Category Archive: Tokyo 2020

Sani Brown: The 2015 IAAF Rising Star Award Recipient (No, he doesn’t look Japanese.)

Sani Brown IAAF Junior Worlds
Abdul Hakim Sani Brown. Photo by Kaz Magatsuka

As the Japan Times reported on November 27, Abdul Hakim Sani Brown became the first Japanese to win the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) Rising Star Award.

That’s right – a Japanese named Sani Brown. The son of a father from Ghana and a mother from Japan, Brown is a 16-year sprinter who was the fastest in the 100 and 200 meter races at the IAAF World Junior Championship in Cali, Colombia this past July. Not only that, his 20.34 seconds in the 200 broke the championship record previously held by Usain Bolt!

Watch Brown, who was favored a few days after winning the 100 meters, break Bolt’s Junior Championship record in convincing fashion.

Japan is easily one of the most homogeneous societies in the world, with well over 98% of the 126 million citizens of Japanese ethnicity. Those of mixed race have had mixed receptions in Japan. So-called “Hāfu” (a Japanese word that intimates that half of your parents are Japanese) are becoming more and more accepted in society as celebrity mixed race Japanese fill the air waves and print space.

Sani Brown 2
Sani Brown is a one of  growing number of biracial Japanese athletes. Photo from KYODO.

Star pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Yu Darvish, has an Iranian father. Popular television personality, Becky, has a British father. And the father of current Miss Universe Japan, Ariana Miayamoto, is African-American. With international marriages in Japan increasing five-fold since 1965, it’s no surprise that the children of these couples would rise in number, and continuously challenge what it means to be a Japanese.

As Miyamoto expressed in this New York Times interview, she is up for the challenge. My guess is that Sani Brown is as well.

“Even today, I am usually seen not as a Japanese but as a foreigner. At restaurants, people give me an English menu and praise me for being able to eat with chopsticks,” said Ms. Miyamoto, who spoke in her native Japanese and is an accomplished calligrapher of Japanese-Chinese characters. “I want to challenge the definition of being Japanese.”

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Shonan, Hawaii and The Surfing Culture in Japan

Season_of_the_Sun_poster
1956 film, Season of the Sun (Taiyou no Kisetsu)

 

If surfing comes to the Tokyo Olympics, it’s possible surfers will have the American military to thank.

After the Pacific War ended and General MacArthur assumed nearly imperial-like status in running Japan, military bases with thousands of American troops were established throughout the country. As explained in a previous post, American soldiers and their families were particularly prominent in the Shinjuku and Roppongi areas, significantly influencing the fashion and music of those areas in the 1950s and 1960s.

 

Screen capture of Prof Shunya Yoshima and Kanagawa Prefecture
Screen capture of Tokyo University Professor Shunya Yoshimi’s EdX course, Visualizing Postwar Tokyo.

 

In Kanagawa Prefecture, which is just south of Tokyo are two major American military bases, Atsugi and Yokosuka. A spot in between those two bases is a beach called Shonan, which today is considered a popular place for sun worshippers and surfers. The image of Shonan as a surfer’s hangout was most certainly cultivated by American soldiers who brought their music and surfboards to the beach. As Tokyo University professor, Shunya Yoshimi, explained in his EdX course, Visualizing Postwar Japan, “Kanagawa Prefecture or Shonan area was one of the most important areas where American military facilities remained even after the 1960s. And from these military facilities, sporting culture, marine culture, music culture, many kinds of American military culture spread out which people enjoyed.”

Marketers in Japan immediately noticed the influence and the emerging love of beach culture in Shonan. As Professor Yoshimi explained further, Hawaii, or the image of a Hawaiian lifestyle began to enter the Japanese pop consciousness. Prof Yoshimi uses as a case in point an advertisement of TRIS Whiskey, in which the company, Suntory, offers a trip to Hawaii to a lucky 100 Japanese people. Hawaii in the 1960s, for mainland Americans and Japanese alike, was becoming the exotic paradise that people dreamed of visiting. Today, of course, Hawaii is one of the most popular holiday destinations for Japanese.

 

Suntory Ad for TRIS Whiskey
Suntory ad for TRIS Whiskey offering 100 people a trip to Hawaii.

 

One of the more influential movies of the time was called “Season of the Sun”, which came out in 1956, based on a novel by Shintaro Ishihara. Season of the Sun was a love story between a boy, who runs with a rough crowd, and a rich girl, with life on the beach as a central part of the storyline.

Influenced by the surfing culture of beaches like Shonan, and with a desire to inject youth and fun into the Olympics, the Tokyo Olympic Committee nominated surfing to become an Olympic sport in 2020.

