So, I’d heard a bit about the Sun Rockers Shibuya, you know? Local basketball team, playing in the *. I figured, hey, I live here, might as well check out a game. See what Japanese pro basketball is all about. Not like I had anything better to do that weekend.
First off, trying to get tickets. Man, that was something else. You’d think it’d be easy, right? Modern city, popular sport. But the websites, they were a bit of a throwback. Took me a while, clicking around, translating stuff in my head, but I finally got one. Victory, I thought. The easy part was over. Or so I hoped.
Game day. Made my way to the Aoyama Gakuin Memorial Hall. It was packed, lots of yellow jerseys and cheering stuff. Okay, cool, good atmosphere. The game started, and the players, they were good. Fast, athletic. No complaints there. But the crowd… it was, like, super organized. They had these specific cheers, specific hand movements, all timed perfectly. Everyone knew what to do and when. It felt less like a bunch of rowdy fans and more like a well-oiled cheering machine.
This Whole Organized Fun Thing
It just brought back this memory I have of trying to join this club once. A photography club. Sounded fun. But the first meeting? It was all rules. “Rule 7, subsection B: All photos must adhere to the golden ratio, unless a waiver is filed.” I kid you not. I just wanted to take some pictures, maybe learn a thing or two. Not study a legal document.
That’s the vibe I sometimes get here. Everything’s got a procedure. Even having fun. It’s like that time I tried to rent a bicycle for an hour. Needed to fill out three forms, show my ID, provide an emergency contact, and then listen to a five-minute lecture on safety. For a one-hour bike ride in a park! I almost walked away. Sometimes, all this structure just squeezes the life out of things. It’s like they’re afraid someone might accidentally have too much spontaneous fun.
So, watching the Sun Rockers, it was decent basketball, for sure. The players were working hard. The cheerleaders were doing their thing. Mascot was around, hyping people up.
- The actual basketball was pretty solid.
- Fans were definitely enthusiastic, in their coordinated way.
- I can say I’ve now seen a Japanese pro basketball game.
But that feeling of it being a bit… programmed? It stuck with me. It wasn’t a bad evening, don’t get me wrong. But if you’re looking for that wild, anything-can-happen sports vibe, this was more on the polite and orderly side of things. Maybe that’s just how it is. Or maybe I was just grumpy because the line for a beer was surprisingly long. Who knows. Still, an experience. Just a very, very orderly one.
