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The story
Yomiuri Shimbun reporting has revealed that tournament organizers at Koshien Stadium, site of the 108th National High School Baseball Championship, have been cracking down on fans who hold up boards bearing individual players’ names. Citing the “educational purpose” laid out in the Japan Student Baseball Charter, organizers say “cheering that treats an individual player as a hero is not desirable” — though voicing support itself is not a problem.
On 5ch, users traded a range of reactions over just how blurry that line is — from the finger-pointing pose players strike after winning the title, to towels printed with individual names, to how TV broadcasts stage their coverage.
High School Baseball: Koshien Says “Cheering That Treats an Individual as a Hero Is Not Desirable”… Holding Up Signs With Players’ Names Is Banned, Cheering Itself Is OK : Yomiuri Shimbun
By Seigo Ota, Kohei Yamauchi
The 108th National High School Baseball Championship (Koshien Stadium) reaches its final on the 22nd. Forty-seven games have been played so far, each greeted with passionate cheering. However, tournament organizers have put a stop to cheering that involves holding up boards printed with players’ names. This is banned under the “educational purpose” defined by the Japan Student Baseball Charter, which holds that “cheering that treats an individual as a hero is not desirable.” Spectators unaware of the ban have been left confused, while cheer squad leaders are struggling with how to get the word out. (By Seigo Ota, Kohei Yamauchi)
Source: yomiuri.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Heck, maybe the whole TV broadcast while they're at it
It'd be cleaner if they just showed the game progress plainly like they used to. Apparently they switched to the current style because ratings dropped, but now the show focuses way too much on individual players.
Once-in-a-decade pitcher, once-in-a-decade catcher… keep stacking labels like that and it's not weird to get one every year
Old-fashioned, sure, maybe — but lately, thanks to "oshi-katsu" fan-support culture and the like, there are people who'll casually do stuff that would normally count as excessive cheering. I think there's at least some reason they feel they have to crack down
https://n.picvr.net/2608181338109213.gif
Pretty modest, lol. Only taking home one little bottle's worth?
Thought it was ABC but it's actually NHK? That's one more reason to refuse to pay the license fee
No way that's true
That really is obnoxious. At the very least, I think the Federation should ban doing it on the mound before the players line up. If they want to do it, do it in front of their own cheering section after the lineup and greetings
Komazawa University Tomakomai started it. It's been over 20 years since then, and the only team that's never done it is Chukyo Daichukyo
It's not like they're broadcasting this for old guys who worship high school baseball. If it bothers you, don't watch. I didn't even watch the final myself
Same sloppy stuff now as then, lol
Sure, the media made a fuss — fine. But "the Federation hyped it up" makes no sense. What exactly did the Federation actually do?
There are even companies that make towels printed with individual players' names
Go complain to them
It's not spectators unfurling big towels and waving them during the Koshien game — it's more that the players themselves or their families order them made, to hand out to people back home who supported them. They even trade custom towels with players from other schools
That "Age Age Hoi Hoi" chant (a Lotte Marines cheer song) is gross too
No wonder people are tuning out (lol)
https://tval-now.switch-m.com/
The Koshien final's TV ratings are insane, lol
Background and Key Points
Koshien is the summer National High School Baseball Championship, held at Koshien Stadium since 1915 and co-run by the Japan High School Baseball Federation and Asahi Shimbun. Enforcement here traces back to the Japan Student Baseball Charter, a postwar code (formalized in 1950) meant to keep school baseball framed as character-building education rather than the commercial spectacle Japanese pro sports had already become. That “amateur ideal” is why organizers periodically police things that make Koshien look too much like NPB — hence banning cardboard signs bearing a single player’s name, even while insisting cheering itself remains fine. It’s a distinctly Japanese institutional tension: a tournament that draws NHK’s full broadcast machinery and enormous ad revenue, governed by a charter that pretends stardom isn’t the point.
The thread’s actual disagreement wasn’t over whether individual-hero worship is bad — most agreed it happens — but over who’s responsible and whether the sign ban addresses it at all. Posters kept pointing to the finger-pointing victory pose (traced to Komazawa Tomakomai two decades ago), personalized cheering towels, and NHK’s Nettō Kōshien recap show as far bigger drivers of hero-narrative culture than any spectator’s homemade sign, calling the crackdown hypocritical or performative.
What the thread never addresses is that the Federation has no jurisdiction over broadcasters or towel manufacturers — its authority extends only to conduct inside the stadium. That structural limit, not inconsistency of principle, is why enforcement looks so selective: it can ban a fan’s sign but not NHK’s editorial choices or a family’s souvenir order.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “[High School Baseball] Koshien: “Cheering That Treats an Individual as a Hero Is Not Desirable”… Holding Up Signs With Players’ Names Is Banned, Cheering Itself Is OK.”
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