Many years ago, I read (and reviewed) one of the best Japanese books about baseball that I have ever read, which was written by Keio University professor Dr. Masaru Ikei. Not long thereafter, as I was browsing Amazon, I came across this one. The title was intriguing enough, so I decided to flag it and…
I picked this book up after having read Why Orix was Able to Win the Pennant, written by Masanori Kise at the end of the 2021 season. I read it in the fall of 2023, but it gave me an incredible education about the team across the river that honestly does not get the attention…
I am genuinely curious about pretty much anyone who played baseball for the Hanshin Tigers. The same is true of Japanese players who gave the Major Leagues a shot. These days, I have started to really become more curious about the world of translating and interpreting as well, so I take a deeper interest in…
Soon after I became a Hanshin Tigers fan in 2014, I received a bit of a challenge from one of the H-TEN followers: Read a Japanese book about the team and write a report about it on your website. My reward was that he was to buy a beer the next time we went to…
Don’t be fooled by the title – rather, note that the pennant and the Japan Series are two separate terms… and this one is referring to the Buffaloes winning the Pacific League title… in 2021. The book was written a couple of years back, as Orix won its first pennant since its merger in late…
From 2018-23, I was a full-time lecturer at Ritsumeikan University. You might recall that for a stretch there, we were under pandemic rules, which meant that classes were conducted entirely online. Perhaps it was because of this dearth of networking opportunities, one of the school’s alumni, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, conducted a Zoom session to talk about…
First things first. This book was released before the 2016 season, when Tomoaki Kanemoto was about to take over as manager of the team. Despite an appearance in the 2014 Japan Series, the team stumbled towards the end of 2015, resulting in the dismissal of then-manager Yutaka Wada and bringing in a new regime. Takashi…
I’m not sure which is more amazing: the fact that a self-proclaimed illiterate man has written four books or the fact that I have read three of them. Tsuyoshi Shinjo is indeed a man of mystery. Though he divulges a lot about himself in interviews and his three books (including this one), it seems quite…
Shohei Ohtani has nothing to do with the Hanshin Tigers… but I’m still going to review this book on my site, if you don’t mind. My first-ever NPB regular season game (June 18, 2014) saw him on the bump with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters against my beloved Tigers, and he dominated. I had heard he…
In late February 2022, I was down in Okinawa exploring the spring training facilities of as many NPB teams as I could. My hotel was in Chatan, just a few minutes walk from the Chunichi Dragons camp. Because Covid restrictions were still in place, there were not too many people in attendance. At the top…