Japan - V.League V1 (Division 1, Women) 2022-2023

    Quote from Julian Chow

    saw some familiar faces today, No. 6 Tanaka and no. 1 Nishikawa both played in the AVC Cup didn’t they? They played a big part in helping Japan win the tournament, imo...

    Over in Toray, Mayu Ishikawa is a familiar sight :)

    Yeapp. JT basically had 5 national team members: No. 1 Nishikawa, no. 2 Hayashi, ex no.5 Shibata Mika (now playing in Paris for VNVB Nancy), no. 6 Tanaka, and no.8 Momii. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that JT is one of the teams with more players being selected for the NT, unlike in the past during Nakada's time whereby Hisamitsu had the most (Shinnabe, Ishii, Iwasaka, Nagaoka).


    Toray, Ishikawa is most familiar due to her playing in both VNL and WCH, but there's also setter Seki who had started for the NT in both international tournaments, MB Ogawa Erina, former NT member Kurogo who just came back from one-year hiatus, libero Mizusugi who competed in AVC.


    It seems that this season will be quite competitive between all teams :super:

    Quote from sitenoise

    Just tuned in to that one


    People don't talk much about Yukiko Wada. She's 12/21 so far tonight, hitting over 50% on the season. She's been quietly kicking ass, when she gets the chance, for about a year now

    I'm glad to see people recognising Wada! I feel that she has a lot of potential to be a strong player for JT, and if she continues improving steadily, she might just be NT material. During last week's matches against Denso when Lowe seemed to be off-mark at times, she was subbed in and contributed points to the set.


    Also, not to pit teammates against each other, but I'm a little confused on why there is so much hype around Nishikawa Yuki. Sure, she's a promising player too, but is there something about her that really makes her stand out? Anyone has any idea why?

    Quote from sciew

    I'm glad to see people recognising Wada! I feel that she has a lot of potential to be a strong player for JT, and if she continues improving steadily, she might just be NT material. During last week's matches against Denso when Lowe seemed to be off-mark at times, she was subbed in and contributed points to the set.


    Also, not to pit teammates against each other, but I'm a little confused on why there is so much hype around Nishikawa Yuki. Sure, she's a promising player too, but is there something about her that really makes her stand out? Anyone has any idea why?

    Nishikawa doesn’t hold back, she hits quite hard, she’ll take a swing from front and back, left or right and even if the set is slightly out of position. She was outstanding for Japan in the AVC Cup :thumbup:

    How was Kurobe able to afford Tugba granted she's not Ebrar but that club can barely afford managers to update their social media not to mention they're the only club without an official photographer.


    Wrong place for Tugba to be in but Kurobe seems to be doing fairly well for now. Pimpichaya is in top shape. Not so much for the Thai girl at Okayama.

    Quote from serdar

    Like as her usual you mean?:roll:😂

    Haha , I was waiting for that :)

    I don't know that we can blame Kurobe's setter for Tugba's ... let's call it a slow start :whistle:


    Kurobe has three players in the top 12 attack stats. The setter is connecting with some people ... and they're winning matches -- albeit with asterisks :lol:


    Tugba, for whatever reason, just doesn't look motivated, to me. And she's got to learn the same thing KRob learned: you can't just hit around the little blockers in Japan. You'll get dug by the defense. It's a different game in Japan. She has to adapt. The game isn't going to adapt to her

    Quote from brahmin

    only NEC, Toyota and Ageo have not played a 5 set match.

    All four Toray matches have gone full set :white: They are out to break Hitachi's record for full set matches played

    I haven't watched Toyota too closely yet to see what they're doing wrong, or failing to do . Stats for last night's match against NEC: Cuttino with 12 hitting errors. Pidgeon Killer in the house :lol:


    I think I'm back on Team Cuttino Jumps Too Early . She does it on OOS High Sets when the timing is completely under her jurisdiction. Can't blame the setter for that :white:


    Let's keep an eye on Ami Okawa. She's growing up fast

    Matchups for the First Round of Empress Cup Final Round


    FRI 09 Dec 2022

    Kochi U of Technology – JA Gifu

    Fukuoka U – Kurobe

    Hiroshima Oilers – Denso

    Okayama – Kobe Shinwa Women's U

    Tokai Mermaids – Kanoa Laulea's Fukuoka

    Hitachi – Brilliant Aries

    Prestige – PFU

    TWCPE – Fukuoka Girasol

    Ryukoku U – Toyota

    Saitama – Breath Hamamatsu

    Himeji – Niigata U Health & Welfare

    Tsukuba U – Artemis Hokkaido


    Okayama and Hitachi didn't get the most favorable pairings. Those should be good matches. This first round is 3 set matches

