Roundtable Japan

Kind: captions
Language: en

Hi, my name is Nathan Hopson.

I’m an associate professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the founder and organizer of the Japan Roundtable podcast.

This third episode presents a wide-ranging discussion of issues around sports in Japan and Japanese sports in the world.

Consultant and sports researcher Aaron L. Miller moderates a panel with

Professor Robin Kietlinski of LaGuardia Community College and Professor Dennis Frost of Kalamazoo College.

By exploring themes from nationalism and identity to the cultural meanings of celebrity and disability,

their discussion offers a dynamic look at how sports reflect and shape Japanese society.

「Japan Roundtable」をお聞きいただきありがとうございます。

私はノルウェー国立ベルゲン大学准教授のホプソンと申します。よろしくお願いいたします。

今回、日本におけるスポーツと、世界における日本のスポーツに関する問題の幅広い議論をしていただきます。

このエピソードでは、コンサルタント兼スポーツ研究者のアーロン・ミラー氏がホストを努め、

ラガルディアコミュニティカレッジのロビンキエトリンスキー教授と

カラマズーカレッジのデニスフロスト教授の2名を迎えます。

ナショナリズムとアイデンティティから有名人と障害スポーツの文化的意味に至るまで

様々なテーマを探求することにより、今回は、スポーツが日本社会をどのように反映し、形成するかについて意見を交わします。

The biggest sports stuff in Japan right now is Ohtani.

That's undoubtedly the biggest thing right now that I'm seeing in the news and anywhere.

And I think that's also true in the US. I teach this class every other year on Sports in East Asia, and

students have to do a research paper, and I have, 3, maybe 4, students who are doing something on Ohtani.

in the class out of 20. It's a different world, in terms of baseball, I think.

Ichiro was kind of one level, and then Ohtani is this whole other level.

Winning a World Series, winning all these awards,

that's been the thing that I'm seeing the most in the Japan-related media in the United States.

But there's also a lot, the Japanese media coverage about him. So it's kind of interesting.

And then there's a little bit about, the Deaflympics are happening in Tokyo.

I'm not sure the date on those, I should probably have looked that up, but I think it's this summer, and I'm not sure exactly when,

but I've had a little bit of buzz about that, but nothing what I was seeing for the Olympics and Paralympic coverage. That's one of those recurring things.

I definitely hear you on the Ohtani stuff. the students that I'm teaching are all fascinated by him.

This is where I think our conversation could get kind of interesting, from my perspective, at least.

For me, Ohtani is this kind of human validation of all these years of effort that Japanese people generally have been putting into baseball.

Because Ichiro was great, of course. I remember reading people say, "Oh, there'll never be a position player in baseball. There'll be pitchers, because that's a different skill set," and whatever.

But people said there'll never be a position player that's successful that comes from Japan.

And Ichiro blew that out of the water. And then they said, well, there'll never be a power hitter.

And then Hideki Matsui came, and he blew that out of the water. But now you've got this guy who can do all those things.

He can run like Ichiro, he can hit like Matsui -- he can hit better than Matsui.

And he's an MVP, and he can pitch. He's the first person to do it since Babe Ruth.

It's crazy. It's crazy how good he is.

And I think for a lot of kids, he's this validation of that ability to work hard at stuff over time and win.

Maybe that's the story I'm telling myself about it, and that's why I feel it maybe is interesting.

Are you guys hearing that from students, who are writing papers about it, or what do you make of that idea?

I'm not teaching this year, nor do I teach a class specifically on sports. But I do think there's something.

I'm not a baseball expert by any means. In fact, my book was almost an anti-baseball look.

But I wrote something in, I don't remember if it was a foreword or an afterword of my book about women's baseball --

because the subtitle of the book is Beyond Baseball and Sumo, which are two, all-male national sports of Japan --

and it said, what about women's baseball and women's sumo?

And women's sumo isn't practiced widely in Japan, but it is in Eastern Europe.

But I remember reading about this interesting female baseball player

who was one of the very few women who was recruited to play minor league baseball in the U.S, on a men's team.

And her name is escaping me right now, but I thought it was interesting, not so much for, the baseball stats --

I think she was very good, but she was a, what do you call it, knuckleballer.

But I thought the fact that, it was Chico State -- somewhere in California, I don't know the name of their minor league team --

but she filled the stands with Japanese fans, and specifically Japanese women.

And she wasn't that good, the team didn't do that well, but it made me think a lot about ticket sales,

and what are these events for? Beyond the sheer, wins and losses.

It's about a lot more, and that's kind of reminding me of this Ohtani conversation,

although what Aaron's talking about is the athleticism.

but I do think there's more of this -- I don't know if it's soft diplomacy or something like that.

I think they're related. I think, you can't get to the level of Ohtani unless you are maniacal about your training.

Right? You just can't. No one becomes a Major League Baseball player unless they're crazy about their training.

And why people are crazy about their training is obviously an answer with many questions or with many, a question with many answers.

(Serves me right for planning this on a Friday afternoon, right?)

But I think nationalism is a huge part of that, right?

That's obviously been a big theme in the writing I've done on Japanese sports,

and I think for Ohtani and Ichiro and Matsui,

they may not have come out publicly and said, I'm an ultra-right-wing nationalist,

but there's this desire in Japan, particularly in baseball, to beat Americans at their own game.

And sometimes it's mentioned explicitly, sometimes it's more implicit.

