OK, students, it's break time. Let me know with a cheer which game you wanna see. *pages turning sound* Naver sports has FIBA Korea vs Kenya. *crickets sound* Hmm, not a fan huh? OK, what about Women’s volleyball Korea vs Bangladesh. *farting sound* Dude you need to do some jumping jacks *fart sound* OUTSIDE! Hmmm, what about WBC baseball Korea vs Netherlands? *murmur sounds* What? I thought y’all liked baseball! And the last live game on the list…what is this? International marble race finals? Korea vs Philippines, Gabon, and…Japan?! *loud patriotic cheering* YA!!! You didn’t even know this was a sport until 5 seconds ago~! NOW you get all patriotic about it?! *loud patriotic cheering* Oh it’s because Japan’s playing, ain’t it? Ain’t it! *Joke sting* What if I told you that I had Japanese students get higher scores on my tests? Would that make you turn in your homework on time? *loud patriotic cheering* that’s what I thought! *Joke sting*
We’re talking about the biggest sports rivalry in Asia, the Korea vs Japan sports rivalry. There’s a lot of history, and to be honest, it would make a wild episode of the SB Nation’s Beef History series. Hope you like it spicy because whoo boy it is! But is it still spicy? A lot has changed in the past 20 years.
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historical background and comparison
There’s a lot of historical beef between the countries, and a lot of the most recent animosity stems from the occupation days. Sports-wise, around the same time the Olympics became famous. Korean athletes were forced to compete under Japanese names and the Japanese flag. One famous example was the marathon runner Sohn Kee-chung who won gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and impressed Adolf Hitler, according to later interviews. After independence Korea got to compete internationally under its own flag and names. And so, with the rise of both countries from the ashes of war into modern economic powerhouses, along with proximity, there came many opportunities to play against each other. There were fewer opportunities to play against North Korea, but it was the main sports rival for Korea in the early postwar era. In fact, the ministry of information even made a soccer team dedicated to beating North Korea after their quarterfinals push in 1966! Imagine if the CIA made an ice hockey team solely to beat Russia! *joke sting*. Later, the rivalry with Japan took center stage. In some circles it is called the Yankees vs Red Sox of international sports. Minus a Babe Ruth trade *joke sting*. From the Korean side, it had a lot of historical connotation and a sense that you’re punching up at a former enemy. From the Japanese side, it’s more like an annoying neighbor who plays too rough and doesn’t have good sportsmanship. When Korea’s national GDP and wealth improved, so did its ability to train athletes. For Japan, they were a lot more competitive in the 70s and early 80s but after the stagnation era hit, their competitive edge withered and Korea & China caught up. Frequent political controversies, international sports intrigue, and national law matters like Korea’s conscription program exemption for medals throws a lot of meat into the pot, and with that, comes the beef stew that is the rivalry. Delicious, always warm, but never too hot, beef stew. Let’s go over a few key parts of the rivalry.
transition music:Winter Olympics and Kim Yuna
We talked a lot about the Kim Yuna vs Mao Asado rivalry in the Ice sports episode last year. As you would expect, a lot of media and fan interest related to the rivalry extended into their competitions. But they’ve had a friendly rapport, and not some sort of blood feud like Jordan’s with Isaiah Thomas, Scottie Pippen, Kwame Browne, and so on. However, the press in Japan made Yuna out to be some sort of skating robot on ice. According to Namu Wiki, a Japanese light novel Ice Skating Collider Scope portrayed Yuna as a rival to Asado who is excellent in skill but lacks humanity. There’s a lot of irony in these statements but I’m going to leave it at that.
Later at the 2014 Olympics, the Women’s curling team beat Japan in a widely broadcast match at 2pm JST, which led to a huge amount of interest in the sport. This interest led to more teams forming and catapulting the sport in the public eye. In the Pyeongchang Olympics, Korea and Japan played a thrilling match that went down to the final stone, and Korea swept out a narrow victory to reach the finals. You catch that pun? (pause for 2 seconds) what, you missed it?! Oh come on I worked all night on that *joke sting*.
Ice hockey is a harder one to really say there is a rivalry. The Japanese national team played in the Asian league a few times and the bulk of teams have always been Japanese, so it’s a bit of a Japan league with local friends. However, Anyang has been soooo good for so long it’s kinda like a Japanese league with Korean superstars. In women’s international hockey it’s a bit of a different story.
