Rumic World Profile Timeline Articles Interviews Encyclopedia Contact Messageboard

Rumiko Takahashi & the Hanshin Tigers

By Dylan Acres



Known as the great American past time, baseball is arguably a bigger deal in Japan in the 21st century than it is in the country of its birth. Among die hard baseball fans in the manga industry are Shonen Sunday’s own Mitsuru Adachi, famous for manga like Touch and Cross Game, Gosho Aoyama who features baseball to some extent in Detective Conan and more so in 3rd Base Fourth. While Adachi is a supporter of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, and Aoyama is a famous fan of the always popular Yomiuri Giants, our very own Rumiko Takahashi has always supported the Hanshin Tigers.

Lum in Tigers Uniform
A 2003 illustration made by Rumiko Takahashi in celebration of the Hanshin Tigers. Due to Lum's tiger-striped bikini she seems like a logical unofficial mascot for the team.


To be a fan of the Hanshin Tigers, is to root for the underdogs, to be the bridesmaid and never the bride, a luckless loser, and every other cliché that comes to mind. Fans of the Tigers suffer more than any other team, not because the team is bad, they’re not, they’re very good in fact; it’s just that they’re never the best. While they’ve been League champions 9 times since 1936, they’ve only won the Japan Series (the Japanese equivalent of the World Series in America) once - in 1985. [1] And it was in 1985 that something happened that many fans believe to be the cause of the Tigers horrible luck.

Many readers were exposed to the first hint of Takahashi’s fandom through Ranma 1/2 chapter 210 when she uses Colonel Sanders to illustrate a gag. The Kentucky Fried Chicken spokesman is famous among fans of the Hanshin Tigers dating back to 1985. Tigers fans have a reputation as a rowdy bunch, sometimes fighting other fans in the stadiums during games, and that rowdiness erupted before their 1985 championship game when fans, in their excitement, ripped a statue of Colonel Sanders out of the ground at a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and threw it into Dotonburi River. The fans had been celebrating by having lookalikes of the team’s roster jump into the river, but when the fans called out superstar American player “Randy Bass” name, there were no Caucasians amongst the crowd to take the plunge as a stand in for Bass, and so the fans chose the next best thing - a statue of Colonel Sanders. [2] After the statue was tossed, the Tigers went on an unprecedented 18 year losing streak. Consequently, fans decided that the spirit of Colonel Sanders was angry with the team for ripping his plastic statue from its home in front of KFC and pitching it into the canal.

Ultimately Bass was released by the Tigers in June 1988 when he returned to the United States after his son was diagnosed with brain cancer. Although the Tigers had authorized Bass to leave Japan, they later claimed that no such authorization had been given and fired Bass in absentia. However, Bass produced a tape recording establishing definitively that the Tigers had authorized his leave of absence. In disgrace, the general manager of the Hanshin Tigers, Shingo Furuya, committed suicide. [3]

It wasn’t until 2009 that the statue was finally located at the bottom of the river, restored and placed at the KFC closest to the Tiger’s stadium. Speaking of the Tiger’s stadium, it just so happens to be the most famous baseball stadium in all of Japan, Koshien. The stadium was constructed in 1924 as the largest stadium in all of Asia, and was built for the purpose of hosting national high school baseball tournaments. These tournaments are known simply as “Koshien” and take place in August. In fact high school baseball is such a big deal in Japan that the Tigers actually have to reschedule their home games around the tournament when it is taking place.

"When I was in the second year of junior high school, I watched the Hanshin Tigers vs Taiyo Whales (now Yokohama BayStars) match held in my hometown of Niigata and fell in love with catcher Koichi Tabuchi, who was so cool." - Rumiko Takahashi [4]


In the final round of 1973, the Tigers lost to the Giants 0-9 and Takahashi temporarily withdrew from her baseball fandom "with a deep emotional wound", but from the playoff battle with Yakult in 1992, she snuggled up to the Tigers again, saying "Let's follow them this time". [5] So, she confessed:

"Because I missed a bit in 1985 I still don't know the feeling of them being the best in Japan." [6] When the Tigers won the Central League in 2003, she created an illustration of Lum, who supports the Tigers, in Daily Sports and in honor of one of her favorite players, Tsuyoshi Shinjo.

As the most famous fan of the team, Rumiko Takahashi has dedicated pages of her manga to the Tigers over the years. In 2003, she contributed This Year a Championship! when the team won the League Championship for the first time since the magical 1985 season when they went all the way.

Tiger
Kiko Tateshima from Rumiko Takahashi's 2015 short story Tiger.


2015’s Tiger follows an elderly Tigers fan who dies before getting to see them reach the Series. Consequently, his ghost takes over a housecat named Tora who reacts with increasing frustration to the ups and downs of the baseball season. Kiko Tateshima, the granddaughter of the old man, tries to bring her new boyfriend home for a visit, only for him to discover the entire house is scratched up and damaged due to the angry kitty. Tora goes wild as the series reaches a fever pitch, and finally grandpa's ghost leaves the cat after the Tiger's reach the Japan Series. Sadly, they lose to the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks despite everyone's hopes for a win. In addition to the manga she’s done, Takahashi has also released illustrations and merchandise featuring Lum in Tigers regalia to the point where the alien princess has become an unofficial team mascot.

While producing a weekly manga output of roughly 30 pages a week for thirty-five years doesn’t leave much time for other things in life, Rumiko Takahashi’s passion for the Hanshin Tigers is by far her most well known hobby.

During the 2020 worldwide pandemic, Takahashi mentioned the things she misses from the halcyon days before the virus- visiting friends, karaoke, and attending Hanshin Tigers games in person. [7]





Footnotes

You can watch more videos from Dylan Acres on the live-action Maison Ikkoku film's Joe Hisashi soundtrack. Please visit our Rumic World YouTube Channel for more video essays. For more information on the Japanese fascination with baseball, check out Bubbles volume 12 where this article was republished alongside pieces on Ichiro Suzuki and his love of manga.

Cover

Rumic World
Published: November 3, 2020
Author: Dylan Acres
Translated by: ---
Archived: ---
ISBN/Web Address: https://www.furinkan.com/ features/articles/baseball.html
Page numbers: ---