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The story
The Hanshin Tigers have dropped seven straight games since the start of September. On September 5, a TV special featuring announcer Yumiko Udo — a “Pre-Championship Celebration Special” for Hanshin — aired, and the losing streak kicked off right after, a coincidence that caught fire on 5ch. Since the Tigers’ game-lead is still just 0.5 and they remain atop the league, discussion focused less on whether they’ll win the pennant and more on why they can’t close it out, with fans pointing fingers at the manager’s strategy and the lineup. Users also poked fun at the media’s “V ya nen” championship coverage and drew parallels to past late-season collapses against the DeNA BayStars.
What people said
9/17 vs. Hiroshima (Koshien)
9/18 vs. Hiroshima (Koshien)
Can't be helped, it's been raining nonstop.
The schedule's only gonna get more packed from here.
If you're gonna blame someone, blame the weather.
If you don't want the schedule at the mercy of it, go build a dome at Koshien.
You and I are already bound together as fate now, so please stick with me to the end (lol)
Tomorrow night I'll hold you and let you sleep on my arm
Nana! How about a kiss for me too? (lol)
Still in the bath? Let's go together! "Next time," you say… but you and I are already past that stage, right? (lol)
Show me that cute, slightly embarrassed face of yours soaking in the tub again! Mwah
※For illustrative purposes
("Nana" is 5ch slang punning on the reading of "seven" — a cutesy stand-in for the Tigers' 7-game losing streak)
That "machine gun (lol)" laugh is genuinely annoying
I love Suga-chan's beaming smile
Google "beloved Nana" and see~
MBS (Mainichi Broadcasting) ran a Hanshin championship countdown special, and they've been on a 7-game skid ever since
Announcer Yumiko Udo's "Pre-Championship Celebration Special"
Tiger fans from every walk of life gather! Celebrating Hanshin's championship "in advance"
★ Aired 9/5: "Gathering with Hanshin Fans — Yumiko Udo's Mouko Shokudo" — "They're doing this even though the magic number isn't even single digits yet"
↓
9/5 (Sat) L 2-3 vs. DeNA
9/6 (Sun) L 1-4 vs. DeNA
9/9 (Wed) L 1-3 vs. Hiroshima
9/12 (Sat) L 0-1 vs. Giants
9/13 (Sun) L 0-1 vs. Chunichi
9/14 (Mon) L 0-6 vs. Chunichi
9/15 (Tue) L 1-4 vs. Chunichi
Honestly it doesn't have that jinx power where just saying it makes Hanshin actually choke and win it.
ABC's still the GOAT though — they even cursed Orix out of the Japan Series title.
They're clearly doing it on purpose at this point, just for the laughs.
Of course they're doing it on purpose lol
As a Kansai broadcaster, it's a win either way — whether Hanshin actually goes on to win it, or it turns into another "V ya nen" jinx.
So real
Getting crushed by DeNA in the fall and collapsing down the stretch has basically become a seasonal tradition at this point
Meanwhile DeNA is apparently red hot right now
Apparently there's data showing they tend to win right after getting hit with a Bunshun (tabloid) scandal story
Totally different from the Pacific League
It's genuinely boring over there whenever SoftBank is dominant
I'm having fun with it though
Are you an Orix fan?
That's basically their dark ages half the time, right?
Self-destructing
A little late to say it, but that "this is bad" line really gets on my nerves
Even NHK's Osaka station is just like this!
Though apparently it never actually happened
It did happen, and yeah, it's annoying lol
He sets the same template lineup every time and just watches the 3-4-5 hitters try to score
Exactly this
The brain-dead fixed top order is bad enough, but the lineup from 6th on down is always hilariously broken
That's been the case since Okada was managing though
SoftBank looks ready to clinch it this week and the Central League's magic number just won't budge, lmao
That's the team that lit up an "M142" magic-number sign across the whole city the moment they won their season opener — that's how seriously they take winning it all
Background and key points of this discussion
The timing — where a losing streak began right after a TV special hyping Hanshin’s runaway lead — wasn’t a one-off; the jinx-like pattern of a team losing right after championship coverage picks up late in the season gets pointed out every year. The “magic number” shows how many more wins (or opponent losses) are needed to clinch the pennant, and since it doesn’t shrink unless the game-difference narrows, a team can be in the middle of a losing streak while still technically looking like it’s running away with the title. In the thread, criticism focused heavily on manager Kyuji Fujikawa’s lineup construction — especially the fixed top order and the struggling bottom of the lineup — though some pointed out this tendency actually dates back to previous manager Akinobu Okada’s tenure, so it can’t be pinned entirely on Fujikawa’s decisions. The idea of a DeNA-driven late-season collapse also came up, but that’s based on past-season patterns and isn’t a guarantee of this year’s outcome.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from a 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo, or “Anything Goes Live” board) thread, “[Bad News] Hanshin’s “Nana” Losing Streak → Heading Into a Hellish “Nana” Rematch Stretch 🐯.”
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