Anyway, it seems like the big 3 of winter sports get a bit more coverage in Korea whenever there are strong opponents on both sides or medals at stake. Sure there are people who are hate-watching but it seems more like viewers are interested in the stories and talent more than nationalistic rage. Well, until the devil horns come out.
transition music. Football rivalry and rise of Japan
And now we get to talk about the Red Devils, a constant thorn in the side of Japan’s football team. The red devils have had a huge advantage with far more wins. I think they’ve won 42 times and lost 17 times? I’ll have to double-check that later but it’s been consistently lopsided until recently. So Japan’s football fans sees Korea as a final boss or a solid rival. Especially nowadays that Japan’s overall ability in football has gone up and right now Japan is higher ranked than South Korea on the FIFA charts. The women’s football situation is almost reversed with 34 losses and 4 wins. However, South Korea has won the most recent EAFF championship so it’s not entirely a one-sided affair. There’s one quote that I found in my research I think y’all will like. Strongman Rhee Syung Man once told the Korean national team coach in 1954: quote “Don’t think about coming back alive. Just throw yourself into the Genkai Sea." unquote. Yeah, I’m just happy that the rivalry is no longer at that level and I’m sure the coaches are as well. Nowadays players from the JPL and K-League are playing in Europe and they often forge lasting friendships with each other. There is a hilarious cartoon by Jo Seok of Park Ji-sung and Keisuke Honda being friendly while punching each other in the sides. Yeah, it be like that! So, what does the future hold for the rivalry? Perhaps we’ll get a big time match in World cup this year? You’ll have to tune in and find out!
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WBC and Japan’s baseball dominance
(The game sadly ended in a tie, but it did snap a 10-game losing streak South Korea had against Samurai Japan.)
Baseball is another popular sport the countries share. As discussed in earlier episodes, baseball was brought to Korea by American missionaries and played by YMCA teams just before the occupation. There was a Japanese school vs English school baseball game in 1906 that really spread the word about the sport around the peninsula. So yeah, the baseball rivalry is almost as old as modern baseball itself. Too bad there isn’t an LSD fueled no-hitter in the records *joke sting*. So anyhoo, after independence, South Korea’s baseball team frequently lost to Japan and didn’t win a game against them until 1963 at the Asian Baseball Championship in Seoul. In fact that year Korea won the championship and because of high anti-Japanese sentiment, they held a car parade for the winners. They also won in 1971, but without their coach who was in the hospital with diabetes complications. Unlike the footie coach, I don’t think he was told by the president to win or drown in the seas. In those days, Japan didn’t send many pro players to the national team and Korea didn’t even have a true pro league. When Japan started sending pro players in the 2000s, this led to the rise in Japan’s abilities and in 2004 they eliminated Korea from the Olympics qualifiers. In fact this was so shocking that the Korean sports world called it the Sapporo disaster. They made it sound like the earth parted in some magnitude 10 earthquake and swallowed the whole team. *joke sting*
The teams started playing each other more frequently with the advent of the World Baseball Classic and Korea started sending more of their pros to the national team. Lots of big names like Park Chan-Ho, Lee Syung-yeop, and Lee Dae Ho joined the national team. But Japan hard countered with big names like Daisuke Matsuzaka and Shohei Ohtani and they’ve won the trophy 3 times whereas Korea has only been close to winning once in 2009. That was the Ichiro game in which it was the top of the 10th and Japan had runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. There was a lot of controversy over what was supposed to happen, but Lim Chang Yong pitched to Ichiro anyway and Ichiro scored two runs to make it 5 to 3 Japan. In this scenario, Korea’s manager should have asked for an intentional walk to load the bases. In subsequent interviews, the coaches blamed Lim for not seeing the sign but in an interview with a Japanese TV show called "Charisma White Paper", pitching coach Yang said he did not give the intentional walk sign to Lim. However after the interview aired, coaches Yang and Kim both said it was a mistranslation or the program trying to distort their interviews. Later, catcher Kang Min Ho said on the tv show A Clear Day that he had seen the signal from coach Kim but misinterpreted it and didn’t pass it on to Lim and thus he took the blame for the forkball that Ichiro hit.
