Steel Ball Run's New Ending Song Has Japanese Fans Roasting It Nonstop

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run just got a new ending theme — a rap track called "Dead or Alive" by rapper Yuki Chiba — and Japanese fans spent a 2,557-comment thread roasting it nonstop.

The reaction compilation video that collected those comments drew 3,485 likes of its own, and the jokes range from the song's tone clashing with the story to overseas viewers apparently finding it even worse once they understand the lyrics.

A handful of commenters tried to defend it — but even they mostly ended up praising the rapper's talent while admitting the song itself doesn't fit.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run got a new ending theme — a rap track called "Dead or Alive" (死ぬか生きるか), performed by rapper Yuki Chiba and posted by official channel Warner Bros. Japan Anime. This reaction-compilation video gathers the Japanese response to it, and "response" is generous — it's mostly a pile-on. The channel that compiled the backlash calls its own upload a collection of "fans visibly recoiling" at the ED, and the comment section underneath ran to 2,557 comments.

It isn't that nobody has heard a JoJo ED people didn't love before. It's the specific combination here — a somber, horse-riding western about a man who says money and mortality don't matter to him, scored by a confident rap track about chasing prize money and living or dying — that fans kept returning to as proof the mismatch isn't just taste. It's structural.

Most of the thread isn't nuanced criticism — it's just a chain of increasingly creative jokes about how badly the song lands.

A few people did push back on the pile-on — but even their defense tends to be about the genre or the artist, not the song's fit with the show.

The most-cited actual argument, rather than a joke, is about theme: the lyrics are about chasing prize money and the line between living and dying, and commenters say that's a direct contradiction of what the story's own protagonist says he believes in.

Nobody tops the top-rated reply, though — a single word that sums up the entire thread better than any of the longer jokes do.

What's notable is how little of the thread is actually a simple "otaku who can't handle hip-hop" complaint. When that accusation comes up, commenters push back by citing reactions from rap fans themselves — both the one claiming rap's own home audience is being harshest on this track, and the one relaying an overseas listener who says understanding the lyrics only makes it land worse. What nobody in the thread seems to get past is a song about chasing bounties and staring down death, attached to a story whose protagonist spends the season saying none of that is the point. Neither Warner Bros. Japan Anime nor Yuki Chiba has said anything about the reception, and the comment section under every reaction compilation of this ED looks set to keep writing its own, increasingly elaborate roast in the meantime.