The Hachi #2: The half-remembered Captain
The real friends were the balls we made along the way
We’re back for a second one! The support for Issue #1 has been fantastic and I’m incredibly grateful for all the reads and shares so far.
I told myself I’d get this one shorter and I’ve somewhat succeeded, but I do have some ideas for more focused/themed issues in the weeks to come so we’ll see how that goes.
Before getting to this week’s buzz, I want to plug my guest appearance on the latest episode of the The J-Talk Podcast, where we had a great discussion about Japan’s squad for the Asian Cup as well as the J.League’s switch to an autumn-spring schedule and all the ramifications thereof.
Ben’s contribution to the J.League fan community has been immense over these 12 (!) years and they’re just a few weeks away from their 500th “main feed” episode, so there’s never been a better time to start tuning in.
Anyway, on with the show:
1. An ending for the soccer manga that changed everything
The next few weeks are going to feature plenty of eulogizing on Captain Tsubasa, with author Yoichi Takahashi announcing on Friday that he’ll be putting down his pen after completing the ongoing “Rising Sun” arc in April.
Tsubasa is somewhat of a sacred cow in Japanese soccer fandom, having inspired generations of players to take up the sport as kids since its publication began in 1981 — including Hidetoshi Nakata, one of Japan’s first international stars.
The anime, which was broadcast in over 100 countries, has a reputation for influencing a number of the sport’s biggest names like Fernando Torres, Andres Iniesta and Alessandro Del Piero, making it one of Japan’s most treasured cultural exports.
But when news outlets, greenhorn sports bloggers and content accounts write about Captain Tsubasa, what they’re really writing about is the series’ reputation of having helped soccer find popularity in Japan and inspired players who would go on to lead the country to glory on the global stage.
In recent years they may even be writing about the actual soccer club he purchased in 2019 (named Nankatsu SC, after Tsubasa protagonist Tsubasa Ozora’s elementary and junior high schools) and its progress toward joining the J.League, or Takahashi’s deserved admission into the Japan Football Hall of Fame for his contributions to the sport.
Yet they aren’t writing about the franchise’s shift toward commercial endeavors that could generously be described as exploitative — among them mobile gacha game Dream Team (whose poor performance in recent years is apparently dragging down developer KLab), blockchain-based NFT battle game Rivals, a collaboration with another NFT game, an official NFT project that was tied to donating balls to children in disadvantaged situations (though to their credit, they actually did it)… you get the picture.1
And they certainly aren’t writing about how the actual series, which spans 109 manga volumes (adapted and re-adapted into nearly 300 TV episodes, four theatrical releases, a 13-episode OVA series and about 20 video games), has only advanced its storyline by about a decade.
That’s largely because neither the original TV series — the one known to Gen X-aged fans across the world as Flash Kicker, Olive et Tom, Holly e Benji, Supercampeones or Captain Majid — nor the manga2 have been legally available in years, with only the 2018 anime adaptation widely available and the rest stuck in licensing purgatory.
(A couple episodes of the English dub, which is widely considered to be lost media, have recently been rediscovered, so enjoy this while it stays up!)
The triality of Captain Tsubasa — cultural touchstone, nostalgia-driven commercial brand and actual creative work — is a weird one to unpack. And I’d certainly never argue that Takahashi doesn’t deserve his flowers; even throughout the endless commercial tie-ups he’s continued to write new chapters. Let’s face it, 43 years is a long time to be doing anything, nevermind carry a title like this on one’s back.
At the same time, Tsubasa was written from the start as a sort of aspirational fantasy, starring a character Takahashi has long admitted could never lose. While the series inspired a generation that (at the time) could never imagine Japan as a soccer nation, it doesn’t seem as necessary in an era when the Samurai Blue are ranked 17th in the world and beat two former world champions at the last World Cup.