Speaking of Ichiro, it was reported in ESPN that Ichiro said Korea smells like garlic and he wants to beat Korea so bad they won't want to play baseball for 30 years. Naturally, Korea didn’t take this well and beat Japan 6 to 2 then planted the Korean flag on the mound. When Japan won, Ichiro said “I’ve got it, you know. God descended on me.” That pretty much was the high point of the baseball beef because Japan has won a lot since then and Korea’s barely been competitive in the World Baseball Classic and the WBSC Premier 12. The most recent exhibition was a 7-7 tie, Korea’s first non-loss since 2019! Now if you want to get very technical, the Legends games last year between Korea and Japan were won by Korea 7 to 1 in Hokkaido would be Korea’s most recent baseball victory. Sure the players were years and decades away from pro ball but a win’s a win at this point. Oye….
This year the World Baseball Classic is on and Korea’s certainly going to try its best to get back some of the defeats, but Japan’s got a formidable team. The rivalry is much calmer these days because of the lopsided nature. Gone are the days of quotes “Even if you win against all teams, if you lose to Japan, you lose, and even if you lose to other countries, if you win against Japan, you win.” from manager Kim Eung-yong. There’s also more camaraderie between their pro leagues with players from both countries in both leagues and even in the MLB. And maybe the nationalistic cheering and insult baiting will be calmer this year, but you’ll just have to watch the games in March to find out.
transition music: Fighting sports like Kendo
You don’t hear as much about the fighting sports like MMA or sumo on Naver sports. Usually when the fighting leagues have a Korea vs Japan match, the league will hype it up but not much more than usual. The TV networks will cover matches like Judo and taekwondo during the Olympics but not so often outside of those events. In the men’s Judo for the olympics there was a bit of a rivalry in the 10s, with a particularly controversial match in the 2012 summer olympics in which Cho Jun-ho was declared the winner but the judges changed their minds and declared Japan's Masashi Ebinuma the winner instead. Sounds like fertile grounds for a 30 for 30 documentary to me! *joke sting* The Chosun Ilbo recently highlighted the Asian Games as a place where Korea can win a gold medal in Judo, more on that later. Road FC regularly has Japanese fighters. Recently Kim Bo Mi beat Ako at Gunpe in December. Another sport that frequently has matches between the countries is Kendo which has a number of Korean swordsmen. However, there have been complaints about poor sportsmanship by Korean athletes in recent tournaments, so expect beef to get cooked up in subsequent matches.
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The rise of mixed and hafu athletes in both countries
And now we enter an unusual realm for the two countries; the rise of mixed race or hafu athletes. In most countries around the world, nationality and ethnic heritage are one and the same. However in the modern world, people move and have kids. And those kids grow up, some of which become leading athletes. Heo Mi-mi of Gyeongbuk sports council is a top Judoka who won silver and bronze medals in Paris, will be leading the Korea team in Nagoya Japan in September and October’s Asian games. Her mother is from Japan and she is also a 5th generation descendent of independence activist Heo Seok. Japan has Rui Hachimura a….decent NBA player, let’s just say, as well as Naomi Osaka. Korea also has Casey Phair and Jens Castrop on their football teams. So in both countries the media talks about their heritage, though not as often as English language media does. The fans themselves don’t really mention it, except for the online netnerds and netnuts who complain about athletes not being pure or whatever that means. Tell ya what? If you think you’re pure, get that My Heritage test kit and we’ll see EXACTLY what pure really means genetically.
Also of note is the TV show Physical Asia which has former famous athletes and very fit people competing in some physical challenges in South Korea, which is a continuation of Physical 100. Korea had one of the winners on their roster, Japan had Yoshio Itoi the former WBC baseball player, and Philippines had Manny Pacquiao for 5 episodes. South Korea won and fans in the other countries quickly called the show rigged. The rivalry continues, now into TV~! *joke sting* But yes the rivalry is covered in mass media as well. Crash Landing on You had a scene where the North Koreans broke in to rescue Ri Jeong-hyeok but he and the others were watching football, then when the North realized it was a Korea vs Japan game they stopped the rescue to watch and eat chicken. Yup, this is a rivalry that transcends geopolitics and friendship, at least on TV. Naturally on the Korean side of mass media, Korea wins the bulk of the time, and on the Japanese side, Japan draws more often, especially in football media. So if you’re curious and have netflix or crunchyroll, check out captain Tsubasa which is about football or Tomorrow's Joe which is about boxing. The boxing one is hilarious because Yongbi Kim fought a sparring match against Kenmochi Ken and quote literally sent him on a space tour of Andromeda unquote. Whoo, haven’t seen a whooping that bad since Dragon Ball Z!
