Former school for Korean students wins Japan baseball tournament

Kyoto International High School’s team members celebrate as they won Japan’s famous summer high school baseball tournament at a stadium in Nishinomiya, western Japan Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

A Japanese high school that once served as an academy for ethnically Korean students won the nation’s youth baseball tournament Friday, drawing congratulations from South Korea’s president.

But the unstoppable campaign by Kyoto International High School, or Kyoto Kokusai, had also faced detractors online who said a team with a Korean-language school song had no place in the beloved Japanese tournament, watched by millions every year.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol hailed the team’s 2-1 championship victory over Kanto Daiichi High School of Tokyo.

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“This miraculous achievement, accomplished under difficult conditions, has given the Koreans in Japan pride and courage,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

“I hope that baseball will bring our two countries, (South) Korea and Japan, even closer together.”

The annual high school baseball tournament draws enormous public interest in Japan and receives wall-to-wall live television coverage.

Many professional baseball players, including Dodgers slugger Shohei Otani, have emerged from the tournament over the years.

Kyoto International stood out this year with its Korean-language school song, which played after each of the team’s wins.

A TV program aired at a station in Seoul reports that Kyoto International High School, a team with ties to the ethnic Korean community, won Japan’s famous high school baseball tournament, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)

The school originally opened in 1947 to serve Korean students in Japan.

Its victory comes as Japan and South Korea try to mend their historically tense ties, soured by bitter memories of Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea for decades through the end of World War II.

During the colonial era, hundreds of thousands of Koreans were brought to Japan, some of them forcefully, to work for the Japanese war effort.

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After the war ended, many families stayed in Japan for various reasons, including the start of the Cold War, which ultimately saw the Korean peninsula divided into north and south.

Although Kyoto International’s current student body and its baseball team are mostly Japanese, the institution’s heritage remains a source of pride for Koreans in Japan and South Korea.

“In spite of various criticisms, the fact that the scenes of the students proudly singing the Korean-language school song were broadcast nationwide… gave courage and strength to us ‘zainichi’ (Korean residents in Japan) compatriots,” Mindan, the Korean Residents Union in Japan, said in a statement.

Mindan said that the team “served as a bridge between Korea and Japan”.

But the team’s wins over the course of the tournament fanned Japanese nationalistic voices online.

“I demand Kyoto International High School to be delisted from Japan High School Baseball Federation,” one post said on X.

“I really cannot stand that a Korean school song is played at the Japanese tournament with a 100-year history,” said another.