    Watched the NEC Toyota games. Well, I punted Saturday's . I didn't want to see Toyota like that


    First of all: Toyota Yamagami >> NEC Tsukada. I thought Sawada had established her place in NEC's starting lineup a couple years ago. Toyota should have been able to beat this NEC squad


    Yamagama has one of the nicer running jump sets in the league, but that only gets her style points, not real points


    Still a little disappointed with new Toyota libero Tateishi. With Kurobe she had to cover the whole floor. She must feel a little constrained having to share defensive duties with other players. She's not doing bad things, just not making highlight reels


    Cuttino: She mis-times the jump on her serve :P She doesn't have a predictable, repeatable approach in attack, and with hang time to burn and a tendency to hit the ball when she starts her descent, sometimes ... what setter wouldn't have a problem with that?


    She did hit a few "just get this one over the net" balls out of bounds, and etc


    Having said all that, Cuttino's kind of endearing. She seems a little culture shocked but remains positive, and seems deserving of, and gets, a break when she boo-boos. That's important. If she can tame her pigeon killer instinct, take a little target practice and up her blocking numbers she'll be fine. Not Krob, but okay

    culture shock for Japan is still probably in the honeymoon period as they are still in the first month, whereas a Neriman or Hanna are in adaption have been there numerous years.


    https://www.participatelearnin…-stages-of-culture-shock/


    for me after a month with a host family, I moved into private dormitory, which also had its own culture and especially as someone who is a little more individualistic, It took a couple of months to get adjusted to that too. Luckily my classes were in English (outside of Japanese class).


    for the players have translators helps, but trying to put up sayings and phrases outside of volleyball can be challenging without the interpreter/translator. I don’t know if teams really put players in language schools for an hour or two a day during the season. I know for me have 2 hours of language class, 4 days a week greatly helped my language skills, even after having studied 2 years before going to Japan.

    Quote from Pancake

    Can you link it? I sometimes have to look at V League's livescores and I can't access it without vpn how is the VTV one not geoblocked on the same site

    (Unless I'm missing something) ...


    VTV, where you watch the matches, is now at :

    https://vtv.easysports.jp/video/category/v1-women ... which is not geoblocked


    The old old vleague.tv:

    https://vleague.tv/ ... is just a geo-blocked error message


    The old alb.vleague.tv

    https://alb.vleague.tv ... the un-geo-blocked vtv where we watched the matches last year is just a landing page that tells you to go to EasySports


    The live scores, which you have to get to from the Schedule page:

    https://www.vleague.jp/women/match_list/v1/ ... and then the "Match Information" link for individual matches ...


    ... goes to, for example, https://livescore.vleague.jp/vls/3105 which is geo-blocked :wall::wall:


    At this point, it means the Archive of all the old matches is nowhere to be found

    Quote from sciew

    Yeapp. JT basically had 5 national team members: No. 1 Nishikawa, no. 2 Hayashi, ex no.5 Shibata Mika (now playing in Paris for VNVB Nancy), no. 6 Tanaka, and no.8 Momii. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that JT is one of the teams with more players being selected for the NT, unlike in the past during Nakada's time whereby Hisamitsu had the most (Shinnabe, Ishii, Iwasaka, Nagaoka).


    Toray, Ishikawa is most familiar due to her playing in both VNL and WCH, but there's also setter Seki who had started for the NT in both international tournaments, MB Ogawa Erina, former NT member Kurogo who just came back from one-year hiatus, libero Mizusugi who competed in AVC.


    It seems that this season will be quite competitive between all teams :super:

    But then again so did Denso? didn't they have the most players in the NT so by logic shouldn't they be the local NT? JT tanked last season's championships and missed 3 Asian tournaments due to covid.


    JT minus KLOWE can that be a thing now that KRob is using Cook... anyway I'm not feeling Karsta's performance so far she still has a lot of adjustments to make but I knew right away when I watched their match in Korea that she has a long way to go. I wonder if it would have been different with Shibata around.


    Outside the holy trinity which was untouchable Inoue, Imamura, Toe, Iwasaka, Zayasu, Kotoh, Kano, literally half of Hisamitsu's players have made it to the NT post-London which no other club to this day has done. JT is not the current training ground, it's still Hisamitsu and Toray. Remember the Fukazawa twins who made a big splash at Haruko they're in Toray and Hisamitsu. Toray and Saga gets the first cut of the best highschool players and some of the U-team stand outs in college.