In August 2020, the National High School Baseball Championship in Japan, also known as the annual event of "Summer Koshien", was suspended.
This was the third time that Japan terminated the Koshien tournament after the Pacific Wars of 1918 and 1941. For high school students sweating on the practice field, playing Koshien is the end of summer.
However, the suspension is also equivalent to his youth, and he is forced to draw a rest mark in advance.
Japanese people are no less enthusiastic about high school baseball competitions than Japanese professional baseball, and many Japanese movies and dramas have repeatedly depicted the bloody stories of high school students who set foot on Koshien. Even if you're not Japanese or haven't even touched baseball, you've heard of Koshien, a baseball hall for high school students.
"There's always one side winning, there's always one side losing, and that's what the game is all about. But winning or losing is only the result, not the game itself." - "Youth"
Therefore, when watching the documentaries on koshien's 50th and 100th anniversaries, "Youth: The 50th Japan National High School Baseball Championship" and "Koshien: Dream Arena", the dust of Koshien and the sweat and tears of the players became the traces of close proximity.
If you can, please watch these two works, which are also Koshien documentaries, but with a completely different focus, staring at and deconstructing baseball.
Ichikawa Kun's "Youth: The 50th Japan National High School Baseball Championship" (hereinafter referred to as "Youth"), from Hokkaido to Okinawa, from winter to summer, tracks the dreams of wild ball teenagers, and also details the history of Koshien.
Japanese director Emma Yamazaki's Koshien: Dream Arena is a baseball track that belongs to the Japanese from the perspective of a coach, in the context of tradition and innovation.
Whether it is the focus or the shooting method, "Youth" and "Koshien: Dream Arena" are just a set of sharp contrasts.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > From the whole to the individual, it carries youth and dreams</h1>
For audiences unfamiliar with Koshien, Ichikawa Kun's "Youth" is an excellent entry. Instead of targeting specific characters or schools, the camera is scattered to the players from more than 2,000 schools that participated in the competition that year, and through various fragmentary images, the overall impression of the players who made a lot of efforts on the practice field in order to stand on Koshien.
However, the so-called efforts also vary from region to region: in Hokkaido, snow must be shoveled before the ball can be practiced; Tokyo is so densely populated that there is no playground on campus to practice; in the San'in area, newcomers are responsible for picking up balls that fall into the pool; and players from a baseball club in Hyogo Prefecture, which is the location of Koshien, share a playground with the soccer club.
Japan's narrow terrain spanning 25 degrees of latitude and the training method adapted to local conditions make the word training rich and unique in various close-up shots of Ichikawa Kun.
In contrast, Yamazaki Emma's Koshien: Dream Arena was filmed in order to let foreign audiences understand Japan's Koshien culture, so he chose to interview Shohei Otani, the alma mater of Otani Shohei, Kikuchi Yusei, and Koshien regular Iwate Prefecture Hanamaki Higashi High School.
In addition, in view of the historic theme of "The Centenary of Koshien Summer", the director also focused on the transformation of the "Way of Baseball" from the United States to Japan, not only to the summer players who only met Koshien once in a lifetime, but to talk about "cultural heritage" and "education reform" from the perspective of "head coach".
Unlike Ichikawa Kun's "Youth", this film recalls the precious images of Koshien from 1915 to 1968, but through in-depth interviews and follow-ups, let the "story" dominate the beginning and end of the documentary, and at the same time, the story of Tetsuya Mizutani, the head baseball coach of Yokohama Hayato High School, runs through the film, through the dual identity of father and coach, gazing at the history and continuity of family, baseball and even Koshien.
Whether from the perspective of the whole or the individual, "Youth" and "Koshien: Dream Arena" want to talk about the daily practice of the stadium and the dust outside koshien.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="41" > the final chapter and prologue of youth, walking through the century-old Koshien</h1>
Long before the filming of "Youth", Ichikawa Kun's non-praise and different shooting methods from the official competitions had been fully used in "Tokyo Olympics 1964" and won him the Cannes Film Festival International Film Critics Association Award.
The wonderful scene scheduling and mirror movement are not aimed at the star players who shine on the field, but at various figures from the sports field to the outside of the field, including losers, spectators, coaches, volunteers, etc., which are all a combination of strength and beauty under Ichikawa Kun's lens.
"Youth" became the baseball version 2.0 of "Tokyo Olympics 1964", and in addition to capturing the daily practice of players, it also joined the team manager, on-field audience, coach and other people to shuttle the stadium.
Ichikawa Kun, who shot the anti-war film "The Harp of Burma" in 1956, in addition to celebrating the 50th anniversary of Koshien, also expressed human feelings through "Youth", accusing the war of taking many precious youth lives.
Ten thousand white pigeons burst through the sky, accompanied by the sound of cannons and gunshots and the picture of the atomic bomb dome, one by one, which used to shine in Koshien and finally killed the young life on the battlefield.
It is reminiscent of the NHK Okawa drama written by Kankuro Miyato, which satirizes the Wartime Japanese Government, and the "Wei Songtian Tokyo Olympic Story" of sending young people to the battlefield to die at the Meiji Jingu Sports Field, which is similar to "Youth" without forgetting history and forgetting the traces of war.
In terms of pictures, "Koshien: Dream Arena" is indeed difficult to compare with the master Ichikawa Kun, but director Yamazaki Emma's unforgettable history is between tradition and innovation, focusing on the changes of baseball from generation to generation through the perspective of the coach.
The film features Tetsuya Mizutani, coach of Hayato High School in Yokohama, and his disciples, Shohei Otani and Yusei Kikuchi, who have brought out major league stars Shohei Otani and Yusei Kikuchi, who is also the current coach of Hanamaki Higashi High School.
Originally, it was thought that the climax of this film would fall on "which team will create miracles in Koshien in the end", but "Koshien: Dream Arena" joins Coach Mizutani to send his son to the family branch of Hiroshi Sasaki's team, and through the relationship between the three, the history of Koshien is superimposed like a family tree.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="51" > youth is over</h1>
Both "Youth" and "Koshien: Dream Arena" point out the importance of Koshien to these baseball boys, and even to all Japanese people.
The former captures the various appearances of Koshien and baseball both inside and outside the field through the era of profiles, while the latter focuses on the character education of baseball for Japanese people.
From 50 years to 100 years, the senior school system in Japan still exists, but many schools have abolished the "shaved head" rule, and strict and inhumane training methods have gradually entered history.
In the summer of 2021, Koshien announced the start of fighting, and in the next fifty years, koshien will spawn a new history, which is waiting to be seen. And Ichikawa Kun's note at the end of "Youth": "This year's youth has ended, and a new moment is about to begin." Until now, it is still very relevant.
Thank you for watching, paying attention to me, and learning more about it.