I think that's there, That's just my sense of it. I obviously can't prove that on any sort of scientific level.

Do you think it's more pronounced in baseball, because it's an American sport than any other international sporting event?

Yes. And it's a power and performance sport.

Jay Coakley, this very well-known sports sociologist, he's got this distinction between power and performance sports, and then everything else.

And I think Coakley's right about that. Some sports are created, and were created specifically during the, age of imperialism,

and they're football, basketball, baseball, these sports that are traditionally excluding women.

They are sports where nationalism, I think, has a stronger influence.

I think there is a gendered element to it as well, in the sense

I'm thinking in particular about I am teaching this class here, and we read articles by both of you at various points in the class,

and I tell the students, "Almost everybody we're reading, I know them personally." It's always an interesting moment.

But I was thinking about the article you wrote, about Foucaudian power in Japan

and this idea the Japanese body has been seen as inferior, and we have to overcome this

through this kind of extreme emphasis on training, to the extent of overwork.

Especially in terms of sports stars, some of my earlier work -- Robin, you were saying earlier, having to go back and kind of look at that stuff again --

because it's been, a couple of decades in some ways since we were working actively on those kinds of things

but looking back at some of that, one of the things that I notice is that there's been --

and I think part of it goes back to your point about the different types of sports, right? --

But there's been kind of an up and down in terms of how Japan has been perceived

in the international realm of sports.

And one of my questions when I think about Ohtani is, we're clearly on an upward swing. Right?

Japan has been good. Their soccer teams have been pretty decent and competitive, both men's and women's.

I think we're on an upward swing. Is there gonna be a downward swing? Because it seems there's kind of been all these moments where it's been up and down.

But the other piece of this is that, there's been lots of moments where, the women's teams have been better, or the female athletes have been better,

and I think that this is something that, both Robin and I worked and wrote about Hitomi Kinoe.

She was this exceptional athlete at the international level from Japan.

But she was she was a woman, and there's an element like,

"Well, what's wrong with our men that they can't compete at this international level at the same level that these women are?"

And I think there's an interesting potential gender element here as well, that we could maybe spend some time unpacking, but that's something that occurred to me as we were chatting.

Absolutely. Robin, what do you think?

Oh, I could spend an hour talking about Hitomi Kinue. But I won't.

Go for it! I'm guessing that the people listening want to hear it.

Well, I don't know if the people listening know who she is, but she was the first female Japanese Olympian and medalist.

And as somebody who ran track in college -- I did the cross-country and the 800 and 1600, these are, distance events on track --

but Hitomi was a sprinter and trained as a sprinter, and was very good,

and had won some other national and international competitions before going to the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

And she went and that was also the first Olympics that had track at all, because --

this was to your earlier point, Aaron, I guess this is a performance -- I don't know, is it power or performance, running?

I think Coakley would say it's power and performance.

Because it's about strength and power, and how you perform in front of others, right?

Sort of made for spectators, as opposed to participatory sports like hacky sack, or Ultimate Frisbee, those kinds of things.

Okay, I see. It's definitely power and performance.

But she took part in the first ever, track events for women, and did not medal in what she was expected to, which I think was the 100m.

She got to the finals, and then she took 4th place or something, and didn't get a medal, and sort of at the last moment, which you obviously can't do in the Olympics anymore,

she registered for a separate event that she had not trained for, which was the 800m.

And I think that's crazy that she had not specifically trained for this event, and then went on to win a silver medal.

And from a training standpoint, I think that's fascinating.

And I do think that, nationalism trumps gender. Especially in that era, I would say, which was 1920s Japan: military expansion, etc.

If you hear the national anthem and see the flag, I don't think it matters.

There is also a sociologist who talks about these solidarity moments in terms of race in this country.

It doesn't matter the race of the athlete, on the court or on the field, whereas racism can still exist in real life.

I think it's similar with gender, right? it does not mean that women were warmly embraced in all arenas in Japanese society,

but I don't think when it came to winning medals, at international events, that gender mattered,

and I think there's other much more nuanced points to it. When you were talking about women being better, I immediately thought about the Women's World Cup,

and the women's soccer team, but how they, still wasn't it them who, couldn't fly first class, and the men were?

So, stuff like that still exists.

I was curious to pick your brain about that, too, Robin. What continuities are there in gender politics over time?

And what discontinuities, or, what's changed? that's something that I've always been fascinated in, but of course, both of you have

the historical bona fides to know the answers to these questions. I don't.

I use your sources and secondary sources, what are secondary to me to do my writing, but, what's different now? Anything?

You mentioned back in the 20s, nationalism trumping gender.

It's always seemed to me those kind of gender politics end at the water's edge because sports are this huge nationalistic vehicle.

But maybe I'm wrong about that. What do you think?

Well, as I mentioned, I started doing gender research, now that's ancient history, a couple decades ago. But then I revisited it.

And I don't remember what the article was, but I wrote something about gender for the most recent Olympics.

And I found it striking. The women in positions of power were kind of striking.

It was the governor of Tokyo, there were a number of senior Olympic officials who were women, which is kind of unusual in the sports world anyway.

And then in the opening ceremonies, it was all women. It started with women, the final torchbearer was Naomi Osaka, who maybe Dennis could say more about.

Because that's other, kind of marginalized groups having, a very important place at the table.

But I but I also think it's what Dennis said earlier about ups and downs. I think also with different sports it's hard to draw overarching narratives.

