After a long break, I recently picked up and continued my rewatch of Captain Tsubasa (1983). As I was going through my previous posts and short episode descriptions, I remembered being strangely intrigued by a building that is briefly shown in the anime. This building seemed to serve as a dormitory for the young players participating in the tournament. What piqued my interest, however, was the building's peculiar shape. With its slanted roof it looked to me like it was maybe built under some sort of ski jump ramp. The construction was certainly strange and specific enough to make me think it could be based on a real building in Japan.

I had searched for it a little bit back then without success, but wouldn't it be so cool to find this building? Quite some time has passed since I first started this rewatch and among the more positive developments I've since become a little bit less scared of the Japanese language. Maybe I could find something this time? So, and since I apparently don't have better things to do, I set out to find this building I briefly saw in an anime from 1983.

And, well, it worked out much better than I could have thought. I first learned that the tournament taking place in the anime is called the '6th Yomiuriland National Tournament' (よみうりランド 全国 大会) and is based on the actual youth soccer tournament taking place in Japan. Opened in the 1960s, Yomiuriland is a location just outside Tokyo that is still a bit difficult for me to understand. It's an amusement park, but it also has a baseball stadium, and water park. And, of course, soccer fields!

With my guess of a ski jump ramp, Yomiuriland as a keyword and a little bit of searching I was indeed able to find the building. It turns out that starting from 1963, Yomiuriland was operating the 'Yomiuri Ski Center' (読売スキーセンター), which not only featured a slope for grass skiing but also a proper ski jump ramp¹. The ski jump ramp was mainly used for training and is credited to have contributed to Japan's dominating victory, claiming all three medals in the 70m ski jump competition in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo².

After the ski resort closed in 1972, the building underneath the ski jump ramp kept operating as the 'Yomiuriland Hall' (よみうりランド会館) and was used as a dormitory for school excursions. It is the exact building shown in the anime. I wonder how absolutely exciting it must have been for children who had participated in the Yomiuriland National Tournament and who had stayed in the Yomuriland Hall to see their experiences retold in Captain Tsubasa, a show that aired worldwide in multiple countries.

Today the site is used as a training grounds for the Yomiuri Giants baseball team. Yomiuriland Hall existed until 2004, but was then demolished. Today only the large tower of the former skiing center remains, but it can't be accessed³. Although I won't be able to visit the Yomiuri Schanze, I had a lot of fun looking for and finding this information. I hope you enjoyed reading about this as well!