Japan - V.Premier League 2017-2018

  • 13:00 Ageo Medics v Hisamitsu Springs ... 1–3
    13:00 NEC Red Rockets v Toray Arrows ... 0–3
    15:00 Denso Airybees v Hitachi Rivale ... 3–1
    15:00 Toyota Body Queens v JT Marvelous ... 0-3


    Reigning Champs NEC Red Rockets fall off the Winner's Stage, lose in straight sets to Toray, who had a pretty balanced attack among Kadie Rolfzen, Horikawa, and Love After Dark Kurogo. NEC were attacking like wimps with Toray digging almost everything. And Toray served well, too. NEC drops to 7th place.


    Game of the night was the Body Queens v the Marvelous JT. Toyota didn't look that bad in the sweep but it looks like they are going to miss their Captain--Takahashi. Neriman scored almost all their points, while the three OHs filling in for Takahashi scored a total of THREE. Tanaka is back for JT, leaving Kanasugi to warm the bench.


    Hitachi is looking pretty hopeless although Osanai is playing well. Denso started the first set 10-0, 12-1. Ouch!


    Hisamitsu remains undefeated. Haven't watched that one yet. YouTuber Volleyball Cup didn't broadcast last night.

  • there`s another channel, Volleyball is my passion and they had Hisamitsu vs Ageo.


    "Love after Dark" yeah I noticed that :rolll:


    I think Mihajlovic might have been reading your posts, because seams like she changed her attitude, last night she was smiling, cheering, chatting with everyone, just having fun. And I really liked their game, they had a great chemistry.


    Let`s see if the Rockets can bounce back tonight and it Toray can keep this going. :set: :gone:


    Hitachi is really disappointing so far.

  • I think Mihajlovic might have been reading your posts, because seams like she changed her attitude, last night she was smiling, cheering, chatting with everyone, just having fun. And I really liked their game, they had a great chemistry.


    I totally noticed that last night. :)

  • there`s another channel, Volleyball is my passion and they had Hisamitsu vs Ageo.


    I've been double dipping between Volleyball Cup and Volleyball is My Passion. The Passion guy streams from the Betting site with three Passion logos trying to cover stuff up. Volleyball Cup streams from Sport365 or something and might be a tiny bit better stream, but it's less cluttered, less logos, no betting odds. Unfortunately, Volleyball Cup only streams 2 of the 4 games per night. Don't know what happened to them last night.

  • I'm not a stats loving guy, at all, but I was bored so I looked at some numbers ...


    Up to this point in time the player who has received the most serves is Love, After Dark with 191. She has a success rate of 53% which is ranked 14th. No surprise that Arisa Sato (66 receives) and Shinnabe (62) are ranked 1 & 2.


    My question, I'll ask again: Is Love, After Dark receiving so many serves because she's being targeted by the other team, or is she just kick-ass at the job?


  • I have not watched every Toray game, but the ones I`ve watched the other OH Kadie struggles receiving and they try hiding her from receiving as much as possible and Kurogo covers her, that`s why she receiving a lot, and Kurogo is their man weapon so teams will serve on Kurogo as much as they can.


    And sometimes they will have take Kadie out and have a OH receiver specialist come in to receive and last night I watched the tie break Toray vs Hitachi and they actually replaced Kurogo at some point also and brought in the OH receiver specialist, and then Hitachi served on Katie and scored a ace on her because she can`t receive well.


    Hitachi is struggling a lot, they really miss Uchieto and they need Watanabe back.


    The funny thing about JT vs Ageo was that Carcaces was digging MIhajlovic like crazy, and JT is not receiving well and with that they can`t go in the middle and that is hurting them. And they are still playing with the backup setter. They were down 0-2 and were able to tie 2-2 which was nice at least they took a point. MIhajlovic was not so energetic as in the previous game.


    Kurogo is my favorite player after Mihajlovic this season, I just wish she played for JT. ;)

  • 13:00 Ageo Medics v JT Marvelous ... 3–2
    13:00 Hitachi Rivale v Toray Arrows ... 2–3
    15:00 NEC Red Rockets v Denso Airybees ... 2–3
    15:00 Toyota Body Queens v Hisamitsu Springs ... 0–3


    Three out of four went 5 sets last night. Good games. The JT v Ageo game came down to foreigner v foreigner so it wasn't as fun for me.


    It's great to see Toray playing well. They've upped their defense and are serving well. Horikawa seems like she's on a mission. Good for them, that's three wins in a row.


    Don't know what's up with NEC. They aren't playing bad but they gotta get MB Ueno out of the lineup. She's dragging them down. Yamauchi is developing into one of those players who can start a play and finish it, like Shinnabe, Iishi, Koga. Her skill set isn't anywhere near those guys but she's got more on-court energy than the three of them combined. Fact is, Denso has upped their game.


    Hisamitsu remains undefeated. They have a ridiculously well-stacked team.