Because even when I started, what initially got me interested, and that I wrote my first grad student paper about sports and gender

was probably around 2004, I was in grad school, and a Japanese woman had won the Olympic marathon for a second time.

A Japanese woman won in 2000, and then another Japanese woman won the marathon,

which is a sport that traditionally and again today is almost always dominated by East African women.

For a grad school paper, I was trying to figure out why are these Japanese women good at running the marathon.

And I did a deep dive, and that's how I started connecting with the sports scholars of Japan and the world, both in Japan and in the U.S,

and that's where I was encouraged to write about women in sports, because there wasn't much historical context or anything written, especially in English.

So I did this deep dive and a ton of research about long-distance running, and then, they haven't done too well in the marathon since 2004.

For over 20 years, they're fine, but, they're rarely in the top 10 anymore.

Were those two flukes? I do think they had the same coach. Maybe they had, a really good coach and two really good athletes.

Maybe the East Africans got even better in their training or strategy. I don't know.

But I do find it hard, and same with soccer. I thought that might be something, but.

They're still pretty good. The women's soccer team's pretty good.

I wonder if there's some investment that's happening or not happening, because I think one of the things that you've seen

with sports like baseball in Japan is they the investment is there because almost every school has a team.

And it's ultimately kind of a numbers game. In the sense that you're going to produce great players when you have that many kids playing a sport.

And the central government is funding the schools and the fields, and these kids are playing.

Whereas with a sport like the marathon, I suspect there's much less investment.

When I was researching basketball in Japan -- this very minor sport -- I was surprised to find that many people take it seriously.

Because Japan has produced professional players, but not many.

And, more on the women's side. and earlier on the women's side,

successful professional players, but the men hadn't been that successful,

I was sort of fascinated at how much investment, how much money, how many, people I met that were

so serious about it, and it's such a big sport at the school level, and that sort of explained it to me a little bit.

Because they were passionate about this sport at the school level, but then they sort of lost interest

because it had never materialized as a professional sport domestically.

And there were pockets of people who were big NBA fans, but again, without the equivalent of a Shohei Ohtani in the NBA, they never had the --

Isn't there Hachimura?

Well, Hachimura is this interesting case because he's half Japanese and half Beninese.

And some people take him as a native son, and others don't.

And that's part of what the book is about, about how the first guy to kind of break through was Tabuse, in the early 2000s.

And he basically had a cup of coffee in the NBA. Played just a few games.

That's the old joke about playing in professional baseball, right? He had a cup of coffee in the majors.

But anyway, he made it. And when he came back to Japan, I saw him practice,

and I saw all the other Japanese kids watch him practice. And they might as well have been watching Michael Jordan play basketball.

This was a guy who had touched an NBA court with his feet, and he was absolutely mesmerizing to these college players.

He sort of started that process, and then, of course, later, Hachimura would break through, and he is a very successful NBA player.

And I think Japan should take credit -- my own, again, my own opinion here -- I think Japan should take credit for Hachimura.

He grew up in Japan, he played in Japan, he's a great player.

But again, because of these questions of what makes you fully Japanese.

I know you both have looked at extensively as well. Pretty much anybody who does Japanese research, Japan research, looks at these questions.

I think most people in the public haven't really said he's our guy.

So there was this other guy named Yuta Watanabe. And he was sort of seen as the -- forgive the expression, but -- the Great White Hope, right?

That he would be the guy who would validate, a Japanese (in the very ethnic sense) approach to basketball that wasn't reliant on Beninese genes. You know what I mean?

I've got a whole chapter in the book called DNA because of all these debates about who gets to be called Japanese, who doesn't.

And it got me thinking about these topics of sport, race, ethnicity. I've been teaching about that for years,

but I hadn't thought about it in as much depth as I started to think about it having written that chapter.

Did you write, Dennis, did I see somewhere that you wrote about Naomi Osaka?

I have not. I've talked about her, and I talk about her in class, but

I think there's an interesting group of athletes right now, particularly in the United States or internationally active.

You've got Yu Darvish. You've got Hachimura. You've got Naomi Osaka.

These athletes who have these different backgrounds: they have one parent from Japan, one parent from somewhere else,

and they become these superstars, and they get embraced by Japan.

But it reminds me a little bit -- I wrote about Okinawa and Gushiken Yoko,

the boxer from Okinawa, really popular in Japan in the late 70s, early 80s.

And one of the things I talked about with Gushiken was this idea that

they were embracing Gushiken because he was winning at this international level,

and he was the Japanese superstar, and also the Okinawans were seeing him as the Okinawan superstar.

And there was some potential for tension there, but it never manifested, because Gushiken never had to box with a Japanese boxer.

He always boxed international boxers, you never had this moment where Gushiken, the Okinawan boxer, was fighting a Japanese boxer.

Was that intentional? Sorry to interrupt, but was that intentional?

I don't know. I did a little digging into that kind of stuff, but boxing promotion was something that I didn't go down that rabbit hole all the way.

There was a potential moment where there was a champion he could have potentially boxed, that would have been a decent boxing match, probably.

Part of my sense is that, promotionally, this would've was deemed kind of a bad idea.

That's my guess, right? That this was not something they wanted to do.

But I think that idea of him being embraced, there was no tension there in the sense that,

he could be Japanese and Okinawan at the same time because nobody ever had to choose.

