Sarina Koga scored a team-high 14 points and Miyu Nagaoka added 13 as Japan got off to a good start in the FIVB Women's World Cup by beating Argentina 25-16, 25-19, 25-12 on Saturday at Yoyogi National Gymnasium.
Japan is playing host for the 12th straight World Cup, which features a 12-nation field in a round-robin competition. The top two teams will earn Olympic berths for the 2015 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games.
Japan, which lost the first matches in the 2014 World Championship and the World Grand Prix in July, started slowly, struggling to establish the combination between setter Chizuru Koto and wing spikers Saori Kimura and Nagaoka.