It’s a hot day at the Komatsugawa Athletic Park in eastern Tokyo. Tokyo Skytree looms over the skyline in the distance, and the occasional passing train makes it hard to hear, but for the Quidditch players warming up, neither sun nor sound bother them in the slightest. These players have withstood the impacts of COVID-19 and thrived on the world stage.
After springing up in the 2010s here in Japan, Tokyo now boasts five different teams, while universities in Osaka and Kyoto also play host to their own clubs. While this rise has been a welcome turn for the players, it is a solid recovery from the toll the pandemic took upon the sport.
“We had to stop practice completely, of course,” Miyu Taniguchi says.
At 29 years of age, Taniguchi is one of the youngest captains of a Tokyo Quidditch team — Ironhorse Quidditch. They’ve only been around for a few months, due to league-imposed COVID restrictions, but Taniguchi, who operates a small janitorial services business off the pitch, explains how they managed to keep team cohesion strong.
“We didn’t want to just stop completely,” she says, stopping for a quick drink of water before heading back to the pitch. “So we decided that instead of training together, we’d work out and do exercises together. We used Instagram calls and live broadcasts to make it work, and it made us feel more connected, even if we weren’t physically together.”
Watching the players run through passing, shooting and defensive drills, it’s easy to see how even a warm-up was enough to create a sense of camaraderie. There are five new players on the pitch, each enjoying their first introduction to the sport, but the experienced players are supportive and helpful, guiding them through the basics.
Based on the sport from the iconic Harry Potter book series, Quidditch came to Japan in late 2017. A mixed-gender sport, each team has six players on the field at a time. They include three chasers, a keeper and two beaters: The chasers attempt to score in the opposing team's goal — a set of three hoops — while beaters throw volleyballs to knock them out of the game temporarily. After a set amount of time, each team fields a seventh player, their seeker, whose goal is to catch the “golden snitch,” a neutral player who attempts to avoid being caught. The game ends when the snitch is caught, and the team with the most points wins.
A mix of rugby, dodgeball and tag, Quidditch places a premium on pace and passing accuracy. Most teams will practice weekly, with friendly games every fortnight.
In an unexpected sign of the sport’s growth, governing body Major League Quidditch announced in 2022 that it would be officially changing its name to Major League Quadball, a move designed to distance itself from author J.K. Rowling and her controversial statements on gender identity and transgender rights. While much of the sport’s community now refers to the new name, the Japan Quidditch Association has yet to make the same change, and most players in Japan continue to use Quidditch instead of the new Quadball moniker.
Soon enough, the newcomers at the practice are playing with as much confidence and delight as everyone else. With the steady stream of new players, this training session has a dozen players attending, approximately a third of whom are foreign residents or visitors. But, as Taniguchi is quick to explain, Quidditch in Japan took a while to recover from the pandemic. Once the restrictions were completely lifted in May, teams began to slowly coalesce again.
“When we came back, it was like the Quidditch scene had to be developed all over again,” she says. “We only had five or six people at first, and other players came back very slowly. It was almost like when we first started Quidditch in Japan. But now we’re having a lot more players come back.”
Of the Quidditch teams active in Japan, several of them can measure their ages in months, if not weeks. The Quidditch world has begun to shake off the lingering effects of COVID-19, and Taniguchi is intimately familiar with one reason in particular for this return to form.
“It’s probably because of the Quidditch World Cup,” she says, showing off her jersey. “I got this while I was playing there, when I traded shirts with another team. Everyone who knows about Quidditch was incredibly motivated by the idea of the World Cup, and wanted to be chosen by the selectors. In the end, of course, not all of us could go, but the way it revitalized the sport was incredible.”
Held in Richmond, Virginia, in July, the International Quadball Association’s World Cup featured teams from around the world, with powerful competitors such as the United States and Germany battling for the world title. Japan’s squad consisted of members chosen from every team in the country after a rigorous selection process. While Japan finished 11th in the final rankings, the captain of the Japanese national team, Kohei Koyama, took a break from shooting drills at Komatsugawa Athletic Park to give me an overview of his experiences there.
“It was really, really fun,” Koyama says. “We didn’t do as well as we’d hoped, but it didn’t really matter. There was just such a high level of competition there — players who could play the sport professionally if it was that popular. But at the same time, it wasn’t competitive to the point of hostility. We all wanted to win and do our best, but everyone was still very inclusive and there was a strong sense of community.”
At 28 years old, Koyama has been an ardent supporter of Quidditch in Japan since its inception. He was considered for captain as one of the most experienced players in Japan, and also leads the Japan Quidditch Association as a founding member. Despite these achievements, he remains committed to the elements of community and cohesiveness that he has always felt are integral to the sport.
“If I could bring back two things from my experience at the World Cup, it would be the level of competitiveness and the general feeling of inclusivity,” he says, while watching a defensive play on the pitch. As a pass is thrown, he calls out encouragement, before returning to his thoughts. “I want us to develop a competitive attitude so we can compete at the highest levels, but it’s also important we keep cultivating an atmosphere of inclusiveness. We want to be the most welcoming sport for anyone who wants to play.”
Koyama describes how his team, the Tokyo Penguins, maintained their community over the pandemic — nightly training and tactics meetings via video chat. Much like Taniguchi, though, he notes that only the core players returned immediately. Only over time did the team numbers swell as more players returned or were introduced.
As the training session begins to round off, that sense of support is on full display. Players congratulate each other on outstanding plays, make plans for lunch and discuss upcoming events such as the Asia-Pacific Cup and the Quadball Cup. Both of the new Japanese players decide to tag along for lunch, mentioning how they plan on attending the next session while they decide which team they want to join.
And just like that, the ranks of Quidditch players in Japan grow. The power of community is proving the biggest draw for the sport. Justus Schwenzer, a tourist and visiting player from the German Dusseldorf Dementors team, says he was also attracted to the sense of inclusivity.
“I’m a post-pandemic player, I only started playing after the restrictions were lifted back home,” he explains over a post-session plate of dumplings. “Originally, I just wanted to give it a try for the variety, but I honestly think the community around the game is the biggest seller.”
He gestures around the table to the players, all immersed in light and cheerful conversations.
“When I came to Japan, the community here was so welcoming. I barely speak Japanese at all, but it doesn’t matter — everyone is so committed to being inclusive that we find a way to communicate,” he says. “I think that speaks to the heart of what a community is: A place where you don’t let the barriers that separate you matter, you focus on the things you have in common and create connections through them.”
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