And I think that ultimately, what happened there is that you got this sense --

I called it "spectacular difference," is what I how I described it in the book --

that people were kind of celebrating his Okinawan-ness, but in this way that was kind of,

"Oh, look, he's different. He's not a baseball player," to your point, Robin.

He's not a baseball player from Tokyo in particular, this is the era, the V9 Giants and all that.

He's this celebrity who's a little bit different, and he does these things different, and he talks kind of funny. Isn't that interesting?

But it was this embrace of him and the difference, but it was never an actual embrace of kind of trying to understand what the difference was

and why Okinawa was different, and how it was, its history. And you didn't have to do that.

Because of your point about some of these tensions and issues disappearing at the water's edge.

I think there's a there's something to that, right?

I have a follow-up question. Have either of you researched sumo wrestlers? Because I think a lot of them are foreign.

Yes. I haven't done research on that, but that's been a big thing that I've read about in the sports media,

about how, some of these sumo wrestlers come from Mongolia, or Eastern Europe,

and they win they get to be Yokozuna, and there's this big thinking, "Well, why aren't Japanese people becoming Yokozuna," right?

Every time I'm in Japan in the summer, I take my kids to see sumo, and this was the first time where I logged on --

I had put on my calendar, get sumo tickets, and they were immediately sold out for every single day of the tournament, for 14 days.

Wow. I believe that. I believe that, because the exchange rate is still pretty good for America.

I know, it's overtourism, but this has never happened to me. I was, gonna go to Nagoya and I'm not able to get tickets anymore.

I think that there was a lot of debate around 2017, I think, when I was there, doing the research for the last book.

That was the first time there'd been a Japanese Yokozuna in quite a while.

And he was promoted, and then he got injured in the very next tournament, and then he never... I think we saw him wrestle when we were there,

and then that was one of the last times he wrestled. Later that week, he ended up dropping out of that tournament

and there was this big celebration, and the crowds went up as a result of that, and then after he kind of ended up, retiring,

then it was kind of, "Well, when are we gonna get our next Japanese Yokozuna?" And I haven't followed it as closely in recent years.

I feel that's a sport it is possible to follow internationally, but it's way easier to do when you're in Japan, and you can turn on the TV and it's on.

I think there were also a couple international wrestlers who got in trouble for drugs.

There were some Russians who were using marijuana, I think?

That's right. But I'm also curious, part of part of me thinks this is exactly why baseball is popular in Japan.

I've been fascinated by this question of what makes it a major sport? What makes it a minor sport, right? Because every time I would go talk to anybody about basketball in Japan,

they would say, oh, that's a minor sport. And I've had this similar question in America when I talk

I've talked to people about the notion of being big time in college sports, right? Because my second book wasn't about Japan,

it was about basketball in America, and all these people said, "Will women's basketball in America ever become big time?"

And this was before Caitlin Clark and all that, a lot of people would probably say, "Well, it is big time now,"

but back in those days, there was this constant media narrative about, "Is women's sports big time?" And it was just fueling itself.

But in Japan, what's major, what's minor?

There's this concept of frozen space that these scholars -- I'm forgetting their names -- but they have this concept:

Once there's a sport that's sort of popular and strong in a country, then it creates this space that's frozen and no other sport can kind of get in there and become popular.

And it makes sense to me, that theory, because I feel that's baseball. And I wonder if part of the reason why it's baseball, again, beating Americans at their own game,

but also because sumo is not being won by Japanese wrestlers anymore. And that's the national sport, right? I don't know, what do you think of that idea?

Well, I think baseball and sumo have a complicated history, going back to, I think the late 1800s, where baseball starts to take off,

I had read Roden's article on Ichikō for today's discussion in my class.

And I think, baseball kind of rises in the 1890s. And sumo, which has struggled, actually

is kind of having a kind of re-emergence right around that same time.

And they're kind of operating by pitting themselves against each other to a certain extent. .

You don't have the baseball players talking about sumo, but you have the baseball players claiming that

they're doing a martial arts type thing, they're doing the bushido baseball idea, right?

And this is right at the same moment where you have sumo starting to be talked about as, the national sport

in contrast to this new emerging sport, which is increasingly popular with young people.

And then there's an idea of sumōdō emerges, right? That we're doing a martial art, too,

and there's a "way of sumo," just like there is a "way of baseball."

And I think that there has been this kind of tension between the two of those.

But in some ways, I think, to your point Aaron, I think that they suck the air out of the room.

in a manner of speaking, it's frozen, there's no room left for any other kind of sports to kind of get into that kind of discussion.

I think of rugby in particular, and soccer, both have tried these big, huge international events.

And what I've seen is, yes, they generate stuff, there's more interest in soccer than there was when I first started going to Japan

where you never saw anybody playing soccer. And now you do.

But then, rugby is kind of in the same category, right? That they've had these big World Cups in Japan,

and it generated a little bit of buzz, and there's still some attention, but it kind of disappears pretty quick. So I think there's something --

Sorry, I cut you off -- but there's, something class-based that that was brought to my attention about rugby as well.

And actually I said I've moved past this project, but one of the things that I was thinking about was environment and sports projects.

Do you know the Meiji shrine's inner garden? That's where the Olympic Stadium is, and there's this huge redevelopment project.

I don't know how familiar you are, but you've got these baseball fans, wrapping their arms around Meiji Stadium where the Swallows play,

because that's one of the only remaining stadiums where Babe Ruth has ever played.