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2020 Tokyo Olympics Predicted in Post-Apocalyptic Japanese Anime Classic: Akira

AKIRA_(1988_poster)

In 1988, a nuclear explosion destroyed Tokyo sparking World War III. That was the alternative universe of Katsuhiro Otomo, who co-wrote the famed manga “Akira“, as well as directed the cult anime classic by the same name.

Otomo established this dystopian vision of the future in 2019, and quite coincidentally, made the Olympics a part of the storyline. The image below shows that only 147 days remain before the opening of the 30th Tokyo Olympiad.

2020 Olympics Akira

The next image is of the “Neo-Tokyo Olympic Stadium” which is under construction. According to this site, the stadium is actually the secret seat of the military where covert operations were taking place, including where Akira, a person who possesses extraordinary and potentially destructive psychic capabilities. Thus the stadium becomes, in the film, the staging area for the final conflict between the film’s protagonists, Tetsuo Shima and Shotaro Kaneda, and Akira’s awakening.

Neo National Stadium_Akira

And if you have read this far, you may want to see this mash-up between Akira and Doraemon. As the creator of the video below explains according to this site, Doraemon was named as a special ambassador to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and Akira predicted the Tokyo Games in 2020.

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Izu – Not Just for Hot Spring Lovers, but Also Cycling Lovers

The Hachioji Velodrome in 1964, from the book
The Hachioji Velodrome in 1964, from the book “THE GAMES OF THE XVIII OLYMPIAD TOKYO 1964 – The Official Report of the Organizing Committee”

The Velodrome was in Hachioji, a suburban town in Tokyo where the cycling events were held in the 1964 Summer Games. About 43 kilometers from the Olympic Village, or about 70 minutes of travelling time in 1964 traffic, the Hachioji Velodrome was made of cement mortar, which was considered suitable for all kinds of weather….since the velodrome was outside…and it rained a lot. As it turns out, on October 19, the cycling events at the Velodrome were postponed because of rain.

As described in this blog post, the Hachioji Velodrome is long gone, a deserted baseball park in its place. Hachioji did make a bid to bring cycling back to its neck of the woods, but it was not to be. Earlier this month, the IOC finally settled on Izu as being the location of the 2020 Olympic cycling events.

The IOC and the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee have been trying to figure out a low-cost way to keep cycling events in the downtown Tokyo vicinity. The hope was to have cyclists race by the Tokyo Bay waterfront. But the cost of customizing temporary infrastructure in prime property was thought to be prohibitive, particularly in a time when the IOC is working closely with National Olympic committees to make the Olympics less of an economic burden on city governments and taxpayers.

The Izu Velodrome
The Izu Velodrome

Thus the decision to move the cycling events, which include track cycling, mountain biking and BMX, two hours away to Izu. Famous more for its hot spring resorts, Izu is also the location of an existing modern cycling velodrome. There will need to be additions made to seating capacity, but that cost will be covered by local cycling associations.

It isn’t so unusual to have events away from the Olympic Stadium. In 2020. the sailing events will take place in Enoshima, basketball in Saitama, fencing, taekwando and wrestling in Chiba. Which is fine. Let’s spread the Games around. It is just as much Japan’s Games as it is Tokyo’s.

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Rugby at the Rio Olympics Will be Fast and Furious: Understanding the Differences Between Rugby Union and Rugby Sevens

Japan rugby union team in gloucester brave blossoms
The Japan National Rugby Team wins three times at the World Rugby Championships in Gloucester, Scotland in October.

The surging love for rugby in Japan has been driven by the success of the Japan team, aka “The Brave Blossoms”, in the recent Rugby World Cup Championships in Gloucester, Scotland last month. The team’s three victories at the tournament drew attention to the fact that the next Rugby World Cup Championships will be held in Japan in 2019, a year before the 2020 Olympics, when rugby will continue as a participating sport after its Olympic debut in Rio in 2016.

But the rugby we watched at the Rugby World Cup Championships is significantly different from the rugby we will see at the Olympics. Rugby Union is the name of the sport that is challenged at the Rugby World Championships, and it requires 15 people aside. Rugby Sevens, which people will see at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, place seven people aside, even though the size of the field for both sports are the same: 100 meters long by 70 meters wide.

Thus, Rugby Sevens is faster. On the same size pitch, you can imagine that it is easier to defend with 15 people on the field as opposed to 7, which is what Rugby Sevens, appropriately named, requires. So instead of getting pushed, pulled, banged, tripped and generally hit every meter of the way in a Rugby Union match, you have open spaces, breakaways and sprints in a Rugby Sevens match. Instead of the bulky, squarish hulks you tend to see in a Rugby Union match, you’ll see muscular but lither athletes who can run world-class sprinting times.