Meanwhile, the modern era of manga/anime has produced plenty of popular realistic soccer-themed titles, including Giant Killing, Football Nation and Aoashi, to say nothing of more shonen-y series like megahit Blue Lock.
Takahashi’s body of work deserves to be celebrated, and his decision to get out of the serialization game on his own terms should be lauded — especially in an industry where overwork, burnout and worse are far from uncommon.3
But in the end, the world is less in love with Captain Tsubasa than it is with the idea of Captain Tsubasa — and quite frankly, it’s as good a time as any to give the series one last honor guard and move on.
2. United for Ishikawa
The images that continue to arrive from Ishikawa Prefecture in the wake of the Noto Peninsula Earthquake are upsetting and saddening, as rescue and recovery efforts continue more than a week after the region was struck on New Year’s Day.
As always, there has been an outflowing of support from the sporting community — including the LA Dodgers donating $1 million to recovery efforts alongside Shohei Ohtani, who will be making a donation of his own.
Another major show of solidarity came just a day after the quake, during the 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament.
Though players from Ishikawa’s Seiryo High School had arrived in Chiba well ahead of their first-round game on Dec. 31, the quake left the school’s cheering squad and other supporters unable to travel for the team’s second-round game against Ichiritsu Funabashi on Jan. 2.
After Seiryo alumni in the Tokyo area sent out a desperate call for help on the night of Jan. 1, players and fans of other teams in the tournament sprung into action, writing banners and forming an impromptu supporter group at Kashiwanoha Stadium.
Players from Yokohama’s Nihon University Fujisawa HS, who had been eliminated in Round 1, converted trash bags into ad-hoc uniforms to match Seiryo’s yellow-and-green shirts, while Ichiritsu Funabashi provided Seiryo supporters with green plastic megaphones from their baseball and women’s basketball teams.
Seiryo — whose most famous product is undoubtedly Samurai Blue legend Keisuke Honda — fought back to tie the game at 1-1 before eventually losing 4-1 to Funabashi, whose run ended in the semifinals against eventual champions Aomori Yamada.
Elsewhere, other leagues stepping up include the J.League, which is spinning up the TEAM AS ONE fundraising campaign that it first established after the 3/11 disaster, Japan Rugby League One, and the B.League, which held moments of silence for the victims at all B1 and B2 Round 16 games over the weekend.
A number of individual clubs, including the V.League’s Tokyo GreatBears are either setting up fundraising drives or donating a portion of food and merch profits.
Readers outside Japan can donate to recovery efforts in Ishikawa through the Nippon Foundation, while those in Japan can donate through Yahoo! Japan.
3. Teenage dreamers
This weekend featured the conclusion of two of Japan’s most prestigious high school tournaments that aren’t the big one.
One day before 55,000 fans packed the National Stadium in Tokyo to watch powerhouse Aomori Yamada beat Shiga Prefecture upstart Ohmi 3-1 in the final of the aforementioned 102nd All Japan High School Soccer Tournament, a smaller crowd of 4,950 watched Yokohama’s Touin Gakuen outlast Higashi Fukuoka 8-5 in the final of the 103rd National High School Rugby Tournament at Hanazono Rugby Stadium in Osaka.
And it’s from that second tournament that I want to highlight this emotional clip from host broadcaster MBS, which I think does a great job of showing how the human side gets top billing when it comes to elite high school sports in Japan.
The video turns its gaze away from the top schools and the star players, instead focusing on the stories from the teams that lost along the way to Sunday’s final. They include:
Fukui Prefecture’s Wakasa Higashi High School abandoning its record of seven straight appearances to form a joint team with Tsuruga Technical, who didn’t have enough players to compete in regional qualifying.
Masako Mori, the mother of both Kindai University Wakayama High School captain Haruma and his teammate Yuma, expressing gratitude for the “new world” her sons introduced her to through their participation in the sport.
