The athlete’s achievement is also a story of change in his home country

As Japan prepared to face the U.S. in last year’s World Baseball Classic final, Shohei Ohtani famously warned his teammates to stop revering their American peers. “If we idolize them, we can’t surpass them,” he said. The advice worked and Japan went on to win with Ohtani closing out the game in the ninth inning.

Now the tables have turned and the baseball world idolizes Ohtani. Win or lose with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs, Ohtani has already achieved not just what many are calling the greatest individual game in Major League Baseball history, but also the greatest season. Sports journalism is running low on superlatives for him: Such is his domination he’s been dubbed “the most talented player ever to step onto a baseball field,” and a “lion playing with cubs.”

Ohtani became the first-ever player in MLB history to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season. He has done all of this while utilizing just half his talent. Ohtani first made his name as a “dual-wielding” two-way star who could pitch as well as he hits, but has stayed off the mound this season following elbow surgery. That hasn’t prevented him from having an economic impact of nearly ¥117 billion ($783 million) this season alone, in ticket sales and other revenue, according to Kansai University professor emeritus Katsuhiro Miyamoto.

Ohtani’s 2024 already included getting married and his friend and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara pleading guilty to stealing millions of dollars from him to cover gambling debts. The scandal momentarily threatened to overwhelm Ohtani, but, in a testament to his unwavering self-confidence, it has seemingly only made him stronger.

His triumph is more than just the story of a prodigiously gifted man or once-in-a-lifetime aberration. It is also one of Japanese turnaround. When I first came to the country in 2003, the media fretted over how the homeland was losing dominance of its own national sport — sumo. Earlier that year, the last Japanese-𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 yokozuna grand champion had retired and foreign-𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 wrestlers were beginning to take over. The Mongolian greats Asashoryu and Hakuho would go on to dominate the sport for years and it would be another 15 years before the next Japanese-𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 yokozuna emerged.

Few back then would have predicted that the narrative would be flipped, such that a Japanese player would dominate the great American pastime. And Ohtani is just the most prominent of a generation of Japanese athletes who are outperforming expectations.

This year, the country enjoyed its best-ever medal haul at an Olympic Games on foreign soil. A total of 20 golds trailed only China and the U.S., in competitions ranging from gymnastics and fencing to newer events such as breaking and skateboarding. Haruka Kitaguchi’s javelin gold medal was Japan’s first in a women’s athletics field event. It’s a remarkable metamorphosis since the 1996 Atlanta Games, when the nation won just three golds, all in judo.

From tennis and fashion star Naomi Osaka to golfing’s Hideki Matsuyama, the country’s stars are everywhere. Naoya Inoue is a boxing phenomenon, frequently ranked as the world’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, among just a handful to become a two-division, four-belt undisputed champion.

There are a growing number of Japanese footballers in Europe’s top leagues. Japan’s national team, too, beat Germany and Spain in the last World Cup and recently humbled China in a 7-0 win. For all this to happen despite the 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡rate dropping, with the number of 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren declining every year for over four decades, is particularly befuddling.

There doesn’t seem to be a simple explanation. It might be indicative of economic recovery; the country suffered “the Olympic equivalent of ‘lost decades’” prior to the 2000s, writes TS Lombard economist Rory Green. He notes that as the country recovered, the national sports budget has grown by nearly 200% over the past 20 years, vastly above gross domestic product. The investment stems from a government plan in 2000, spurred by the disappointing Atlanta performance, that led to athlete development facilities such as the National Training Center.

But economic might alone can’t explain the Olympic medal haul, says Jun Saito of the Japan Center for Economic Research. Some argue technology is helping: Despite Japan’s relative lack of English proficiency, YouTube and other online resources now help spread new ideas and training techniques among young people. Weight training is one area amateur baseball players now concentrate on, with the youthful Ohtani known to have emphasized pumping iron to fill out his once-wiry frame.

It helps coaching too, with instructors increasingly adopting modern strategies in the place of bruising old-fashioned practices designed to build spirit, such as bans on drinking water during sessions. Additional emphasis is being placed on mental health and image training: Ohtani’s high-school coach had his students fill out a chart of goals and steps to achieve them. It was noticeable during the Olympics that many athletes looked far more relaxed and free of pressure than in the past.

Increasing internationalization is no doubt a factor, with coaches coming from abroad with best-in-class techniques, such as those that have propelled the men’s rugby team to the upper echelons. It’s likely no coincidence that Osaka, along with the likes of Rui Hachimura of the Los Angeles Lakers, have non-Japanese parentage.

There’s also simply been a generational shift, with today’s athletes unbound by the trauma of older generations. Inoue and Ohtani, 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in 1993 and 1994 respectively, come from the yutori sedai, or “relaxed generation,” who benefited from a less restrictive education policy. They were also helped by having role models: As an elementary schooler, Ohtani would have seen Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui outperforming in the Major Leagues. Skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa, who won gold in Paris at just 14, was inspired by Momiji Nishiya’s identical feat at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

Combined, these factors might make an Ohtani more likely. But maybe nothing can adequately explain him. Japanese TV a few years ago showed the list of goals he wrote out as a high-schooler: moving to the majors, winning the WBC and so on. He’s not met all of them — the list called for winning the World Series by age 26 — but he’s getting close. Perhaps it’s simply fate.