When it comes to sports in Japan, baseball, soccer, and sumo get the lion's share of the overseas press. But there are several other leagues around that offer sports travellers an opportunity to see something that few foreigners even know about. Each of these leagues follows the same naming pattern: first letter of sport followed by .League. So we have the B.League for basketball, T.League for table tennis, and V.League for volleyball.
Both the T.League and V.League began their seasons this week, and I chose to see the latter's opening match on Friday evening as it was being held at the Ota City General Gymnasium, a fancy new building (by Japanese standards) that opened in 2013. It is located about 6 minutes from Umeyashiki station on the Keikyu line, about 45 minutes from Roppongi. It has a unique design, but as it is on a street corner, it is tough to get a good external shot at night.
There are 10 teams in the men's top division (with 3 divisions overall) including FC Tokyo, but the season's opening match featured two clubs from western Japan playing at a neutral site. The Suntory Sunbirds, based out of Osaka, were the home team while Hiroshima's JT Thunders were the visitors. JT is Japan Tobacco, while Suntory is one of the largest alcohol producers in the country, so the V really stood for Vice on this night.
The front of the gym was plastered with Sunbirds banners letting us know that they were the home team. I arrived just as the match was getting underway, and picked up a general admission seat for 2,500 yen. I was warned that there were few seats left, but that did not bother me as I planned to stand for most of the match. As is usual in Japan, there is no security, just several yellow-clad staff to guide you to the single point of entry.
Upon entering I was handed a red bib featuring Suntory Sunbirds. This was a lame attempt to get neutral fans to cheer for the "home" team, not that they needed it. As both clubs are sponsored by corporations, they each had their own cheering sections of company employees. Yes, if you work for one of these firms, part of your job is to cheer for the teams they own. The cheering sections took up more than half the gym, which is why the general admission seats were so few. So for every point, one half of the gym was cheering while the other half was silent. The JT supporters wore green, and it did make for an interesting photo.
The other half of the gym was 4 rows of general admission with the rest of the seats for media and special guests. Capacity is just over 4,000 with attendance announced at exactly 3,000, with many of the empty seats covered by a giant Sunbirds banner. It is tough to tell in the photo below, but their mascot is similar to that of the Louisville Cardinals.
I ended up standing at one end of the court and watched the first two sets, which were split. I then moved around during the third set (won by JT) and finally took a seat at the back corner for the fourth set (Suntory winning to force a 15-point fifth frame). The final set was quick, with Suntory winning 15-12 to take the match, proving once and for all that drinking is better than smoking. There were 207 points contested on the evening, with Suntory winning that battle 104-103. The match took only 2:18, precisely 1.5 points per minute.
There were two athletes worth noting, both foreigners: Dmitri Muserskiy of Suntory, a Russian who stands 7'2" and has several gold medals as part of their national team; and Thomas Edgar, a 6'11 Australian. Obviously these two dominated the match, towering over their Japanese teammates on the court and on the stat sheet. They both delivered several powerful spikes; whenever Muserskiy did so, a chant played repeatedly "Nice Spike Nice Spike Nice Spike". The PA announcer also added some commentary after each point, when combined with the fans cheering, it was quite a noisy event.
Volleyball is my least favourite sport and that did not change tonight. This was a very competitive match, but there were few rallies, and both teams relied on their import player too often. Volleyball is the opposite of tennis in that you shouldn't expect to win your service points as the other team has a chance to set up for the spike, so if a team can grab a few consecutive points on the serve, they have a big advantage. It is those small streaks that make the difference and so if a team does so early in the set, the rest of the set is spent watching the other team trying to catch up. It is not compelling viewing. So that will be it for me and the V.League.
Notes
The gym is the home venue of one of Tokyo's B.League club, the Earth Friends Tokyo Z. Yes, Japanese team names are weird.
Next Up
I'm heading to the third match of the Bledisloe Cup today and then a B.League game tomorrow featuring another Sun team, the Sun Rockers of Shibuya. As always, check back for recaps.
Best,
Sean
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