The Development of Post-WWII Japanese Baseball Culture Under Dual Domestic and External Driving Forces

Abstract

After World War II (WWII), the Japanese government was facing the challenges of rebuilding domestic cultural order and restoring Japan’s international image. This process was not only a matter of political reconstruction, but also a broader attempt to reshape social values, public memory, and Japan’s cultural position in the postwar world. As an imported foreign sport from America, baseball functioned as a tool for demilitarization in Japan and for the construction of Japan-U.S. cultural identity during the occupation period. Through its association with American leisure, discipline, teamwork, and fair competition, baseball provided a relatively gentle and popular medium through which postwar Japanese society could distance itself from wartime militarism. Meanwhile, the Japanese government, education system, and mass media fostered the localization of baseball culture in Japan through school physical education, competition systems, infrastructure construction, and cultural diffusion. These mechanisms gradually transformed baseball from an imported sport into a widely accepted national cultural practice, especially among students and urban audiences. From the perspective of international relations and cultural construction, this paper clarifies that the development of baseball culture was not a pure cultural transplantation, but the result of both external impetus and internal renovation.