    1 Hisamitsu Springs - 20pts ... 7-0
    2 JT Marvelous - 12pts ... 4-3
    3 Toyota Body Queens - 12pts ... 4-3
    4 Ageo Medics - 11pts ... 4-3
    5 Denso Airybees - 9pts ... 3-4
    6 Toray Arrows- 8pts ... 3-4
    7 NEC Red Rockets - 7pts ... 2-5
    8 Hitachi Rivale - 5pts ... 1-6


    Ongoing season results, highlights, and schedule in ->this post


  • It's taken me a long time to discover how important the serve-receive is, and I still don't understand it. I sort of get why you would serve to the main weapon on the other team, but it also seems like that turns out to be a bad idea because a player who can receive, pass, and then kill--that seems like one of the best plays. I'll keep watching and learning.


    Toray brings in that little squirt, Queen Saori's little sister, the way JT uses the brilliant and lovely Kotoe Inoue, although Inoue usually comes in at service time. Understanding substitution/rotation stuff is still above my pay grade, and half the time I miss it because of the crappy streams you can't often tell who's on court at any given time :wall:


    It seems like teams are figuring out Mihajlovic. She's been getting dug a lot lately, but I also see her improving her aim. She's not always just hitting it as hard as she can and gosh knows where it's going to land. I think playing in Japan is going to improve her game. Didn't she play for Hisamitsu a couple years ago?


    I'm not sure I'd call #7 Misaki Tanaka the backup setter. She's the one who made the NT this year. Maybe this is the year of Shibata, though, and she has overtaken Tanaka. That would be cool. Too bad she's on the injured list :( JT has a good team, dammit! #2 Mizuki Tanaka might be a better, more experienced player than Kanasugi but I like Kanasugi's spirit. She's more fun to watch and root for. JT's got two of the best liberos in Japan, one of the best OH foreigners, two good setters, two good youngsters, and Captain Mai Okumura --who kicks ass! They should be winning more.


    Keep an eye on Hitatchi #13 Miwako Osanai. She's playing well despite the team's troubles in winning. Watanabe will help them but they need to up their defense.

  • It can be very tricky when it comes to serve. For example when you are playing against Kim Yeon, she can pass and attack, so makes no sense to serve on her right? because she will have a perfect pass, but the problem is that if you serve on the other OH which is a weaker passer you will leave Kim free too attack. So is better to serve on Kim and hope that the setter will set someone else. A lot of times a OH will receive/pass and the setter will set her right back if is a perfect pass, but when the pass is not good you cant set the player that just received the serve.


    That`s why they don`t allow Mihajlovic/Neriman/Carcaces receive, otherwise everyone will be serving on them all the time, first because they are great receivers and second they won`t be able to attack as many as they do now.


    Teams are definitely figuring out Mihajlovic`s game and that`s not hard to do because she`s the only reliable spiker in the team, at least other teams they have good local spikers, I think Ageo and Toyota are at the same situation. And yes she played in Japan before, and I`m pretty sure she learned a lot, and this time won`t be any different. She will have to be very patience, and this is the same thing when any National team plays against Japan, they need patience, because they will need to spike 1,2,3 times to score 1 point.


    I noticed Mihajlovic is trying to explore the block now, this happened last night and in the result she even got blocked a few times. Mihajlovic plays high ball, she gets the ball high and when the block is there she will use the block is her favor, she will hit into the block and then the ball goes out and or someone on the court and they can`t dig. But the Japanese block is so short and she can`t really do that, which means she must hit on the court and they all stay right there waiting to dig/defende her attack, but she`s trying to find out to use their short block. All this is a good challenge for her ;)


    and when she played for Hisamtisu she had much more help of players like Nagaoka, Shinnabe, Ishii, so it was not just about her, now with JT she`s basically on her own... :serve:

  • This receiving thing is complex and intriguing.


    It seemed to me that in the last few NEC games OP/OH #13 Misaki Yamauchi was receiving a lot more. Sure enough, when I looked up those Kurogo receiving numbers, I also learned that in the receiving aspect for NEC, in the first four games it was pretty much Koga=30 / Yamauchi=20, then, against:
    Toyota Yamauchi=50 / Koga=5,
    Toray Yamauchi=24 / Koga=19,
    Denso Yamauchi=56 / Koga=19.


    That's a dramatic turnaround. Maybe it's why I've been noticing Yamauchi more. Is NEC hiding Koga or are other teams targeting Yamauchi? Those two are playing almost every minute of every game. #16 Shiori Aratani must be injured, hasn't played the last four games.


    Investigating Yamauchi, I re-watched 2017.05.21 AVC U23 Championship Final JPN v THA:


    Yamauchi captained the team and it was nice to see her play a whole game in beautiful HD. It's a great 5set match. Japan lost the first two sets and then in set 3, they subbed Miwako Osanai in for Nanaka Sakamoto. Winning! Osanai Rocks!


