Top 5 and Worst 6 Sports to Impress Japanese Women

Mezamashi TV (video at the bottom) did a not-so-academic study of what sports men can do that impress Japanese Women. Some of these may surprise readers so I’ll do my best to help interpret the results.

Let’s start with our top 5 with my comments below:

1. Soccer and Futsal –

(not much explanation necessary here, some people in Japan consider it a “soccer country”, but an inspection of local parks on a Sunday afternoon will show this not to be entirely true. Most kids play at school, but it’s a bit organized. It is true however that soccer seems to be a “moteru” sport as they say.)

2. Basketball

(I guess the implied height here works in basketball’s favor. Also it’s not a real smelly or equipment laden sport so there’s that.)

3. Surfing

4. Snowboarding

(Although it’s probably cool to say you are a surfer… I don’t know how many people you’ll find who actually surf competitively so I kind of want to throw this result out the window. The same goes for skiing and snowboarding… I’m discounting them as a group… let me clarify – Very cool if done as a sport, but I just don’t think many people who say they are surfers/snowboarders/skiiers actually compete.)

5. Baseball

(Why is baseball so far down the list? Some commenters on the net pointed out that if someone is a pro baseball player, this rank goes way up, but think of your typical high school baseball players in Japan and you might have a clue. While the high school baseball culture in Japan produces some of the best students and people you’ll know, it also produces a good amount of arrogant kids with feelings of entitlement based only on the fact that they are on a sports team they chose in a country that doesn’t usually cut members off of a team.)

Now let’s take a look at our worst 5, some surprises here:

1. Table Tennis

(Table Tennis players have a reputation for being kind of geeky.)

2. Golf

(I’m not sure why this is. Some of the young golf players on the circuit are popular, but maybe it has an arrogant or geeky reputation. Again, I think most of the women responded based on their high school memories, and not pro players.)

3. Volleyball

(I’m not really sure about this one. There could be some implied height in there…Hmmm.)

4. Kendo

(A lot of kids planning to be police officers or who have a love of Japanese traditional history and sports join Kendo. It’s not a sport that gets a lot of accolades or necessarily stands out. Some commenters in Japan mentioned the smell the equipment tends to get over time…)

5. Tennis

(I’m not really sure about this one either. See volleyball.)

6. Rugby

(I think this might be a similar situation to baseball without the benefits of a high profile and the chance of future fame.)

Here’s the original video from Mezamashi (for as long as it lasts before being deleted on YouTube).