#koushien

4,000 teams. 49 prefectures. ONLY 1 champion. It all begins in Okinawa today! The 4,000 high school teams in Japan will begin their road to nationals in the biggest single elimination tournament in the world.

So how does Koshien work? The 4k teams in Japan compete in a single elimination tournament over 2 months. These teams are split across 49 prefectures tournaments, with the winner of each getting a ticket to nationals at Koshien. This is what all players devote their lives for.

Depending on which prefecture, this means the champions will have to win between 10-17 in a row to win the championship. Kanagawa prefecture has 170 teams, for example.

The sheer amount of games has lead to a lot of controversy over how many pitches players throw. (These are high schoolers. TEENAGERS/KIDS in the middle of growth) In 2006, the "Handkerchief Prince" Yuki Saito threw 948 pitches over 2 weeks to earn his team the title.

With it being single elimination, ANY mistake means the end of your season. For third year players, this is the end of their high school careers. often leading to heartbreaking reactions.

The format of this tournament has lead to many famous school moments, like the dark horse public schools taking down the powerhouses.

The tournament lasts from August 5th to around August 22nd this year. To watch you can go https://vk.sportsbull.jp/koshien/ and translate it to English if you need to help yourself to navigate the games.

The first games will begin on June 13th~ Don't miss it

Megalovania's biggest sports venue appearance yet, AFAIK: At the 106th Koushien high school baseball tournament, Shiga school's ouendan (cheer squad) performed Megalovania as the team's chance theme. (Chance themes are performed when the batting team has an opportunity to score.)

Koushien might be a high school tournament, but it's one of the biggest sports events in Japan.

I have been so sad since Senbatsu is over now, with Yokohama winning 11-4 against Chiben Wakayama

Can’t wait for Summer Koushien✨ and watch the stands cheer.

If you wanna also watch or rewatch Senbatsu I’ll leave a link. That’s where I watch it. Sadly it’s all in Japanese if you don’t speak the language, but if you do understand the sport then it’s still fun to watch🫶👌

https://vk.sportsbull.jp/sp/koshien/

So if you only watch the Daiya anime, you’ll probably only see Houmei in the start of Season 3, when Seidou play them at Koushien. If you’ve seen the OVA or read the manga, though, you probably realise they were also the team that put Seidou out of the Meiji Jingu tournament.

That was the tournament where Ono and Furuya screwed up and they lost a run.

I find it interesting that Terajima-sensei chose to use this same team to open up the competition at Koushien in the spring. The manga obviously gives us a bit more material about that game than we really see in the animation, but odd comments - like Miyuki wondering if the runner trying to steal base picked up a hint about Eijun’s pitching from the Meiji Jingu tournament makes sense if you know they already played each other.