    (btw - props to Thailand fans for their support of the sport. Almost every game any Thai team plays in is available in ultra HD!)


    Looking forward to the games this weekend. After watching a bunch, I like all the teams! And think any one of them could end up in second place behind Hisamitsu :lol:

  • I have not watched the Rockets closely but based on these numbers seams like Koga was not receiving well and then Yamauchi started covering her, especially in the game against Toyota with Koga receiving only 5 balls. But against Toray was pretty even.


    Let`s see if anyone can beat Hisamitsu.


  • A bit out of topic but you will appreciate her more on receiving that much balls as she first started as a MB and only changed to Opposite position permanently 2 yrs ago as she decided to pursue a professional career with NEC. She was an exellent MB in junior as well as youth team and always a joy to watch, from her first apperance at U20 World Championship 2013 in Czech Rep (Japan only lost to China with Zhu Ting in the final back then, their first medal after a 2 decade drought). Her slide attack was one of the best, if not the best, in her generation (for Japan MB only) and inspite of being kinda small for a MB (1.72m), her block skill was not that bad eiher.
    I always thought she would be stuck on university leauge forever then graduate and get an office job. But, well, now she is in NEC, as a real opposite, not as an opposite but only do slide and combination attack like Mai Yamaguchi at national team in 2009-2012 era, such a great turn. She's got potential there and hope she can make the most of it to get further ahead :win:.

  • JT has another injury, Yuka Kanasugi ( but her jersey says Kitsui) I hope isn`t anything bad ;( At least it does not look bad.


    I could not even enjoy the game after to be honest but it is nice they were able to win in 3 and Mihajlovic had 7 backrow attacks.


    Hisamtisu still undefeated.

  • 13:00 Hisamitsu Springs v Denso Airybees ... 3–1
    13:00 Toyota Body Queens v Toray Arrows ... 2–3
    15:00 Hitachi Rivale v JT Marvelous ... 0–3
    15:00 NEC Red Rockets v Ageo Medics ... 3–0


    Match of the night was the 5-setter Toyota v Toray. Pretty evenly played game down to the 18-16 match point challenge. Toray is upping their game while Toyota is sorely missing their Captain Takahashi. Neriman must have swung 100 times. I'll bet she was close to 50% successful but geez! Nobody else to score for the team.


    Speaking of not scoring, Ageo took a dive against NEC. I don't think my fave #4 Shiho Kondō took a swing all night. Weird.

    Sad news for JT Marvelous
    . Even though they handily took care of Hitachi, #4 Yuka Kitsui was carried off the court near the end of the first set. Couldn't really tell what happened. It looked like she went up for a block and her leg spasmed--because of the jump, not the landing. It looked like she was grabbing for it before she came down ;(


    Hisamitsu remains undefeated, although Denso took one set. Denso looked to the youngster #4 Rei Kudo, giving her a lot of swings but she didn't deliver.

  • JT has another injury, Yuka Kanasugi ( but her jersey says Kitsui) I hope isn`t anything bad ;( At least it does not look bad.


    It's #4 Kitsui who went down. Kanasugi replaced her and was pretty much invisible

  • Thanks for the additional info. This is my first season of watching V.League. I came to it with a bias in favor of Shiori Aratani and Nanami Hirose over Yamauchi, but Yamauchi is the one making an impression. She's giving 150%. I like your comparison to Mai Yamaguchi.


    A bit out of topic but you will appreciate her more on receiving that much balls as she first started as a MB and only changed to Opposite position permanently 2 yrs ago as she decided to pursue a professional career with NEC. She was an exellent MB in junior as well as youth team and always a joy to watch, from her first apperance at U20 World Championship 2013 in Czech Rep (Japan only lost to China with Zhu Ting in the final back then, their first medal after a 2 decade drought). Her slide attack was one of the best, if not the best, in her generation (for Japan MB only) and inspite of being kinda small for a MB (1.72m), her block skill was not that bad eiher.
    I always thought she would be stuck on university leauge forever then graduate and get an office job. But, well, now she is in NEC, as a real opposite, not as an opposite but only do slide and combination attack like Mai Yamaguchi at national team in 2009-2012 era, such a great turn. She's got potential there and hope she can make the most of it to get further ahead :win:.

  • seems Toyota's captain's injury affected the balance of the team badly...


    Yeah, and I think "balance" is the key word there. Takahashi wasn't a big big scorer but she's good enough to keep opponents honest. And she handled a good chunk of reception.


    Neriman appears to be healthy and in good shape but it's too much to ask her to swing as much as she did last night in every game. I just looked-- 79 swings! 46.8 % success. She had no reception.

  • I `m disgusted with JT. They win the first set easily, 2nd set they are dominating until mid-set but then they let their guard down and started getting aced and loose the set, 3rd set they win easily again, 4th set is a repeat of 2nd set. I don`t even care if they win or loose this game anymore. :tzz: :obey:


    edit: they managed to come up in the 4th and win 26-24.