And it's this old historic stadium. Even though it is pretty old people want to protect that, but a bunch of politicians -- including some very prominent ones --

they want to build this, massive new rugby thing, and there is already a rugby facility there,

but the impetus for this project is largely to create a bigger rugby stadium.

And, Dennis is right: It's not, a hugely popular sport, but someone was telling me that it's these politicians with a lot of influence.

who are really into rugby from their college days or something, and they're the ones who keep pushing these projects,

even though the public is increasingly opposed to them, and I think especially with --

there was a big campaign about how many trees were gonna get cut down

Yes, that was Rochelle Kopp.

Exactly. I spoke with her, and she started this huge petition, and I think the project was modified, ultimately.

I still think something is moving forward.

Yeah, I haven't followed up with Rochelle on that, but I know she was instrumental in getting a lot of 100,000 signatures on a petition or something that?

Yeah. It was very controversial, but I guess my point, and I've also thought about this, why did baseball take root when it did, not long after it took root in America,

when Japan was adopting a bunch of other things that were primarily European, like a parliamentary system, and I don't know, it's such a hodgepodge.

Driving on the wrong side of the road.

Yeah, that. But baseball, I don't know if it was an accident of history, or if there was --

I'm sure different scholars have different takes on this -- the team sport...?

Bill Kelly was one to talk about this.

Yeah, I've read what Bill has written and what Bob Whiting has said, and I've heard a number of things that people have said.

Obviously, I'm not a historian, but it seems there's this sort of cultural affinity argument where you've got the team game, but then there's the one-on-one battle, which is like sumo.

Both of those things are kind of palatable to the Japanese psyche. I don't know, I'm not that persuaded by that argument.

I think, for me, when, the Japanese beat the Yokohama team of Americans, and that made national news. That seems to me to be a real important moment in Japanese history.

Because then it's okay, similar to Ichiro being the first position, or Nomo being the first pitcher to go over, Ichiro being the first position player, Matsuya being the first power hitter and all that,

it's this sort of validation: "Hey, we can all do this. Our people of our race are able to play this particular sport well. Let's do it, let's keep putting our energy and attention into it."

And that's and that's why I called the book about basketball, Shooting for the Stars.

Because yes, Hachimura is a star, but again, he's not perceived to be fully Japanese, and so the country is still shooting for the Japanese star.

Is there a guy on the NBA right now, Aaron? Wasn't there that guy? Is that who you were talking about before?

There's been a few that have made it, but not to the level of celebrity.

But like right now, wasn't there someone this season who was playing ?

There's been a few guys who've been good, like Watanabe, who I mentioned earlier.

I think he's a really good player. He's just not risen to that level of 20 points a game,

a match-up nightmare, as they say. He's a good role player in the NBA, and I think he might actually be back in the B-League now in Japan.

So, I don't know, I can't get away from the idea that this is all tied to nationalism.

That's that's where I want you guys to tell me if I'm right or wrong, because that's just my interpretation, and I don't know.

I wish it was not that simple, but it feels it feels that way to me.

I think nationalism is hard and fast.

You're gonna see that in any sporting activity, and I think that's the fuel for the Olympics.

The whole reason it was created was to celebrate nationalism and to kind of promote it.

In a kind of environment where we're also appreciating that we are all here.

But I have no doubt in some ways that nationalism is a key factor there.

What I would wonder -- and this is what I haven't looked into this, right? -- But, thinking about

sports stars and sports celebrity, one of the things that always intrigued me -- and this is what I enjoyed about what I when I did my first book,

and to a certain extent, I did a little bit of this with the more recent book on the Paralympics and some of their athletes --

but this idea that athletes are always kind of multifaceted, right? The image that's created of them that is produced by society is multifaceted.

The dominant element is often going to be this national thing.

Like Robin was saying about Hitomi Kinoe, right? The fact that she won the medal as a Japanese was the most important thing,

that the flag was flying in Amsterdam, right? That was the most important thing.

But then you look at, you shift that context a little bit, and you see these athletes, how they're being talked about in Japan.

There are certain conversations where it matters more that she's being compared to men,

and so then the gender comes in, and she's being compared to other women.

And then you look at Gushiken, and he's being compared to other Japanese, and he's being compared to baseball players.

And I think that the question that I would have, I guess, is, "What are the other pieces of the puzzle, the intersectional elements, right?"

Because obviously the Japanese-ness versus, not fully Japanese is one of the questions.

Is there a class element here? Is there, a regional element? Because Japan -- we kind of think of it as very unified, but the reality is it's not.

I mean, Osaka has a very different vibe than Hokkaido.

And I had to look up where Ohtani was from, I was where is he from?

I was thinking he was from Hokkaido, because that's where he played baseball.

He's from Iwate, and I don't think he ever played in Kōshien.

I saw him play early. I was in Sapporo doing a project on the 1972 Winter Olympics,

and I heard about this guy that everyone was talking about. And he played for the Sapporo Ham Fighters. And I saw him. It was a long time ago.

Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Robin, let's not forget. Isn't it the Nippon Ham Fighters, right?

Oh, sorry, you're right, Nippon, sorry, you're right, Nippon.

Let's give credit to our corporate sponsors of this podcast.

That's gotta be the funniest corporate sponsorship, right? A ham company?

The Nippon Ham Fighters. That is who he played for.

But I think that's the question that I would have, is -- I think the nationalism piece is absolutely gonna be central --

but what are those other multifaceted pieces when you're looking at a player like that, that they start coming into play?

Would it be your hypothesis, though, imilar to what Robin said earlier,

with gender sort of not being paramount relative to nationalism?

I would think that the regionalism is important, but again, I think it kind of ceases to be that important when

somebody from Iwate and somebody from Osaka or Hokkaido, they get together in a bar, and they're like:

"Hey, did you see Ohtani play? He's Japanese," not "He's..." I don't know, but that would be my hunch.

I think that's the case of where they're playing, right? If they're playing at home, if Ohtani's playing with

the Nippon Ham Fighters up in Sapporo, then the local identity is what matters most, right?

But then, if he's playing overseas against the Americans -- and this is where it kind of you have these different kind of star systems,

right, where the stars are being compared to different people or different athletes --

and depending on who they're being compared to, then the thing that's most valuable in that comparison is gonna shift.

That's maybe the question that I would be interested to kind of dig into. And I haven't looked into these particular basketball stars,

but it wouldn't surprise me to see that there's probably the nationalism is key.

Especially internationally. But what are people saying back home, right?

And if you look at their earlier history, what was kind of significant as they were emerging stars?

Definitely. And I'm curious to pick your guys' brain, too, about some of this stuff in other sports.

I don't want to talk too much about baseball, but what are some other things that this conversation speaks to you in other sports.

Have you noticed any of this issue of frozen space, and the regionalism, any of these topics come up for you in the other work you've been doing?

Well, it's sort of not exactly answering your question, but, since we've spoken about Hitomi Kinue,

I think once she returned from Amsterdam, she was, scrutinized a lot,

and she had a lot of negative, once the medal was tucked away in the record books.

She was criticized because she was big and masculine-looking.

And, there was a made-for-TV movie. There was a series that later came about that she was in that was, recent, but, I don't know, a couple decades ago?

There was a made-for-TV movie that I watched that suggested that she was depressed by all the negative press

about her that she kind of became alcoholic, and that directly sort of led to her very early death at 24.

I don't know if that's true at all, or even if I misunderstood it, but there was certainly depression, because --

and I will say, I have seen the actual primary sources, the Japanese media that did not paint her in a nice light. It's pretty bad --

And these were remarks about her body size, in particular?

Body size, masculinity, are you turning into a man by doing these sports?

Which, to be fair, was not limited to Japan. A lot of people around the world thought it was unsettling when women became too masculine.

Babe Didrikson, right? That's the muscle mold, right?

Right, and obviously, if you look at the present-day world, it's people get uncomfortable if women have masculine traits.

It's kind of remarkable how much this is still in the discussion, that the scrutiny over the bodies of athletes.

Particularly female athletes.

Particularly female athletes, yeah. It's a little added point about nationalism and gender. Once you're back in the home country,

suddenly the nationalism is not important, and it's, maybe some other factors, and I think because

some of these mixed-race athletes are praised for their athletic ability, and also, like I said earlier, it doesn't mean

ignorance or racism, or xenophobia, etc., ceased to exist in Japan.

But I do think Naomi Osaka's case is really interesting. I'm not a tennis expert --

although we randomly got tickets when we went to see the Paris Olympics, and I was very lucky to get to see Naomi Osaka play.

But I think she actually changed her citizenship, right? She was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father.

But I think she had US citizenship until she gave it up,

because you cannot be a dual citizen after 22, I think, in Japan.

Is that correct?

That sounds like something I've read before. I don't know for sure if that's true.

But I agree that she's a fascinating case, and I think that what she's done has been more inspiring to my students than anything Hachimura has done.

Not to compare them unnecessarily -- maybe it's an unfair comparison -- but so many of my students in my classes,

when they write papers in sports sociology-type classes or in the sport and racism classes that I teach,

they're fascinated by this question of the relationship between societal structure and the individual in terms of mental health, right?

These are all college kids who are facing a terrible job market, and they're worried themselves about a lot of different things,

and the fact that Osaka came out and was very public about her own mental health struggles, they are very inspired by her.

And it's interesting, I think we started the conversation talking about Ohtani and how a lot of people are writing papers for you, Dennis, about Ohtani.

And I'm curious, are either of you seeing anything about how some of these athletes, when they've been anointed stars,

given that crown by the media, what they're doing with it? Because Ohtani, he's a great player,

but I haven't seen him do something that sort of transformative for humanity.

And not to say that we should expect that out of all our athletes, but I think that's one reason

why I've been fascinated by sports for long, is you have athletes Jackie Robinson and Billie Jane King and

these athletes change the world, and Ohtani has done that on the playing field.

But I think what Osaka's done, Naomi Osaka, I think, is perhaps even more impressive, depending on your perspective.

I just sent a link. I'm not sure if this is what you're referring to, or if this is, separate from what you're talking about,

but Naomi Osaka started the Play Academy? Did you know about this?

I do, yeah.

And that's pretty fascinating, and it's connected to her because it's Japan and Haiti and America.

Absolutely. But even but even if she hadn't done this particular project, the fact that she was brave enough to be vulnerable publicly

is such an inspiration to my students. It's been eye-opening for me.

And I imagine even more in Japan, where I don't know that mental health is even,

I feel like now as in America, fairly openly discussed.

I saw an article that three weeks ago now, maybe something that, but there was an article that was about

how Ohtani is being picked up in, school circles as a role model

and featured in different texts for classrooms and things like that.

And part of what the article was making the point about was that there's been a problem with a whole bunch of celebrities in Japan right now. Or recently, right?

Not sports celebrities necessarily, but there's been all these scandals around celebrity. And they're looking for role models that are positive,

which I found interesting, because there was also the big the scandal around his translator and the gambling and that's not even a year old, right?

And, that kind of is already gone. And that was kind of interesting to me.

But what would happen, Dennis, not to -- give this any this conspiracy theory any fuel that it doesn't need, but what would happen if tomorrow

somebody like Bob Whiting came out with a story saying, "Actually, all along it was Ohtani gambling,"

-- just like Michael Jordan used to be a gambler -- and his interpreter was the fall guy?

It would be devastating, not just for Ohtani, it would be devastating for Japanese people the whole world over.

Well, for Japanese people, it'd be devastating for MLB.

Because they've invested a lot of money in him and, this image as well. So, I think there's this tendency that sports stars are kind of set up on a pedestal,

and this is not shocking to any of us, right? This is not unique to Japan.

But I do think that part of that is this kind of general image construction of celebrities that you see,

that they're being constantly kind of recreated and invented.

And as that happens, as more and more information becomes available, it opens up --

again, to come back to that multifaceted element, right? --

there's more potential to explore different facets to them.

And the more famous they become, the more potential for a problem to arise.

And this is something you, when you start looking back at early sports stars in Japan, it's there too.

One of the other articles that this whole discussion made me think about was, I was seeing something -- this was a couple weeks ago as well --

that there is (and I shared it with my class), an article about a person who is helping athletes, particularly female athletes, with makeup.

And they should feel it's okay to wear makeup.

In Japan, or?

In Japan -- this was about Japanese athletes -- because I guess there was an athlete that was criticized for wearing makeup,

or putting on makeup, and then was criticized for this in, the media sphere, and the online new media.

And I was like, "Okay, that's not what I was expecting to hear," right? This idea that they were paying too much attention to their appearance.

And this person was, has a business that is designed to help athletes pay attention to their physical appearance,

and this was the exact opposite of what I would have anticipated.

Surprised me in the way that the media works today, though, right? With how it's all social media, it's all kind of curated.

Well, that's -- the connection broke up a little bit for me, and maybe we lost Robin, but that's a question I have for both of you:

Do you think that particular technological change in the last 20 years, social media particularly,

has changed the way that people become celebrities in the sports world,

but also how they're treated as athletes because of their celebrity?

It's interesting. The first time I thought about this was when, Dennis, I don't know if you -- well, you probably do remember --

because we were treated very nicely when the Nippon Foundation invited us to that conference --

and for some reason, after that, they asked me to write an article about disability sport for American women,

which is so not what I write about, neither disability support nor America, but I agreed to do it as an interesting project.

And one of the most interesting things -- I probably discussed this with you at the time -- it was hard to find any information

about American women who compete at the Paralympics, these elite athletes, but the place that I found the most information was social media.

And I kind of realized it was, your Ohtanis and your Naomi Osakas, they are covered by traditional media and sports endorsements,

as it's always been, I do think that there's some element of how you look, especially for women athletes, impacts your ability to get deals.

But some of these Paralympians, they take control of their own outreach, and I was impressed,

and I thought it was interesting how they were able to, engage directly with fans, but it was a whole different thing. It's different from traditional media.

I wrote a little bit about this in the most recent book on the Paralympics, and because partly what I saw is a trend that --

this emerges right around the time of the Nagano Paralympics in 98 --

where you start seeing the idea of streaming beginning to take off, video streaming.

And because the internet technology was getting good enough to kind of be able to kind of do a little bit of that.

And the Paralympics in Nagano, because they did not get coverage from this typical mainstream media,

they started kind of saying, "Well, we can give coverage of every single event, at least some, by this streaming technology."

And they were doing this in 98. And if you start looking, Japan's kind of at the forefront of that, right?

This is one of the first Games where that happens, and the IPC eventually kind of creates their own video channel --

they have a YouTube channel, essentially -- where they show coverage of different events and things like that.

And then, NBC, when they started covering giving a little bit more coverage to the Paralympics,

one of the first places they did it was online streaming.

And it's kind of a way for some of these big media companies to get attention and say, "Oh, we are covering it, look, it's over here."

But then, the athletes themselves, there's an interesting dynamic -- like you were saying, Robin -- where they can control the narrative to a certain extent, by kind of doing this.

And they don't have to answer the types of questions -- the inspiration porn-type questions that kind of come out of standard, typical, mainstream media

when they're talking about athletes with disabilities. They can talk about kind of a whole other side that they want to focus on.

But at the same time, one of the points that I raised in the book was that this is essentially creating a new burden for these athletes.

And I think this is probably true of many contemporary athletes, right?

That you also have to have at least a staff member. And if you can't afford to do that, then you have to do this yourself.

You've got to curate this list, and you've got to make sure you're constantly posting enough content to keep your fans interested.

And you have to worry about the backlash when you say something or do something that you just didn't have to worry about?

Because, if a reporter covered you badly, you had that one reporter to deal with.

Now you've got hundreds of potential people to kind of constantly deal with. Thousands.

It's interesting, it's the onus of branding, or professional branding is much higher, it seems, now.

And it kind of makes me think of what I know some people deal with in the business world,

where they have to demonstrate thought leadership as they get higher and higher up the corporate ladder, right?