Rugby Sevens is also shorter in duration. Rugby Union plays its matches in 40-minute halves, closer to the duration of soccer and NFL football games, while Rugby Sevens’ games are made up of 7-minute halves, or 10-minute halves for championships rounds. In other words, Rugby Seven matches finish in the amount of time it takes to play half a Rugby Union match. And fans and casual fans alike have taken occasional jabs at the seemingly slow pace of scrums in Rugby Union matches, where a large number of heavy athletes wrap arms in a pile that seem to do little but kill time.

Because of the above differences, the scoring in Rugby Sevens are perceived to come fast and furiously. Just watch this video compilation of scores made by the Rugby Seven speedster, Carlin Isles.

Now if you want me to further confuse, I could attempt to explain the difference between Rugby Union and Rugby League (and their 13 aside rules)…but I will not attempt a try.

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Tokyo Pitchman Governor Yoichi Masuzoe: From Motorization to De-Motorization, from More Money to More Time

Yoichi Masuzoe, Governor of Tokyo, speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce
Yoichi Masuzoe, Governor of Tokyo, speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce

Yoichi Masuzoe was in his first year of high school, and a competitive sprinter in the 100 meters, running it in 11 seconds. And he remembers watching the Tokyo Olympics on television. And like the uplifting spectacle of the wedding between Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko in 1959, the Olympics raised the spirits of a nation, including the future governor of Tokyo.

On September 24, 2015, Governor Yoichi Masuzoe, gave a talk for the American Chamber of Commerce of Japan called “City for the Ages: The Magnetism of Tokyo in 2020 and Beyond.” I had never seen the Tokyo governor speak before, but he was definitely in full pitch mode, charming the packed room with the greatness of the food and drink in Japan, which almost everybody in the audience already had an appreciation for. It was the governor’s vision of Tokyo as a pedestrian and biker paradise that raised eyebrows and hopes.

He remembers the brightness of the Tokyo Games, but he also remembers the dust of the construction and the shadows created by the highways that started to snake through the city. He bemoaned what he called the “motorization” of Tokyo, how the smaller rivers were filled by rubble from the war, covered over by roads. As governor of Tokyo, what he pledged to the audience was a drive for the “de-motorization” of Tokyo. He said he would push for a significant increase in bicycle lanes, as well a plan like Boris Bikes in London. He said he would push for the elimination of the highways he believes blight the center of the city.

The Edobashi Interchange 1964, from
The Edobashi Interchange 1964, from “The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964”

He said that the city of Tokyo today, with its highways, its loss of riverways, and its roads packed with cars, was due to an infatuation with money. Making money is important, he emphasized to the chamber of commerce members. But he emphasized that the pursuit of money should not come at the expense of time – time to enjoy a cup of coffee in a more pedestrian-friendly Shibuya, time to have a satisfying family life and a successful career, particularly for women, time to walk, bike and even boat around the safest, cleanest metropolis in the world.

It’s a lofty vision. It’s an Olympian vision. Will the Tokyo governor get us there? Visit us in 2020 and see for yourself!

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A Second Act for Tokyo: Building the Tokyo Brand

Weber Shandwick's City Soft Power Attributes
Weber Shandwick’s City Soft Power Attributes

Cities matter. They are flag carriers for nations, centers for universities and cultural influences, attractors for investment and tourists, as well as experiences for people living and visiting them. In other words, cities are brands. Thus explained Ian Rumsby, Chief Strategy Officer of Weber Shandwick Asia Pacific in a panel discussion entitled “The Growing Strength of Tokyo as a Global Brand”, on September 11, 2015.

At this talk for the American Chamber of Commerce Japan, Rumsby went on to explain that cities have assets, which contribute to their reputation over time. These assets sub-divide into two attributes: hard and soft power. Hard power is the military complex, the political stability and strength and the economic horsepower that support a city. Soft power is made up of attributes that encourage an environment of openness, diversity, livability, growth, sustainability, and creativity.

If Tokyo in 1964 was a successful opening act for Japan on the world stage, will Tokyo in 2020 be a thrilling revival?

As is cited in Weber Shandwick’s report, Engaging Cities – The Growing Relevance of Soft Power to Cities’ Reputations in Asia Pacific – the Tokyo Olympics will be the pinnacle of all the great investments Japan is making to build its brand.

In anticipation of the 2020 Olympics, “Tokyo is delivering on a number of smart investments that will enhance the sense of occasion for those visiting the city as much as the 13 million people who currently live there. Innovative sustainability initiatives are high on the agenda with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government laying out a clear 10-year plan to reduce

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Karate, No Kidding: Can It Kick Its Way into 2020?

