America has several sports that aren’t embraced by other countries. While there are numerous exceptions, even more common sports like basketball aren’t met with the same esteem in other countries as they are in the ol’ US of A.


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One of the biggest exceptions, though, is Japanese baseball. While football may be relegated to small groups of Ameriboos, baseball is a sport that absolutely dominates Japan. Recently, the incredible YouTube channel Baseball Doesn’t Exist put out an hour-long documentary detailing the history of the country’s love for the sport, ranging from its humble beginnings to the current “cutthroat” nature of the sport today.



The whole documentary is definitely on this month’s must-watch list, but for those who have already seen it, one special detail caught their eye.



That’s right — in Japan, there’s a single elimination high school baseball tournament with 4,000 teams. It’s called the “Japanese High School Baseball Championship,” or, more commonly, “Summer Koshien,” and it goes just about how you would expect.


“About 4,000 high schools are divided by prefecture to hold preliminary tournaments, and the winning high school from each prefecture can participate in the final tournament at Koshien,” notes The Japan International Transport and Tourism Institute, USA. As the teams play, they are accompanied by “performances by dozens or hundreds of brass band club members.”




Apparently there’s also an anime about this, but saying that about a Japanese cultural product doesn’t really mean much, as they’ll make an anime covering just about anything. For example, take the Wikipedia description of the anime Punch Line: “Guided by the cat spirit Chiranosuke, Yūta must learn to master his spirit powers in order to protect his housemates. However, if Yūta sees a girl’s panties twice in a row within a short amount of time, Earth will be destroyed by a meteor.”


See? Not surprising that there’s a baseball anime.



Overall, I would love to watch the 4,000-team competition. At the very least, let me tailgate it — I’m sure their parking lot barbecue is to die for.