Japan Women's NT 2021

    PFU post-Ebata doesn't have any stars so it's easier for Valdes to shine there. Valdes is a fast player. I don't like Tahara as a setter, too slow, too low. That might be one of the cons if she's going to be their regular setter but Yamashita is also very meh.

    Quote from staccato lightning

    Valdes is a fan of both Nagaoka and Boskobichi :box: that's Boskovic for those who don't get it.


    Her Japanese is not that good

    I mean she left Cuba at 15. I sincerely doubt she had a ton of Japanese language studies in Cuba before moving to Japan. It is much easier to speak it than read it. I didn’t start studying Japanese until I was a freshman in college at 18. I picked it up fairly quick, but once I got there after 2 years of study did I realize that I was at a really low level. I took three years of Spanish in high school and can still understand because it was easy to learn words and sentence structure. Throw in some pictographs, two separate alphabets and a very different sentence structure, and yes it may not sound good.
    When I was in Japan in 2018-2019, people who have never met me, say that my Japanese is really good and I say, well I went to Waseda which is a very famous university and hard to get into in Japan. However, for this program that I did, it was as an exchange student and did not have the difficulty of entering the school. Still many of our classes were in English except for our language classes, which were 3 hours a day. My classes in USA college were 1 hour long, three days a week. Let alone in Japan when you leave campus everything is in Japanese. Learned a great deal while I was there, but still learned after returning to USA.

    She’s a non-native speaker and I am not holding it against her. Just mentioning the reasons for it being different.

    The thing about Valdes as an attacker in HS that was interesting/impressive to me, and maybe it's because she's still young and nimble, is her ability to adapt mid-flight to a less than ideal set. She's got Foluke level hang time and would wiggle about and always swing hard. No tipping or wussy whacking. So she makes errors but doesn't give free balls. Will be interesting to see how that grows or dies as she goes up the food chain to NT and their 'no errors' conservatism.


    Back in 2019 she participated in a youth/junior training camp with Coach Lovebunny. Too bad 2020 and 2021 were a bust, and nothing came of it. I think the girl in front of her and the girl on the right are Denso's two new MBs.


    Another girl at that camp, while she was still in junior HS, Airi Furukawa:



    She's a 184cm 2nd year highschooler at Shimokitazawa Seitoku (so she will probably end up with Toray). First time I've seen her play was in the recent Inter-High games. I thought she would be Mai Irisawa dorky, but she looked a lot better than that. Doesn't look tough at all, but at least she's tall and seemingly coordinated. I'd trade a few cms for a little Ohno sisters toughness

    Quote from sitenoise

    Another girl at that camp, while she was still in junior HS, Airi Furukawa:


    She's a 184cm 2nd year highschooler at Shimokitazawa Seitoku (so she will probably end up with Toray). First time I've seen her play was in the recent Inter-High games. I thought she would be Mai Irisawa dorky, but she looked a lot better than that. Doesn't look tough at all, but at least she's tall and seemingly coordinated. I'd trade a few cms for a little Ohno sisters toughness

    Someone said she might be half-black or something but nothing about that girl looks black

    Quote from skorost

    Someone said she might be half-black or something but nothing about that girl looks black

    They were talking Aoi An Furukawa who plays for NoSmilers now

    Quote from sarinseu

    I don't know the girls at the back with Valdes but the girls in front are (L-R) Queenseis' Okada (WS), University of Tsukuba's Kondo (S), Denso's Asano (MB).

    nice work! I think the short one off to the left is Toyota's Hina Koide?


    hmm wait, the girl in front of Melissa ... Okada? (thought it might be Yoshino Sato but it's def not) ... but I don't know an Okada. Maybe I have a transliteration wrong? Do you mean #2 Saki Inaba. It's is a face I know but can't name it

    [Edit] it's Toyota's Aimi Okawa? not Saki Inaba. That makes sense, just a typo

    Japan's women's basketball team is all the rave atm after they won silver at the Olympics. Interestingly their head, Yuko Mitsuya, a former volleyball player and former council member at JVA who spearheaded some projects for the women's team and was about to be promoted to replace the current president Shimaoka in 2019 but she instead went to head the Basketball Association last year.


    Anyway during her recent presscon the state of Hinotori was brought up but she did not comment on it. Point is Japanese fans are now wondering that maybe all her projects that were put to a stop by Shimaoka was what she brought to JBA for the women's team.


    I'll just leave this tweet here

    Quote from sarinseu


    To those who missed Takeshita, Otomo, Kimura, Sakoda, Kano, Ebata appearance on a variety show. At 30:49 they showed I think Otomo's daughter. I don't know how young she is but she's as tall as her mom. Could be another prospect for LA or Brisbane 😂

    Miku chan. At grade 9, I guess (junior high school year 3rd) 180cm. Wish she'll get a little bit taller. But idk what position she is. (love her long arms :love:)

    tbh, as the usual cycle goes, these retirements should benefit Japan's progress as they might be the youngest team in the Olympics (in terms of main contributors) but they also cant afford injuries (Ebata, Shinnabe prior to Rio and Nagaoka prior to Tokyo)


    Paris 2024 should be the prime of KIK, Yamada, Momii, Hayashi should they become the main cogs this cycle.