A medical staffer telling a player from northern Hokkaido’s Engaru High School, competing in the tournament for the first time in 8 years: “Thank you for bringing us to Hanazono. You’re the pride of our town.”
Teammates at Saga Prefecture’s Saga Technical who have been playing together since elementary school.
Ryutsu Keizai University Kashiwa High School captain Yamato Suga, who was forced to step back from the game after developing a severe kidney ailment, being called back by his teammates and serving as a team assistant and mood-maker within the squad.
There’s a lot that can be said about the mawkish sentimentality Japanese society imbues into high school sports — and high school in general, really, at a level that even the average American would find unhealthy. But montages like this, which is compiled of clips from longer features that MBS aired over the course of the tournament, also show the level of effort and care that goes into covering these competitions.
4. Catching them all
Rookie infielder Kyuto Ueda, selected in the first round by the Chiba Lotte Marines in October’s 2023 NPB Draft, moved into the team’s Saitama City dorm on Sunday — and he brought along some friends.
That collection of yellow dudes is Kairyu, known to overseas fans of the Pokemon franchise as Gen 1 O.G. Dragonite.
Ueda told Sports Hochi (and, one would assume, any other beat writers who showed up for the photo op) that he started receiving stuffed toys of the Dragon/Flying-type Pokemon on birthdays and other occasions — he has about seven or eight now — after one of his Meiji University classmates pointed out a resemblance.
Listed at 183 cm and 96 kg, Ueda will certainly be an imposing figure on the diamond — though perhaps not quite as gigantic as Dragonite’s 202 cm and 210 kg.
If and when Ueda cracks the Lotte starting lineup, it’s almost a given that Dragonite toys will become common sights in the Zozo Marine Stadium stands. And if he really breaks out, don’t be surprised if the club reaches out to Nintendo for what should be an easy merch collaboration.
5. Last stop for the sumo train
Ahead of the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, which kicks off at Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan on Sunday, Nikkan has reported that the Japan Sumo Association is officially ending its “sumo train” tradition, which saw hundreds of lower-ranked wrestlers board the same train in order to travel to the three grand tournaments held each year in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka.
After three years without the sumo train due to the coronavirus pandemic, the tradition resumed before the 2023 Nagoya Basho. But many stables have continued to arrange their own transportation — as they were required to during the pandemic in order to abide by infection prevention measures — and just 11 of the 44 stables chose to use it for the Kyushu Basho in November.
The sight of hundreds of wrestlers — kimono, topknots and all — flooding a train station always made for great visuals, helping to build up anticipation and boost ticket sales ahead of the “regional” basho, which have not always packed the stands as quickly as their Tokyo counterparts. The JSA will now have to figure out how to replace all the free media exposure it’s losing:
Gyoji (referee) Ginjiro Kimura documented sumo’s relationship with trains in a 2021 book called Ozumo to Tetsudo (Ozumo and Railroads). Toyo Keizai published an excerpt soon after its release:
The air inside the train is thick with the smell of pomade. Sweat runs down the faces of rikishi not only during the summer, but during the winter when the heaters are turned up. Through all of that you can see wrestlers eating, playing games on their phones and tablets or watching movies.
But the majority are sleeping. Sometimes you hear loud snoring.
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However large their bodies are, when we travel as a group each person gets one seat. Even if you pull the armrests up, (wrestlers) are shoulder-to-shoulder and it’s a cramped space.
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Except for the those in the back row, nobody reclines their seats. It’s an unspoken rule. Everyone knows firsthand how stressful it is when the person in front of you reclines their seats.
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When you reach juryo (the second division), you finally get called a sekitori. The Japan Sumo Association provides green car shinkansen tickets to all sekitori. You no longer have to travel together with other wrestlers on the sumo train, and reaching that standing is the only way to escape that situation.
6. Baby-faced assassin
Keisei Tominaga is one of Japan’s hottest basketball players right now and it’s easy to see why. The 22-year-old guard, currently in his senior year at the University of Nebraska, was introduced by Huskers head coach Fred Hoiberg as the “Japanese Steph Curry” in recognition of his skills from beyond the 3-point line.
