Koshien – Where Japanese Culture Plays Out Before Your Eyes

Jul 21, 2016

Koshien – Where Japanese Culture Plays Out Before Your Eyes

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” Liverpool football coach Bill Shankly said that long ago but many in Japan would find it hard to believe the quote wasn’t about the Zenkoku Koko Yakyu Senshuken Taikai which brings the country to a virtual halt for two weeks each summer.

It is the National High School Baseball Championship Series. It is tradition and symbolism and dreams all rolled into one simple word – Koshien. There are actually two tournaments each year, the Spring Koshien and the Summer Koshien but it is the summer event that siphons off most of the country’s passion. Like the Super Bowl in the United States, it is a time when even non-sports fans get dragged into the frenzy.

What is Koshien?

The tournament started in 1915, the same year Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run for the Boston Red Sox. It has continued ever since, save for five years during World War II. Each year more than 4,000 Japanese highs schools begin their quest for the championship. One school from each of Japan’s 47 prefectures will advance to the two week finals at Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. When the tournament arrives, the stadium’s primary tenant, the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese professional leagues, leave on an extended road trip to make way for the high schoolers.

Unlike in the United States, baseball is still the national sporting pastime of Japan. It is not unusual to see high school rosters with over 100 players, most of whom will never make it to the practice field, let alone get into games. Once those games start, the country is riveted. The action is televised live on several networks around Japan and the viewing audience regularly tops six million. More than 40,000 fans pack Koshien Stadium on game days.

The format is single elimination play – win or go home each time you take the field. And each year Koshien breeds new national heroes. The games are considered a testing ground for young men to display the best of Japanese culture – teamwork, working to a common good and resilience in overcoming setbacks. There are not just professional baseball scouts in the stands but future employers in Japan are taking notice as well.

Koshien = Gaman

Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture’s Nishinomiya City is itself a part of the high school tournament experience. It is not a sleek, modern facility one might expect of Japanese society. Instead, it is a relic from 1925; constructed of concrete and wood. Seating is mostly hard benches. There are few overhangs to shield spectators from the hottest rays of the sun each year. The players are expected to display gaman, the Japanese concept of endurance in adverse conditions to compete in Japan’s biggest sporting event. And so the fans must do the same.

When it is all over, it is a tradition for players to retrieve a little bit of dirt from the Koshien diamond to place in a keepsake container for the rest of their lives, a reminder of the time their last dreams before adulthood really did come true.

Photo by Kentaro Iemoto from Tokyo, Japan (甲子園決勝(光星学院 vs 日大三高)) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons