The Siege of the Samurai Blue

In the summer of 2010 the Japanese national soccer team, "The Samurai Blue" (a name generally only used in English, the Japanese more traditionally naming the team after the coach at the time (if you were wondering)) were preparing through a number of friendly games for the World Cup to be hosted by South Africa that year. And things were not going well. In fact, things were going so badly that in a game against England in Graz, Austria, Japan scored no less than three times and lost 2 : 1 (think about it). As a result the airport was somewhat deserted as the pale Blue Samurai returned home before setting sites on the tournament proper some two weeks hence.

Losses to Serbia and arch-rivals South Korea didn't help the national atmosphere all that much and the team were generally being pilloried in the press of the day. adidas (not a typo, it is actually spelt with a lower case "a"), sponsors of the JFA, had been focusing on the youth of the country, working with a number of schools throughout the Spring and organising each to have the students write messages of support on thirteen giant manga. Slotted together and laid out on the flight path of jet airplanes as they departed Haneda International Airport, the Sky Comic was awarded a Guinness World for the largest comic strip in the world. And still the fans, they did not come.

And then things started to change. Wins over Cameroon and more notably Denmark saw the team through to the last sixteen where they faced Paraguay and suddenly the country started to take notice, sit up, stand, and finally cheer. A 0 : 0 full time score line saw the players march to their respective ends for the dreaded penalty shoot out. The country was going wild and then a cross bar from Komano handed advantage to Paraguay and silence fell as Cardozo stepped up. And converted. Japan was heartbroken but the team were now national heroes and this time when they flew back, landing at Kansai International, the crowd of thousands just went wild. And yes, I was there. And I did too. And the siege of the Blue Samurai was lifted.

  

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Team sports, national pride and national pleasure

Japan doesn't have a national sport in the sense of a global rivalry. To have that it needs a team with history and legacy and although it is a potent force in Asian soccer, that's more a reflection of Asia than the Japanese national team, talented individuals many of them may be. But a national sport is more about the passion and the pride of a country than it is about individual players, and that raises the obvious question - why?

If you think of soccer the great rivalries that spring to mind are endless, Holland - Germany, Germany - England, Brazil - anyone; with rugby the same pattern appears with the great southern hemisphere teams of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa wreaking havoc over England, France and the rest of the northern countries on a four yearly basis. And indeed cricket, where the Ashes are played for pride and not players or India vs Pakistan where everyday people, rather than asking 'what's the score', will ask 'what's THE score'. There is simply nothing else to talk about.

Japan has many outstanding individual athletes, swimmers who break world records, gymnasts who perform incredible feats or ice skaters who can take on the best and win with grace. But team sports are still developing. Schools focus on soccer, baseball and basketball but only soccer is genuinely a global sport (some would argue but simply ask them to name the captain of their national baseball team). However that's not the point. Sport is about national and personal pride and pleasure, it's about the crowd cheering as much as the player shooting for the goal. But in Japan in 2015, genuinely, it's not about a single stadium.

Playing for pride

Nadeshiko - the flowers who waved goodbye

The word Nadeshiko became globally recognised in 2011 as the name of the Japanese soccer team who won the Women's World Cup, lifting a country still reeling from the earthquake and tsunami a few months before. Going in as the underdogs, there was something in their composure as it came to the penalty shoot-out that alluded to the victory to come. True, Team USA returned the favour four years later in a replay of the final, but I don't remember the name of that team, just that they were great sportswomen and earned their victory the hard way. But Nadeshiko is the name remembered.

The meaning of the word is generally held to be synonymous with the pink flower of the same name, a bloom from the carnation family, something seen across the low hills of Japan. But it also has a second meaning in Japanese which represents the mythical connotations of womanhood and purity of spirit. Given the spirit shown when each player stepped up to take their penalty shot, the flower may as well have been forged in steel.

But Nadeshiko has one other association, looking back to the final days of World War II. Japan had lost, there was no way around that. The navy was, to all intents and purposes, non-existent, and without it the country had no way to feed and re-supply itself. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are seen as the final blows that brought an end to the disaster of the Pacific War but before the end arrived, the kamikaze were the final toll of the Imperial bell. And the Nadeshiko were the girls who waved them goodbye.

April Fool's Day and the World Cup

Looking around I'm somewhat at a loss to find any really good April Fool's stories today in Japan. Nothing on TV that I've come across and nothing seemingly in the newspapers either. Except possibly for one particular article. It's been report that the chairman of the JFA, the Japanese Football Association has offered to host the 2022 World Cup in Japan if Qatar falls completely apart.

The reason this is a questionable one is that it would mean Japan has the Rugby World Cup in 2019, the Olympics in 2020 and then the World Cup in 2022 (followed by the Women's World Cup in 2023 if that bid is also successful). So either someone is being opportunistic with the news today, or we're in for an awesome run of events over the next few years!

So just how do you pronounce Pokemon

Today it was announced that Pikachu, the small, yellow Pokemon (who closely resembles a friend of mine) will be captaining the supporters for the national team at the World Cup in Brazil in a couple of months. That the announcement was reported to have been made by adidas raises an interesting question. Just exactly how do you pronounce Pokemon and while we're at it, it's addi-das, not adee-das by the way.

Around the world Pokemon seems to be pronounced po (as in "poke") ki (as in "key") mon (as in "mon"). Actually, its not too easy to write pronunciations but I hope you get the gist. This is actually a little off base. As with many western words adopted into Japanese "Pokemon" is a contraction of its original English phrase. This is common in Japan so for example a car navigation system is called a "navi" and an air-conitioner is called an "air-con". Interesting the reverse is also occasionally true, for example "bra" and "flu" are always referred to as "brassiere" and "influenza" in Japanese.

So, to pronounce it correctly, it's important to go back to the origins of the name itself. And the origin of "Pokemon" is "Pocket Monster" and pronounced with a short "o" (as in "pocket") rather than a long one (as in "poke"). At some point someone outside Japan read it, mispronounced it, and it stuck. Same for adidas really, but the guys have given up the fight on that and get on with playing sports instead of worrying about a name. Good luck to the Samurai Blue! - Now if only we could get the rugby team to change its name from The Brave Blossoms....