Japan - V.League V1 (Division 1, Women) 2019-2020

  • I thought I would look into this team Forest Leaves Kumamoto. No better way to do it than watch them play Okayama NoSmilers. VTV came through. I watched a match from February 2018, back when Okayama was in V2 (V.Challenge 1). Two years ago Okayama was in V2 :white: They won the Championship, losing only one match and nine sets the whole season, but still.


    NoSmiler's lineup was the same as today and they all looked the same except Sanae Watanabe. She looked young, maybe because she was wearing a smaller batting helmet. Aimi Kawashima was the revelation. She had a HULK SMASH party. She and Haruka were locked and loaded. I miss how good Aimi used to be.


    The match was a lot of fun. Great defense on both sides. Crazy saves leading to long rallies.


    Kumamoto looked good. If you lose more long rallies than your opponent you are going to lose the match but you can still look good doing it. Kumamoto had a 169cm (LOL) MB, Narumi Funatsu, who was furious in attack. Not HULK SMASHes but violent nonetheless. A jumper.


    Seems most of the 2017-18 Kumamoto squad has retired (including Funatsu) or moved on. The Captain, OH Miku Kawaguchi is the only player on the current roster. One veteran player, Momoko Wada, has become "manager". OP Chika Saito plays for Gumma Bank now; Setter Akina Iwanaga plays for JA Gifu.


    Standings for 2017-18 (top 4):

    1. Okayama 17–1 (loss was to PFU)
    2. PFU - 16–2 (two losses were to Okayama)
    3. Kurobe - 11–6
    4. Kumamoto - 5–13

    I don't like it when teams put their nickname before their city name, like Breath Hamamatsu. It's awkward in theory. But Forest Leaves Kumamoto and Breath Hamamatsu are cool names so they're forgiven :rose:

  • I wish I could share with you my passion for LVSF just like you do sharing your passion for V.League divisions with us. :rose:

    I wish you would.


    Honestly, it's surprising to me how much enjoyment I get from Japanese Women's Indoor Volleyball, from High School to the NT, because it's such a random attachment to choose, considering all the things life has to offer.

  • Forest Leaves previously went bankrupt.


    this is a new team.

    Weren't they just out of business for the 18-19 season? There seems to some continuity from the coach to the captain to Momoko Wada who played with them for years and is now "manager".


    It's hard for me to piece together the story from scarce foreign language sources. I think I read they got an S1 License and were going to promote to V1 for the 18-19 season but that's when they collapsed financially and is why V1 had only 11 teams that season. Is that right?


    Also, do you know anything about the "corporeal punishment" kerfuffle? Who was the player and was it a big deal, or just a quiet sanction? As best I can tell the coach involved is the coach now.

  • Turns out there is a V.League official highlight reel of the Okayama v Forest Leaves match.


    I was wondering why the production values are so good. The match is full multi-camera broadcast quality with stat bugs and everything. I guess because it was the last weekend of the season. Not a Final or anything. There was just Regular Round and that's it.


    Another cool thing about the match is that it has one of those sound mixes where the ball hits are super loud. Very exciting. I think I'll watch it again :)


    Not gonna share the highlight reel because it's one of those that takes pleasure in highlighting the mistakes. Not cool, not party :thumbdown:

  • OMG - Almost all the V2 2017/18 season matches are DAZN level Broadcast quality. What's up with that? Way way way better than the VTV V1 matches they streamed this year. WTF? What happened to this quality?


    I have two more NoSmiler v Forest Leaves matches to watch now :)


    5 bux/month!

  • Weren't they just out of business for the 18-19 season? There seems to some continuity from the coach to the captain to Momoko Wada who played with them for years and is now "manager".


    It's hard for me to piece together the story from scarce foreign language sources. I think I read they got an S1 License and were going to promote to V1 for the 18-19 season but that's when they collapsed financially and is why V1 had only 11 teams that season. Is that right?


    Also, do you know anything about the "corporeal punishment" kerfuffle? Who was the player and was it a big deal, or just a quiet sanction? As best I can tell the coach involved is the coach now.

    the previous version of the Forest Leaves were in the promotion spot in 17-18. They also had an S1 license, but the players were not being paid by the end of the season in 18.

    No one stepped up to support or take over the team and the team folded.

    The league decided not to promote another team in their spot and hence 11 for 18-19.


    this new version has an S2/S3 license and has had to start from scratch.


