Did you know that the female Japanese volleyball team won the gold medal at the first Tokyo Olympics in 1964? The final match with the Soviet Union team, which was ranked No.1 in the world at that time, was broadcasted by NHK on TV and had a viewing rate of 66.8%, which is still the record in relay sports in Japan. The Japanese team, with an average height of just 171 cm while that of the Soviet team was 183 cm, overwhelmed all the other nations’ teams with incredibly new tactics such as “the rolling dive receive” and “the floating change-up service”, and they were called Oriental Witches by Americans and Europeans at that time.
The head coach of the team was Hirobumi Daimatsu. The national team of Japan was actually a private company, Nichibo’s, team and he was also an employee of the company. He showed quite strong leadership skills with the players of the team and forced them to train extremely hard. All the players worked in Nichibo’s office from 9 to 4, and then they started training every day, usually until 12 o’clock or sometimes until 2 to 3. His nickname at the time was Daimatsu, the Devil, and he was harshly criticized by many people, including the labor union of the company, as he was bullying the players. The players, however, did not complain about his training and followed him and even called him a master. Mr. Daimatsu was a survivor of the alleged worst operation during World War II, the Imphal operation that killed more than 50,000 Japanese soldiers through battles and starvation in Myanmar. His belief from this harsh experience was that victory is everything, and his team recorded 175 successive victories both in domestic and international matches. Nobody condemned him any more after such tremendous results.
Not only did he force ultra-hard training on the players, but he really thought rationally about how his team could defeat the Soviet Union team in the face of more than a 10 cm difference in height. He invented “the rolling dive receive” in order to receive all attacks by the Soviet team, by jumping to a ball and soon standing up by rotating the body in order not to interfere with other players and come back to the attack immediately. He also developed many new serves since the height of a player is almost irrelevant in serves. While a normal straight serve was popular at that time, his team developed many breaking ball serves, including no-rotation serve that almost nullified the receivers of the opponent team.
Mr. Daimatsu is now enshrined in the hall of fame of the Word Volleyball: https://www.volleyhall.org/specialawards/hirofumi-daimatsu. Nobody can follow his style at present, but he was actually a tremendously strong leader and encouraged many Japanese people 19 years after the ceasefire of World War II.
宇宙家族ロビンソンの”The Curse of Cousin Smith”を観ました。この回も目茶目茶ナンセンスで、何とドクター・スミスの従兄弟が登場します。演じているのは原子力潜水艦シービュー号で時間を操る男ミスター・ペムを演じていた人です。何でも彼らの共通の叔母さんが大金持ちで、死んで大金を遺産に残します。それを相続出来るのがスミス一族で最後に残ったものということで、最後の2人がドクター・スミスと今回やって来たジェレマイアです。ジェレマイアはドクター・スミスがギャンブル好きなのを利用して、どこかに頼んでギャンブルマシンを送らせ、ドクター・スミスを借金漬けにして、そのギャンブルマシンに始末してもらおうという作戦です。しかし結局ジェレマイアもそのギャンブルをやって、二人とも負けてしまい、しかもその叔母さんの遺産を賭けに使ってしまったため、ギャンブルマシンは二人の内一人を殺そうとします。それで結局ロビンソン博士が介入し、ギャンブルマシン相手に、インチキなボール当てゲームの賭けをして勝ち、二人を救うという話です。ジェレマイアが何で宇宙を彷徨っていたのか、またドクター・スミスが遺産を相続したとしても、そもそも地球に戻れなかったら意味が無いと思いますが、その辺りはまったく説明無しです。何というか第2シーズンは本当に緩いです。
宇宙家族ロビンソンの”The Thief of Outer Space”を観ました。何かどんどん話のレベルが劣化していくように思います。子供向けというか。今回の内容は「アリババと四十人の盗賊」的で、中東風の盗賊が出てきて、昔さらわれたお姫様の行方を追って200年間旅しているとの設定。結局お姫様はペニーが拾った壺の中に閉じ込められていて、中から出してあげたら、200年間壺の中で座って食べているばかりだったので、ブクブクに太って昔のお姫様の面影はまるで無し、という落ちです。
