This Mystery

Johnny enters the race for a deeply personal reason. Once a gifted jockey, he is paralyzed from the waist down. The official JoJo portal says he finds hope after witnessing the mysterious phenomenon caused by Gyro's Spin, while VIZ describes Johnny momentarily regaining the ability to walk after watching Gyro's duel.

That makes Johnny unusually receptive to anything that might explain or restore what he has lost. The Devil's Palm therefore is not just another obstacle on his route. It pushes him deeper into the supernatural side of the journey that began when he became obsessed with understanding Gyro's power.

What Does Funny Valentine Want?

Funny Valentine is the 23rd president of the United States and publicly serves as a patron of the Steel Ball Run. The official Part 7 character profile, however, identifies his true goal as locating the holy remains scattered across America.

That revelation changes how the race should be viewed. A 6,000-kilometer route with thousands of competitors provides movement, confusion and access across a huge portion of the country. As the Corpse becomes more important, the political and supernatural motives behind the event begin to matter as much as the leaderboard.

Why the Devil's Palm Changes Steel Ball Run

The Devil's Palm is one of the concepts that turns Steel Ball Run's excellent race premise into recognizably bizarre JoJo territory. The horses, checkpoints and rivalries remain important, but the competitors are moving through a landscape where hidden powers and competing agendas can reshape the race itself.

It also provides a bridge between the two sides of Johnny's journey. He wants to understand the phenomenon that briefly affected his legs, while the race keeps drawing him toward places and people tied to forces he does not yet understand. The physical trip across America and his search for an answer become increasingly difficult to separate.

When Will the Anime Reach the Devil's Palm?

Steel Ball Run's 2nd and 3rd Stage begins September 25, 2026 on Netflix, with a new episode scheduled every Friday. The official anime site says this release consists of 11 episodes in total, and both Netflix and the JoJo portal explicitly use the Devil's Palm to describe the 2nd Stage.

That makes the Devil's Palm one of the most useful concepts to understand before the next batch starts. You do not need manga spoilers to follow it. Remember three things: it is genuinely supernatural, it is tied to the deeper mystery surrounding the race, and its significance reaches far beyond surviving a difficult patch of desert.

The Short Answer

The Devil's Palm is a supernatural desert phenomenon encountered along the Steel Ball Run route. It is connected to the Saint's Corpse mystery and helps expose the hidden forces operating beneath the race. With the anime's 2nd Stage beginning September 25, it is about to become much more important to Johnny and Gyro's journey.