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

Quote from ian3373

If I'm not mistaken it's the men's league, not the women's.....

It's two mens two womens:

JT Marvelous v Hisamitsu Springs and Okayama Seagulls v Saitama Ageo Medics from the women's competition, and JTEKT Stings v Toray Arrows and Panasonic Panthers v Suntory Sunbirds from the men's

Retirement News

NEC Red Rockets:

Okayama NoSmilers:

Okayama, in their typical whack way, have as many liberos as OHs at this point: seven. Wonder who will step up now that Sasaki has retired.

Sixth Man of the Year Minami Nishimura, at 167cm, probably won't cut it as full time.

My two guesses:

#4 Miharu Yoshioka 180cm - 1998.09.14	15 Aoi An Furukawa 184-186cm - 2002.07.27
Miharu's been a NoSmiler for four seasons already. She still seems like a kid, but a husky kid, if a little soft, with potential. One U17 appearance, and she comes from Higashi Kyushu Ryukoku. If NoSmiler Top Dog makes her do 10,000 reception reps between now and the fall she might get a shot. NoSmilers won reception title last season. They can't relinquish it. Mustn't.	Aoi An quit her High School Team last summer to join the NoSmilers. She's tall, bulky, error prone, and nowhere near the level of defense Okayama requires ... but who knows. She made the 2018 U17 Champ Squad but didn't play. NoSmiler Top Dog grabbed her from a no-name HS up near NEC Red Rockets land, not from the Osaka School they get most of their players. He must see something.

Okayama has a few other youngsters from their Farm Team at Osaka International Takii High School of unknown capacity. Minami Nishimura will probably split time with whomever gets a chance. She's like the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction.

Quote from beri

I'm looking for a Japanese tv provider so I can enjoy all matches with you next time HD

You'll still have timezone issues though, right? It's so perfect for me, I mean, if having nothing better to do Friday and Saturday nights PRIMETIME except to watch foreign people hit a ball back and forth could be considered perfect I'm happy!

Name that Tune

This is the match that completely changed the way I view and understand the V.League

Okay, so I lied. That was the match that made me the happiest. The bittersweet 2020 Higashi Kyushu Ryukoku victory over Kinrankai after losing to them the previous two years. Bittersweet because Coach Aihara was no longer with Higashi. That was January of this year--just before COVID put an end to things.

The previous year was the first time I watched High School Volleyball. It was the first time I saw YOLO, Shion Hirayama, and Coach Aihara, to name a few.

The start of the Championship match saw Higashi getting clobbered by Kinrankai - 0–7. At 0–5 Coach Aihara calls a timeout. That's when I knew he was my Coach and they were my team:

Higashi came back to take the match to a Tie-Break but ultimately lost. Ameze Miyabe was MVP. Yuki Nishikawa and Mayu Ishikawa best OHs. At the time of watching it I wrote in these pages that Shion Hirayama (Higashi) was by far the best player on court. She won Best MB.

YOLO (Kinrankai) won Best MB the previous year when Kinrankai walloped Higashi 3–0. That was before my time. Here was my first vision of MB #5 (in blue) YOLO in the match that changed my world:

What confidence and comfort in their skin for a kid

Speaking of YOLO, I hope this Mary Tyler Moore thing she's got going on is a transition phase.

I've been checking out some 9-person volleyball (because I miss my hero Haruka Maruo, and, well, ya know, there's nothing else to do).

It's chaos! Out of system Vb 24/7

They have a few different rules:

• You get two serves, like in Tennis
• You can't reach over the net to block, aka roof the ball
• You can pass the ball off the net to yourself

That last one is weird. I saw it a bunch

There's a 9-person vb website that has a lot of matches to see. They're all single end of court camera, which is kinda cool but I need closeups of faces and etc., to really get into it.

Quote from brahmin

there is no rotation

Best of 3 sets to 21 points
block touch counts as first hit

Court for men’s 9 person is wider than the normal court, while women’s 9 person is the same size as normal court.

Net height is a little shorter for both men and women than 6 person height.

Thanks for filling it out. I couldn't quite google understand if a block touch counted as first touch.

With regards to passing the ball off the net I assume it has to be a bump pass, not overhand, so as not to be confused with a spike into the net. I believe that's all I saw

Seems like passing it off the net resets the touch count to zero. That is, a ball lollipops over the net (not a spike) and the recipient passes it off the net to herself and then passes to the setter who sets for a spiker. 1-net-1-2-3.

Another thing that happens more than just a weird one-off: a team will be called for some violation immediately upon receiving the serve, as if the reception involved a double touch. Since there are no rotations it can't be a rotation error, and, as best I can tell there is no front/back court so it can't be a line violation [EDIT] I think what's happening might just be a let serve. I finally saw one where I could see the score flags and they didn't change the score.

Turns out my Hero, Haruka Maruo, isn't the Team Captain Superstar. She hasn't even started a match I've come across yet. She comes in as sub for a handful of points mid match. When she's on court she gets a lot of sets, but there must be other players better than her. Personally, from stalking her tweetbox, I think she sees volleyball as just after-work exercise and is overall more interested in beer and sweets.

This 9-person VB is growing on me. It's fast and chaotic, which I like, super fast low sets trying to sneak in between five blockers. The coolest thing is how many 2nd touch kills are attempted. Not by the setter but by whoever. From a serve or a spike, sometimes the passer will send the ball to one of the wings for a kill. Also, because of the rule that a block touch counts as first contact, whoever makes the second contact has to pass it for an attack, so gosh knows who is going to make that pass. Sometimes the first pass is just lobbed up mid-court and maybe the setter gets under it or somebody will kill it.

I haven't seen a joust yet, probably ill-advised since you can't cross the net line to block. Another consequence of the no roofing rule is that a lot of the blocks are "soft", where the ball just drops across the net. This in turn is where you often see the player scooping up the block will pass the ball to herself off the net. You get two more touches after that.

Freaky, and kinda schoolyard overall. I know it's bottom of the totem pole VB but I wish they had some real broadcasts. I'll never keep up with it if I can't see players' faces.