Tominaga represented Japan in 3x3 basketball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was a part of the Akatsuki Five team that finished 19th at the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, clinching a berth at the Paris Olympics as Asia’s top-performing side.
His late inclusion in this issue comes after he scored a game-high 19 points in Nebraska’s 88-72 win over No. 1-ranked Purdue — and did it with a face that has surely never felt even the slightest kiss of a razor blade.
Get a good look at those cherubic cheeks, because you’re going to be seeing them a lot on the court for years to come. NBA writer Steph Noh of the Sporting News was bullish on Tominaga’s upside in his scouting report last year, though he notes that at 6’2” he’ll have a lot of catching up to do on the physical side.
Tominaga has already worked hard on his game to become one of the best players on Nebraska's team. He will have to continue to improve, but teams are always looking for shooting. If he can show that he's not a defensive liability, then he will have a chance to get drafted next summer.
Any team that drafts Tominaga won’t just be getting a playmaker but also a moodmaker — check him out at the end of the Purdue game encouraging fans to storm the court. Love it!
7. Boxing returns to the Dome?
ESPN’s Mike Coppinger reported on Tuesday that Naoya “The Monster” Inoue, who in December became the undisputed junior featherweight champion with his 10th-round KO of Marlon Tapales, has agreed to defend his title against Mexico’s Luis Nery.
Hideyuki Ohashi, who runs Inoue’s gym, responded to Japanese media inquiries by acknowledging that negotiations between the two sides are taking place.
Nery has been suspended by the Japan Boxing Commission since March 2018 after he arrived overweight for his bout with Shinsuke Tanaka, but everyone seems to expect the JBC will lift the ban, with Nery himself hyping up an announcement in the coming days.
Inoue’s recent bouts have been hot tickets — drawing more than 100,000 lottery applications for just 15,000 seats at Ariake Arena — and Asahi was the first to report last month that Inoue-Nery could take place at Tokyo Dome, which can fit more than 50,000 for boxing.
The last boxing event at the Dome? The legendary Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas fight in 1990, which is a wild blast from the past — and I’m sure this match will be as big a spectacle.
8. A man (and an account) of the people
Eddie Jones, who famously steered Japan’s men’s rugby team to a historic win over South Africa at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, has been back in charge of the side for a few days now and is already making the rounds at Japan Rugby League One games.
The Australian’s second stint in charge of the Brave Blossoms has not been without controversy after he was fired by England for poor results in late 2022, took over Australia’s team for a second time, and was swept up in reports that he was interviewing for the Japan job in the midst of the 2023 Rugby World Cup — eventually parting ways with the Wallabies after the tournament, having won just two of nine games since his appointment.
One thing I find intriguing about this video clip — and just about the only thing that *can* be gleaned from it — is that Jones is clearly just sitting in the regular stands with the rest of the paying fans. Is that just how Eddie rolls, or do JRLO teams not have reserved areas for VIPS or club/league officials like every other sports league in the country?
But what I mainly want to point out is that Japan Rugby League One’s English-language Twitter account has been delivering bespoke content for a full month now after five years of mainly just retweeting the JRFU (plus a handful of club accounts that have been proactive about tweeting in English).
Given rugby union’s tight-knit culture and English’s role as the sport’s lingua franca, it’s a little surprising that it’s taken so long for JRLO to get onboard (or should I say onside?) with the idea of international social media, but better late than never.
I wrote extensively about one NFT scam that Tsubasa got dragged into, which is another story entirely.
Save for a DRM’ed release on an obscure manga e-reader that is now out of production.
Takahashi’s mentor, Dokaben writer Shinji Mizushima, retired in late 2020 at the age of 81 and died just over a year later — something Takahashi alluded to in his own retirement announcement.