There are two unavoidable topics when talking about sports-themed Japanese cartoons: baseball and Adachi Mitsuru. Baseball is America’s past time, but baseball here is nowhere the ’serious business’ it is in Japan. Oh sure, we have famous Hatfield-McCoy feud between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox or even the inter-league rivalries like Chicago’s White Sox and Cubs, but how many Cubs fans would jump into Lake Michigan if the team superstition meant it would help their chances in the play-offs and win a World Series? Cheering in an American stadium is nothing like the large flags, towels and team fight songs which are waved and bellowed more and more drunkenly as the game goes on. Every baseball game in Japan is played and cheered there like it’s October here. Yes, baseball in Japan is different than it is here; it was an import in the late Taisho period (late 1910s - early 1920s) but has distinctively grown into its own very Japanese phenomenon.

Adachi Mitsuru, likewise, is a name that is dropped in nearly every conversation when talking about sports anime. He’d been doing manga art since the early 1970s and by the close of the decade was writing his own narrative, usually about sports, youth and romance all wrapped up together. Today’s article isn’t about his first or last work but one that is typically lauded as his best. The story of twins, their neighbor, and a childhood dream simply called Touch.

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When I was asked to be a contributing writer at Gaijinside, I was originally asked about writing about mecha anime. After all, it was immediately after a panel that myself and fellow Akihabara Renditions co-host / Gaijinside contributor, Richard Hoelsher had put together about the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise at Anime Weeked Atlanta XIV back in September of this year. Don’t get me wrong, I like my giant robot cartoons; but as I was mulling ideas around for mecha articles to write, I began thinking about other titles from a completely un-related genre: sports. I pitched the idea and here we are with a new Gaijinside feature - The Sports Pages.

(Editor’s Note: I read and published out of order, but the introduction works well either way. My bad!)

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Judo. It’s a Japanese word known the world over, regardless of boundary, language or nationality, which conjures its own images much like hearing sushi or sayonara. In the world of sports, it is Japan’s earliest contribution to world athletics. What started in the late nineteenth century as safer form for practicing Japanese “unarmed” martial arts became a a sporting event within Japan and quickly around the world thanks to a handful of individuals. What better metaphor is there for the turbulent emotions of a young lady in high school who wants to shop, date and learn the makings of a good housewife and her grandfather’s aspirations of her claiming Olympic and national victories on the mat than the very pushing and pulling required for executing the majority of Judo’s throws? Cross-generational, cross-gender and cross-mat goals charge head-to-head in Yawara!: A Fashionable Judo Girl.

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