It's not just about "Are you doing your job?" It's also about, "Are you doing your job and showing everybody in the world,

or the industry that you're in "Hey, I know what I'm talking about," because that gives you credibility, and it potentially could help you make

the next deal that you need to make. Maybe it's not that different than the broader business world in that sense. I don't know.

Business. Sports are a business.

I think that's ultimately the question. Is sport -- maybe this is only my question --

but I feel the question is, "Is sport the nation's business, ultimately?" And can we think about it in any other way?

Because yes, there's multinational corporations that are making money off all these athletes.

But ultimately, what drives much of this to me is of course, it's the Nikes and Adidas and these big companies,

but if you don't have a national narrative, a nationalistic narrative.

for why these athletes are important. I'm not sure those MNCs are gonna sign on for these big deals.

I don't know. What do you think?

I haven't given this much thought, I'll be honest. I don't know if I have anything smart to add.

I know there's definitely intersection between capitalism and sport, and ticket sales and popularity.

And then it's overlaid with these different points of intersection, the nationalism is there, especially when they're competing internationally.

But, I think it also has a lot to do with, stuff you've written about, Aaron, with schools,

and I think Japan has, all the conditions for making it a sport powerhouse, right?

This was driven home to me when I took a trip several years ago to India.

And I saw some people trying to run in New Delhi, and the pollution was so so so bad, which it is in many parts of the world.

And even relative to a lot of parts of China, Japan has really clean air and really good climate conditions for exercise. And they have money, it's a wealthy country.

And it wasn't always that way, as you've told me before, Robin, right? It wasn't always that way.

I do know that, but now, right now, it's got all good conditions, and pipelines in many different sports.

I was surprised, running along the river, the Tama River, I saw a lot of people last time I was there playing lacrosse.

And I had never seen that in Japan before, and I kept seeing people carrying lacrosse sticks and playing lacrosse.

I never saw that either when I lived there. That's interesting.

Maybe I was in a neighborhood where they had some lacrosse clubs.

And I've seen American football played a couple times in Japan. I feel they have a lot of conditions for,

being exemplary at almost any sport, but obviously they've they've, channeled resources into some

and money is a big factor, I guess, is kind of what I'm getting at.

This is something I wish I had more time to kind of dig into in the research I did on the Paralympics --

because one of the things that surprised me the most as I was doing the research was that

there are all these little, interesting pockets -- in places that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find them --

pf people who kind of, it often seems to be, you have somebody who discovers an interest in some particular sport.

And often, in an adapted sports world, it often is a specific sport: tennis, or it's running, or it's wheelchair basketball.

But that there's these pockets all over Japan, and to a certain extent, what I've discovered is that that exists in the United States, too.

Right? And in fact, the United States is much more pocketed, I think. And you don't have those centralizing structures

that you do in Japan, that have emerged, as a result of the Paralympics.

So when it became the nation's business, that's where those pockets suddenly started to kind of get connected.

Then, "Oh, we gotta get ready for this big international event."

It becomes the nation's business, we connect those pockets. But those pockets, they continue to exist. They existed before,

and they continue to exist when the national attention kind of dissipates. And I randomly talked to one of the guys

who works with the USTA strength and conditioning program -- he works with some of the wheelchair athletes

down in Florida, and I think he works with the able-bodied athletes as well,

but randomly, I was talking with him and kind of shared that I had been working on this project in Japan,

and he was like, "Oh, my dad was involved in wheelchair sports in the local community," and it was something he started up of his own kind of initiative.

In Japan, and that's not the first time I've heard that from people.

They're like "So and so in Nagano, there was this random good wheelchair basketball club that was started by somebody up there."

And you have all these -- I don't know how to fully explain that, right, -- because it really requires the type of work that you're doing, Aaron, right?

The kind of on-the-ground, going into these communities and, "How did this community get built? How does it operate? "What are the...?"

Because it doesn't have the same... It's not the schools, right?

it's a different set of networks. A lot of times it's around rehabilitation centers.

But not always. And that's the interesting point, right? You can see why it would be at a rehabilitation center for adapted sports.

But when it's not, how does that happen? I think but it is kind of what struck me as we were talking is.

once it becomes the national, then they, all those get connected, but then they still stay.

And that's kind of an interesting dynamic, too, that I wish I said, I wish maybe one of these days I can get back and do some more with that.

That's an interesting question, Dennis, to think about, right? How do those networks persist afterwards?

Because obviously the regional, sort of, nodes of the network do, but is there still some kind of hub in that network, or does there need to be?

Is it more of a diffuse network, afterwards? That's a really interesting question.

Thank you guys. I know it's later where you are even than where I am, and Friday afternoon, Friday evening. Hard time to make time.

It's really good to catch up. And good luck in your next chapter, Aaron.

Thank you. Yeah, this has been nice. I appreciate you bringing that up, Robin,

because it's been a really nice way to put a bow on things for me and get to see you guys.

Don't be a stranger. You're always welcome.

Don't forget my friend and writing partner Atsushi Nakazawa and I have a new book coming out this summer on youth sports.

We're really trying to change the culture of youth sports in Japan. We're calling it a manifesto.

So please tell your friends that care about Japanese sports and Japanese youth about that.

So thank you guys. I appreciate you guys and and we'll talk soon.

Have a great weekend Enjoy!

You do the same, thank you.

Bye.