    About the coach. In 2013 he was suspended for a year. Yukigasen Nakajima current and past manager of the Leaves slapped players 2 or 3 times at a team camp. His then boss followed the leagues rules as the league suspended his for a year and could not be on the bench.

  • I usually skip through timeouts and other down-times when re-watching old matches. While watching game 2 of Okayama v Kumamoto I let them roll. Kumamoto coach is a dick. He talks with that "How stupid can you people be" tone of voice.


    I know all but one of these players I'm watching aren't around any more but I was looking forward to some Forest Leaves Love. Now I'm not so sure.


    btw - some of the earlier in the season matches are typical V2 broadcasts with no commentary and a far away mid-court camera that has different lighting and timestamp from the roaming zoom camera. I think the matches from January on may actually be DAZN broadcasts. I wish they were still doing that.


    All the matches of 18-19, including the Final 6, were typical V2 broadcasts without commentary and with the picture-in-picture score flaps that someone stands in front of now and then. But they streamed every match. Season 19-20 they streamed only 21 matches from the whole season.


    I hope 20-21 is better

  • Asian Club Championships Scheduled for May 2–9 will be next

    And down they go

    Source


    The Men's have been rescheduled for August. No decision on Women's yet

  • Yoshie Takeshita is moving into the Himeji front office after being the head coach for four years.

    She will be an Executive VP of team operations.

    Ha! I was going to make a post a while ago saying I hoped she is committed to the coaching thing because the team has good chemistry. They only won 4 games in their V1 debut but that's not bad for a team that had no one who can score.

  • I watched a few Yoshie Takeshita highlight reels in her honor. My gosh, she was such a deceptive creature. She would broadcast loud and clear where she was going to set the ball and then set it to someone else. Japan really needs that.

  • QPL made a post somewhere over yonder about something else but it summarizes pretty much why I like Japanese volleyball:

    Even at the High School level, maybe even more so, frankly, on the good teams, more so than the v.league, everybody can pass/set the ball. It's anarchy :super:


    I don't know about fast sets being easier, but upon reflection I do appreciate a little more the skills involved in high set ball playing

  • Speaking of which ... In the now famous 2018.02.24 v2 - Okayama v Forest Leaves 3–0 match, our dearly departed noSmiling middle-blocker Koyuki Okusu plays the third set. When her serve rotation is done she stays in for serve-receive the next two rotations and then moves to the front. She never leaves the court. She had 6 excellents on 7 receptions (stats) in one set.

  • Back in the days, MBs were pretty technical in both reception and passing, because most of them started playing in a pre-libero era... But if young MBs are doing it nowadays, it's even more impressive, because today's volleyball is all about specialization, MB will do MB-stuff and that's it! Japan are inventing (or reinventing) some cool moves, like that spiker that attacks like a MB, or something like that, YOLO maybe? Pretty refreshing stuff right there :')

  • yeah, YOLO :thumbup:


    I forgot there was pre libero days :) i don’t think i’ve ever seen such a match


    Okusu was a pretty special player. League MVP. and best server that year. a little more athletic than most japanese. when she received serve she looked like a receiver. great slide attack too.

  • yeah, YOLO :thumbup:


    I forgot there was pre libero days :) i don’t think i’ve ever seen such a match


    Okusu was a pretty special player. League MVP. and best server that year. a little more athletic than most japanese. when she received serve she looked like a receiver. great slide attack too.

    prior to 1998, no libero

  • I didn't pay attention to people coming and going two seasons ago.

    Last year I merely felt like there were a lot of players leaving.

    This year I'm keeping track!


    I calculate there are approximately 400 players in combined V.Leagues v1 & v2. So far 44 players are leaving in some fashion:

    • 5 confirmed foreigners are leaving (probably more as time rolls on)
    • 8 players are Transfer Hoping (7 from v2, 1 from v1)
    • 31 players are Retiring (20/v2 , 11/v1)
    • The saddest news is Hisae Watanabe retiring :(

    I imagine for many of the girls that playing volleyball is like me playing in a Rock Band for a few years after college. They know it's not going to amount to much, but it's fun so they do it until someone offers them a job they want.

  • Essentially players are on year to year contracts. If coach likes you as a “bench” player you’ll probably stay with your team.

    New coach comes to your team, you are up in the air. After 5 years have you become a starter? If not, you are probably in the retirement zone.