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The story
A column published in Nikkan Gendai titled “Is Shohei Ohtani the Avatar Senior Men Pin Their Dreams On?” became a hot topic on 5ch’s Geisports Sokuho+ board. The piece argues that senior men project their unfulfilled dreams and lost youth onto Ohtani, watching a kind of “proxy war” play out in front of the TV. Reactions in the thread split between agreement — “Big data already shows it’s mostly older guys who are into Ohtani” — and pushback — “How is this even analysis?” One poster shared a personal story about their father in his 70s, who became obsessed with Dodgers games after losing his mobility, keeping the thread from being pure mockery.
Is Shohei Ohtani, on whom senior men living in a narrow world pin their dreams, actually their own avatar? Projecting themselves onto the “proxy war” playing out on the other side of the TV screen to get through their “remaining time in life” | Nikkan Gendai DIGITAL
Reiko Wakatsuki, reportage writer
Born 1975. Journalist. After graduating university, worked as a fixed-term news anchor and director producing local broadcasts at NHK’s Kochi station and NHK’s Greater Tokyo Broadcasting Center. After leaving work upon marriage, volunteered as a phone counselor for a suicide-prevention organization. While raising children, works as a web writer covering debt hardship and end-of-life planning (“shukatsu”). A lifelong non-regular worker, currently trying out various jobs as a gig worker.
Source: nikkan-gendai.com / Original article here
What people said
It's a fact proven by big data, though.
The data clearly shows it's old men and women pushing Ohtani.
Oh look, it's Lord Loud-Chewer himself lol ("kucharaa" = mocking slang for someone who chews with their mouth open — used here as a jab at the poster's own hypocrisy)
Guess this is what they call hating your own kind.
Why are they swinging him around like a club?
That's the generation that got brainwashed on baseball by Oh and Nagashima back in the Showa era.
A catchy buzzword ("two-way player") and a symbolic icon (Shohei Ohtani) are all it takes to turn them into an easily-led mob.
For team sports like soccer or basketball, where equal numbers from both sides mix together on the pitch at the same time, you need to have actually played the sport — or watched a ton of matches — while young, when your brain is still flexible. Otherwise you can't process the situation fast enough to understand what's happening or why a certain play was made.
It's extremely hard to pick that up once you're middle-aged or older.
Japan's current 50-and-up crowd didn't grow up in that environment, so when they watch those sports they simply don't understand what's going on — and as a result, they never get emotionally invested in the players either.
> Ohtani's battles feel like a kind of "proxy war" for senior men who will never again get a chance to take on the world themselves.
Spot-on analysis.
Baseball fans just have no eye for talent.
From rookie years through their prime and all the way to decline and retirement.
It's the best entertainment there is.
His body's getting less mobile these days, he can't go out much, and he doesn't really have any other hobbies.
Maybe Ohtani really is a kind of welfare program for elderly men.
That's not true at all.
Koichi Nakano, who once dominated world track-cycling sprinting, was practically unknown in Japan during his own playing days.
In the end, Japan's over-50 crowd today is just a pitiful generation trained to obediently follow whatever newspapers, radio, and TV tell them.
If the media doesn't pick you up, nobody notices you at all.
Japan actually has a Muay Thai world champion — did you know that?
more like an emotional pillar, a reason to live.
Without him there'd be no hope, no excitement left in life at all.
Just an old man talking to himself, that's all this is.
Go for guys like Zion, Yuito Suzuki, or Sano instead —
those guys can still compete for another 10 years.
That's why piling up plenty of real-life experiences and memories while you're young leads to a mentally rich old age.
If you settle for everything filtered through the internet and other media instead, you end up a shallow old man with an empty, hollow retirement.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
While Shohei Ohtani’s fanbase is generally considered broad across both age and gender, the article takes a narrower angle, zeroing in on “senior men” and the idea of self-projection. Several thread posters pointed out that “big data already shows the core audience skews elderly,” and it’s become a widely shared premise in the thread that there’s a generational gap between the audience watching baseball broadcasts on TV and the audience reacting on social media and online. At the same time, the article’s author, Reiko Wakatsuki, has a track record of writing columns for Nikkan Gendai that are critical of older men, and part of the pushback in the thread is aimed less at the article’s actual content and more at a “oh, this writer again” reaction. Even though it looks like an emotional clash, the real point of contention boils down to a single question — how to interpret viewership data skewing older — rather than a simple generational shouting match.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “Is Shohei Ohtani, on Whom Senior Men Living in a Narrow World Pin Their Dreams, His Own Avatar? The “Proxy War” Playing Out on the Other Side of the TV…“
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