When I was growing up in the US, it seemed like all the martial arts were perceived to be this polymorphous Asian judo/karate/kung fu sport that looked really cool on the big screen. I recall this scene from Hanna Barbera’s The Flinstones where Fred and Barney escape the alien bad guys delivering blows and shouting “judo chop chop!”

Here we are in the 21st century, and we’ve come a long way. Judo and taekwando are Olympic sports, while wushu was given strong consideration. A couple of weeks ago, the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee recommended karate as one of five sports to be added to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The recommendations for karate would include “kata” and “kumite”. Kata is the display of sequences of movements that come together in patterns, and like Hanon’s exercises for piano, need to be practiced over and over and over again. Kumite is a sparring competition that includes punching, kicking and blocking. Assuming the IOC approves next year, there would be one medal awarded each to men and women in the kata events, and three medals each for men and women in the kumite events, depending on the weight class.

There is said to be 100 million karate practitioners worldwide, 185 national karate federations, with around 2,000 global karate events held per month. What that has led to are schisms as to what qualifies as karate. One school of karate is called “kyokushin-style” is a full-contact sport, where the head and face are as much a target as any other part of the body. In other words, this is a version of karate where the intent is to deliver pain.

Kyokushin is very popular, but the vision of blood and broken bones on the mats of the Budokan in 2020 probably did not appeal to the powers that be, so it is the light-contact version of kumite that has been recommended to the IOC. As NewsonJapan.com puts it, “Those from karate schools that practice full contact would be allowed to take part in the Olympics if the sport was included, but would have to abide by the non-contact rule and wear mouth guards, body protectors and padded gloves, as well as shin and foot guards.”

Karate will likely be in the 2020 Games. It’s so popular that surveys repeatedly show that people think that karate is already an Olympic sport. One of the internet phenomenons who have been increasing popularity of karate for kids is Mahiro Takano, who has scowled and screamed her way into our hearts. Here she is in this great commercial for Japanese retailer, Aeon. She’s only 8, so maybe we’ll see her stomp her way to glory in the 2020 Games.

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Surfing in 2020: Do Surfers Even Want to be in the Olympics?

What surfing in the Olympics could look like, for better or worse. Photo: WebberWavePools.com
What surfing in the Olympics could look like, for better or worse. Photo: WebberWavePools.com

Surfing in the Olympics? It’s been selected by the Tokyo Olympic powers that be. But why is it even being considered? Technology.

The challenges up till now for holding surfing competitions in the Olympics is how to ensure a level playing field for all surfers. After all, waves with the same or similar difficulty levels don’t come when you want them to in the big blue ocean. And what do you do if the venue for the summer games is land-locked?

Technology appears to be the wave that surfing enthusiasts in support of making it an Olympic sport are betting on. Now wavepools are becoming so sophisticated that specific heights and shapes of waves can be created and repeated consistently so that wave patterns can be replicated for competition.

According to Fernando Aquerre, President of the International Surfing Association, surfing wasn’t initially selected as an Olympic sport in 2011 because of the lack of proper wave-making technologies. “But now the proper wave technology or world-class or Olympic surfing competitions is available,” he wrote in this article.

Apparently it’s still open as to whether a competition in 2020 in Tokyo would be in a wave pool or in the ocean. But the debate is on as to which is more appropriate. Here are a few point/counterpoint from Surfermag:

Surfing should be an Olympic Sport for sure. It would be hard to have the event when the hosting city is land locked, but with the way technology is going it seems we will be able to bring world class waves and surfing anywhere. – Taylor Knox, Veteran World Tour Surfer

No, no and err…no. Olympic sports are all anchored around fairness and level playing fields, but the ocean doesn’t offer that. The only way surfing would ever be considered an Olympic sport is if it was held in wave pools, and if it was held in wave pools then I wouldn’t consider it surfing. The fact that no two waves are ever the same is what makes surfing, surfing. It’s not designed to be fair. The ocean isn’t fair, and unless you’re Kelly the ocean really doesn’t give a shit about you. – Sean Doherty, Surfer Senior Writer

Yes, I think surfing should be included, and I would absolutely love to surf in the Olympics. It would be such a great honor to represent my country. Plus, it would be a sick competition with the Brazilians teaming together against the other counties. And of course we would win. Haha! Hopefully it will happen. – Gabriel Medina, World Champ

…the thought of surfing in the Olympics brings a familiar dab of bile to my throat. Can we just all agree to pretend, for a little while longer, that surfing is a unique thing to do? That this difference has in fact always been its strength? – Matt Warshaw, Surfer Historian

What is it like to surf in a wave pool? Take a look!

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