For a Japanese TV show, a detective tried to find someone in Japan who didn’t know who Shohei Ohtani was, and it took 7,524 attempts.
November 6, 2025
Apparently she’s a 19 year old student who doesn’t watch TV and isn’t interested in sports.
19 comments
I realize that flu masks are commonplace in East Asia (and have been since long before COVID) but the way it so thoroughly hides her face makes it look like some kind of witness protection thing so she’s not outed as the heretic unaware of Ohtani lol.
I wonder who the most challenging one would be in the US, maybe excluding politicans. Tom Cruise? Needs to be somewhat cross-generational.
In Japan, to live without knowing Shohei Ohtani’s name or face, you’d have to completely shut off your sight, hearing, and internet access, never go outside, and refuse to talk to anyone. Especially in the city, Shohei Ohtani is practically like oxygen.
“Oh, that guy? Yeah, I see his face on the subway ads, and on billboards, and at my school and my mom’s house. And on social media ads, and at 7/11 and at the local place we go for snacks after class. But no, I never wondered who it was.”
Unless she lives somewhere rural (and from that picture it looks like she doesn’t), there has to be some element of willful ignorance too. His face is on so many ads everywhere you look in urban Japan, even if you don’t watch tv: billboards, sides of buildings, subway cars, newspapers. She may not know who he is, but I really doubt she hasn’t seen his face.
If that girl is identified I fear they may arrest her and give her the death penalty for her ignorance.
I’m currently in Japan, if you woke up from a decades long coma you’d think Ohtani were the dictator of Japan with how his face is plastered everywhere and you’d know who he was within a few days. No clue how she managed that.
whoever exists without knowledge of Ohtani exists without his consent
Do you have a link to the video?
This isn’t a baseball thing. If you’ve ever been to
Japan you’ll see his face on everything. Regardless if you know him from baseball, you’ll recognize his face.
Is this like how people try to get through December without hearing “Last Christmas”
I was in Tokyo last week. So many Ohtani ads everywhere
Do people really dress like that in Japan?
If you don’t live here, you’ll never know how popular this dude is. I can’t walk down the street without seeing his face on something. You might not even care about baseball, but his sponsorships are endless.
I can’t help but to wonder what the sports equivalent would be in the USA.
0.0001% of 350,000,000 million folks dont know this guy
If you’ve ever been to the Tokyo area, you know that there are vending machines everywhere. I couldn’t believe how on seemly every other corner there was the same green tea (I think) vending machine with his photo on it.
My wife “Who’s Shohei Ohtani?”
Link to video?
Can’t walk a corner in a major city or anywhere with a convenience store without seeing Ohtani’s face plastered somewhere
19 comments
I realize that flu masks are commonplace in East Asia (and have been since long before COVID) but the way it so thoroughly hides her face makes it look like some kind of witness protection thing so she’s not outed as the heretic unaware of Ohtani lol.
I wonder who the most challenging one would be in the US, maybe excluding politicans. Tom Cruise? Needs to be somewhat cross-generational.
In Japan, to live without knowing Shohei Ohtani’s name or face, you’d have to completely shut off your sight, hearing, and internet access, never go outside, and refuse to talk to anyone. Especially in the city, Shohei Ohtani is practically like oxygen.
“Oh, that guy? Yeah, I see his face on the subway ads, and on billboards, and at my school and my mom’s house. And on social media ads, and at 7/11 and at the local place we go for snacks after class. But no, I never wondered who it was.”
Unless she lives somewhere rural (and from that picture it looks like she doesn’t), there has to be some element of willful ignorance too. His face is on so many ads everywhere you look in urban Japan, even if you don’t watch tv: billboards, sides of buildings, subway cars, newspapers. She may not know who he is, but I really doubt she hasn’t seen his face.
If that girl is identified I fear they may arrest her and give her the death penalty for her ignorance.
I’m currently in Japan, if you woke up from a decades long coma you’d think Ohtani were the dictator of Japan with how his face is plastered everywhere and you’d know who he was within a few days. No clue how she managed that.
whoever exists without knowledge of Ohtani exists without his consent
Do you have a link to the video?
This isn’t a baseball thing. If you’ve ever been to
Japan you’ll see his face on everything. Regardless if you know him from baseball, you’ll recognize his face.
Is this like how people try to get through December without hearing “Last Christmas”
I was in Tokyo last week. So many Ohtani ads everywhere
Do people really dress like that in Japan?
If you don’t live here, you’ll never know how popular this dude is. I can’t walk down the street without seeing his face on something. You might not even care about baseball, but his sponsorships are endless.
I can’t help but to wonder what the sports equivalent would be in the USA.
0.0001% of 350,000,000 million folks dont know this guy
If you’ve ever been to the Tokyo area, you know that there are vending machines everywhere. I couldn’t believe how on seemly every other corner there was the same green tea (I think) vending machine with his photo on it.
My wife “Who’s Shohei Ohtani?”
Link to video?
Can’t walk a corner in a major city or anywhere with a convenience store without seeing Ohtani’s face plastered somewhere