Akihisa Shirota, 36, clearly remembers the evening of Oct. 14, 1974.
A Yomiuri Giants-Chunichi Dragons pro-baseball game was on television. His father told him to sit in the seiza formal sitting position and watch it. It was baseball superstar Shigeo Nagashima's last game.
"I sensed something really big was happening," recalls Shirota, now a producer at Media Factory Inc., "because my father was shedding tears watching Nagashima retiring, even though he was a Hanshin Tigers fan." The top item covered on that day's main evening news was Nagashima's retirement.