Latest from Japan

Japan’s professional baseball Climax Series (CS) touched off a heated debate on a 5ch thread, as users traded views on a system that lets the regular-season champion get shut out of the Japan Series if they lose the CS, as well as on the fact that the same CS format is forced even on a runaway Pacific League champion like SoftBank. What began as a thread sparked by Giants and Hanshin fan reactions spiraled into questions about whether the CS should even continue, comparisons with Major League Baseball, and talk about strike-zone calls.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread ‘Giants and Hanshin fans losing it on X over not wanting the CS, lol.’

This is a live-commentary thread from 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyō” (Live Sports Commentary) board, posted the moment Shohei Ohtani crushed a go-ahead two-run homer. Ohtani had been stuck in a batting slump since the start of the postseason, and word was going around that he’d only returned to the lineup “after some kind of personal negotiation” — so the homer landed right as that story was breaking. The thread lit up with celebration, but plenty of cooler heads chimed in too, arguing that “in the postseason, results are all that matter.” Manager Dave Roberts’s comment that he “couldn’t pull Ohtani because the man himself insisted on playing” also became a talking point, fueling debate over the injury rumors and the reasoning behind keeping him in the lineup.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyō”) thread “Shohei Ohtani hits go-ahead two-run homer wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”

On 5ch’s “NanJ” sports board, a report that the mocking “*He is…” meme — used to needle Shohei Ohtani over his slump — had finally spread to American forums as well became a hot topic. The thread discussed how auto-translation features on social media now carry Japanese posts over to English-speaking readers, and how American fans have done a complete about-face over Ohtani’s postseason batting slump, with reactions split between those defending him and those resigned to saying “it can’t be helped.”

25AnonymousOct 15, 2026 07:37

Well, if you eat 19 onigiri (rice balls), of course you end up like that

54AnonymousOct 15, 2026 07:59

Re: #25
LOL his muscles have shriveled up

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (NanJ) thread “[Sad News] Shohei Ohtani Finally Gets Played With the “*He is…” Meme Even in America….”

It has been revealed that Shohei Ohtani will start batting sixth for the first time in six years in NLCS Game 3 between the Dodgers and Brewers (October 14, Los Angeles). The team has struggled over its last two games, hitting just .169 with a 5.06 ERA, and attention is on whether dropping Ohtani from cleanup to sixth will help him snap out of his slump. On 5ch, opinions split over the reasoning behind the move — some read it as a managerial call to drop a struggling slugger down the order, others as a compromise forced by sponsorship obligations that require him to keep playing. Some posters also pointed to fatigue from his two-way workload piling up.

Sports Nippon

[ October 15, 2026, 05:39 ]

League Championship Series Game 3: Dodgers vs. Brewers (October 14, 2026, Los Angeles)

Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here

*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5channel (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani Starts Batting 6th for First Time in 6 Years in NLCS Game 3 — Can Dropping From Cleanup Spark a Turnaround?.”