From our other sites
The story
A video of Kimiyasu Kudoh’s press conference after being named the new manager of the Chunichi Dragons has become a hot topic on 5ch. When a reporter asked, “Which players did you look up to as a kid?” he curtly replied, “I hated baseball,” and when asked, “What are you looking forward to about living in Nagoya?” he simply said, “Nothing.” Thread opinion split between those who saw this as a sign of his contempt for the media and those who thought the questions themselves were just low-effort. The thread also covered evaluations of his track record as SoftBank manager and anecdotes about his strict personality.
What people said
The questions were just off-base, that's all.
That's just you being poisoned by modern values. Shooting everything down and questioning it is proof he's always got an improvement mindset.
Kudoh: "I hated baseball as a kid."
Reporter: "…"
Reporter: "What are you looking forward to about living in Nagoya?"
Kudoh: "Nothing."
Reporter: "…"
Some people say the questions were low-level, but most viewers actually prefer this kind of stuff over hardcore baseball talk anyway
Think Fujii Sota's lunch order, curling's "mogu-mogu time" (snack-break segment), Ohtani's mandala finger-flick ritual, Uchimura's Black Thunder candy bars — that kind of thing.
I figured maybe Ichiro, but even Ichiro looked up to guys like Tao and Shinozuka.
Hating baseball and having a favorite player aren't even related, though.
People call him some kind of "title guarantor," but he's really more of a pennant-blower
The Climax Series is just what's given him a skewed reputation.
Blame the Seibu Lions — a team that's just way too weak in the Climax Series.
Every time the "Kudoh is incompetent" theory comes up, Dragons fans drown it out with "Tatsunami was even more incompetent!"
It was the golden age of going all-in on the Climax Series
The idea was just to stack your roster late in the season
He couldn't even manage that, and it fell apart in his final year.
If they finish in the B-class (bottom tier) → a fight breaks out between the "this team's so broken even a competent manager can't fix it" camp and the "no, Kudoh's just incompetent" camp.
There's a chance the next manager gets a lucky windfall after Kudoh, like how Hoshino did after Nomura.
The "previous manager was incompetent" camp and the "it's because of the draft picks a great manager made" camp will probably pile on too.
Guys like Hoshino were actually pretty soft, giving screw-up players chance after chance.
In exchange, there was violence.
Strictest in Dragons history, you mean?
Mori's right up there with him in that department.
The players were even teasing him about rice and stuff like that
If Abe were the manager, they'd probably just get benched for that.
Kudoh: "I hated baseball as a kid (so obviously there's no way I had a favorite player, duh)."
That parenthetical is doing all the work there.
Is that supposed to be "Don-speak"? (mimicking Hiromitsu "Don" Ochiai's famously cryptic way of talking)
Like, "what I say goes, who do you think puts food on this table" type of dad.
Yeah, the classic "my house, my rules" husband, exactly as you'd picture.
His wife apparently always ate standing in the kitchen.
His character is so bad that there isn't a single player or coach who's genuinely fond of him
Nobody says "I owe it all to Kudoh"
That said, he is competent as a manager.
(Granted, Matsunaka had his own issues too) but the way Kudoh treated him in front of the media told you everything.
Kiyohara usually says his Seibu-era senpai were "kind" or someone he "respects," but he barely ever talks about Kudoh…
Even though they were teammates on the Giants too.
If anyone, I'd say Jojima, who's seen as his protégé
He also seemed close with the late Fujii from his Daiei days.
Kudoh just comes across as genuinely gloomy
Neither of those two are exactly cheerful either, but they're not nearly as off-putting
Kudoh just rubs people the wrong way.
Ichiro's got some charm to him too
That's why even Harimoto liked him.
Ichiro just expects professionalism from sports media — off the clock he's a pretty easygoing guy.
I think the reason Harimoto likes Ichiro is that they're both genuinely patriotic about Japan
and because Ichiro openly says he respects Oh, who's one of Harimoto's closest friends.
His son said on TV it was genuinely scary — the guy thinks about the team 24/7, 365 days a year
With so many kids to look after, his wife apparently just grabs a quick bite standing in the kitchen so she can respond to Kudoh's demands right away.
Wait, the son — you mean the actor?
That's pretty dark, honestly.
Though he probably would've turned it down.
I can't picture Kuwata straightening out guys who are slacking off and full of themselves.
Actually, apparently the Dragons had basically already settled on Kuwata at first, and I heard the "Yama-Yama" coaching duo was lined up for him too — but when they reached out to Kudoh just in case, he said yes right away, so they switched to him
Kuwata had reportedly already started lining up coaches and preparing
And online, there's talk that some Dragons execs were saying things like "no way we're letting the enemy from 10.8 become our manager"… (referring to the legendary 1994 "10.8 Decisive Battle," when Kuwata's Giants beat the Dragons for the pennant)
Background and Talking Points
During his tenure as SoftBank manager (2015–2021), Kimiyasu Kudoh’s teams won the regular-season pennant only twice, yet claimed the Japan Series title four times once the Climax Series is factored in. Two competing takes coexist: that he was a master of short-series, win-or-go-home management, and that the Climax Series format itself is simply too favorable to lower-ranked teams — and the thread’s split opinions stem from this difference in evaluation criteria. It’s also worth noting that the anecdotes about Kudoh’s personality at home come from things he and his son said on TV programs, not from verified official sources. As for his curt press conference answers, the questions themselves may well have been standard boilerplate meant to give a lighthearted glimpse of a player’s personality, and opinions in the thread were divided on whether this really amounts to “hatred of the media.”
*This article is compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Video] Chunichi manager Kudoh instantly lets his hatred of the media fly wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”
Leave a Reply