Baseball is life for the die-hard competitors in the 100th annual Koshien, Japan's wildly popular national high school baseball championship, whose alumni include U.S. baseball star Shohei Ohtani and former Yankee Hideki Matsui. But for Coach Mizutani and his players, cleaning the grounds and greeting their guests are equally important as honing their baseball skills. In director Ema Ryan Yamazaki's dramatic and intimate journey to the heart of the Japanese national character, will those acts add up to victory or prove a relic of the past?

"Compelling and illuminating! Its heartbreaking agonies and hard-earned ecstasies make 'Koshien' eminently worth watching." -Mark Schilling, Japan Times

"4 stars! This compelling sports documentary about the 100th anniversary of Japan's annual two-week high-school baseball tournament has strong messages of perseverance, teamwork, loyalty, and integrity and will appeal most to baseball fans and families interested in Japanese culture or traditions." -Common Sense Media

Directed by Ema Ryan Yamazaki
94 minutes, color, 2019
In Japanese w/ English subtitles