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Mutual respect of both athletes (Shohei Ohtani and Song Heung Min) and the rivalry today
I sent out feelers on Reddit and some friends to see how they felt about the rivalry since a lot of the articles in the English press were decades old and well, feelings change over time. The Japanese respondents barely felt anything about the rivalry or were annoyed when Korean teams emphasized beating Japan for national glory and things like that. The Korean respondents had more positive things to say about Japan’s teamwork and organizational structure of the JPL and their recent successes. They had a lot of respect for Ohtani and Yamamoto. I also spoke to a Japanese woman who lives near me and she tends to support Korean teams while her husband supports Japanese teams, but to them it isn't a flaming nationalism thing or a cold war thing. She also mentioned that the sports rivalry rarely comes up in conversations with relatives in Japan. Fundamentally speaking, it seems like the rivalry has simmered quite a bit. I also asked if they would cheer for their rival if that rival’s victory would help their national team and everyone said yes. At the very least, in Asia there isn’t as much sports team pride compared to the USA where the post-game trash talking in the subway isn’t a thing here, at least in the respondent’s opinions. The fires of nationalized passion have simmered, but they’re still there, waiting…for more…. delicious… Kobe and Hanwoo beef.
GOTW
Not a lot of interesting sports this weekend. There’s an international curling championship in Steinbach this week with Team Gim going against Team Tabata at 3AM Saturday then team Tirizoni at 7AM, which will be covered on Naver sports. Women’s handball returns with the Sugar Gliders playing against Gwangju in Gwangmyeong at 2pm Saturday then Seoul vs Incheon at 4:15pm. Sunday brings the men’s matches at the same time. Also we’ve got ice hockey with HL Anyang against Hokkaido’s Red Eagles at 4pm. I think that might be on TV or Naver sports as well. There’s the battle of Seoul in basketball with the Knights hosting the Thunder at Jamsil 4:30pm. If you don’t wanna go outside, you’ve got some fun things to watch!
The End of Worst Persons?
Recently the legislature has discussed a Revised Information and Communications Network Act which would penalize those who spread fake news with up to five times the amount of losses sustained by the targeted person or group. Naturally, we perform a lot of research here at Hwa-Ting sports so we are not worried about that aspect. . The DPK spokesman said that the law does not target criticism, "but the malicious and deliberate dissemination of false information." according to statements in the Korea Times. Also stated that the bill also retains the position that anyone who defames another individual by stating facts with an intention to slander will be subject to a prison term up to three years or a fine of up to 30 million won. Opponents note that the anti-fake news bill overall could make it easier for public figures like lawmakers or government officials to file complaints and suits against the press, citing libel. We are of the opinion this doesn’t apply to the Worst Person segment, but we’ll have to see as the bill passes through the legislature.
Shout out
A shoutout to friend of the channel Levant Restaurant who now has ready to eat meals deliverable to your door! They are based in Jeonju near the front gate of Jeonbuk National University. I’ve ordered from them in the past and really liked their Adana kebabs. You can place orders by contacting them directly. Website is in i-m-levant dot com and their menu is there as well.
Ending
Thank you for tuning in today. We hope you learned something about Korean Sports because if you didn’t, you set the sleep timer too soon *joke sting*. Pass this pod on to anyone interested in Korean sports and especially rookies because trust me they need every ounce of help we can pour on them. If you don’t believe me, spend 5 minutes on Living in Korea subreddit *Joke sting*. If you wish to read along or contact the show, visit our website at hwatingsportspodcast dot com or our Facebook page and everything you need is right there. Give our podcast 5 stars if you have time. Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. You can reach him on Instagram @daf_daffy247. Cover art thanks to our cycling expert James! A shoutout to our listeners in Lynchburg Virginia, home of the minor league Hillcats! Yeah it’s a silly name but hey this league has a team called the Trash Pandas, so why are we complaining?! Anyway, the next episode is next week and we’re talking about Golf in Korea! Golf…yeah… Until next time, Korean sports fans!
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Notes:
Japan–South Korea sports rivalries - Wikipedia
Nakata Hails Korea-Japan Rivalry as 'Eternal Treasure'
S. Korea coach tells players to relish rival match vs. Japan at East Asian football tournament
Fierce derby between Japan and South Korea sparking more concern than excitement | CNN
The 2018 pyeongchang Olympics curling match.