Did the aftermath of Japan’s final match in the World Cup group stage result in order or chaos at one of Tokyo’s biggest gathering spots?
The FIFA World Cup currently taking place in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. has sparked all kinds of excitement in the air in Japan. The Japanese national team’s performance had been solid in the group stage, drawing in its first match and winning its second, prior to its last matchup against Sweden on June 25 local time.
We had tried to grab tickets to watch this one at the official public viewing being offered at Tokyo’s Toho Cinemas Shibuya on the morning of June 26 Japan Standard Time (JST) but it was sadly already sold out. Instead, we decided to hang around the same area anyway, since the famous Shibuya scramble intersection has become a sort of infamous gathering space for all kinds of revelries and can get quite chaotic. Maybe we’d see something interesting if Japan played well.
Here’s what the intersection area looked like just prior to 8 a.m. JST. We spotted more people walking around than typical at this time on a weekday as well as some police on standby. If anything, everyone seemed to be a bit restless in anticipation of what was to come.
The game isn’t broadcast on the big screen at the intersection anymore like it used to be, but even so, there were some groups of people hanging around the Hachiko plaza who were wearing Samurai Blue uniforms. They were probably watching the match on their phones in solidarity.
Not much changed in the overall atmosphere of the vicinity as the match went on. Some media outlets had gathered with cameras but they were still just biding their time. Even the people gathered by the Hachiko statue were more subdued while watching than at an official public viewing event. Was this the calm before the storm?
We wanted to see the view from a higher vantage point so we crossed the street and found a window seat at the Starbucks overlooking the intersection and Shibuya Station.
We saw the number of people in the area start to increase around 9 a.m. Suddenly, a loud cheer erupted inside the cafe when Daizen Maeda scored the first goal of the match for Japan. It was a fun feeling of comradery to share this moment with others.
Traffic control finally went into effect around 9:30 a.m. The area was starting to become more lively with pedestrians and more people were gathering in front of the station to watch the second half.
Not long after, Sweden’s Anthony Elanga tied the score and the match intensified. We saw that some people in the cafe who had been silently watching it on their laptops were now chatting and watching it together with some foreigners right up until it ended with no further goals.
In the past, Japan’s national team was more likely to be the ones to equalize the match rather than to score the first goal. Back then even a draw used to be worthy of great celebration, but now it feels more like an “Ugh, we were so close!” kind of moment. Consequently, we were curious how people in the streets would react to this end result.
We didn’t have to wait long to find out as the movie theater public viewing let out and swarms descended on the intersection around 10 a.m.
Every time the walk signal turned on the crowds flocked to the center of the street, giving high-fives to random passerby and chanting Nippon! Nippon! (Japan! Japan!) in unison. Welp, that answered our question!
Another thing we noticed was that there were quite a number of foreigners mixed in with the crowd and they were all filming the spectacle on their phones. It seemed like this experience in and of itself was a form of entertainment.
▼ Here’s a short video clip of the scene.
To sum it up, the end result of the Japan vs. Sweden match translated into orderly celebrations at the Shibuya Scramble intersection. Who knows whether that orderliness will translate into chaos if Japan manages to defeat Brazil in its first match of the knockout stage–which begins on June 30 at 2 a.m. JST–but we’ll be waiting to find out.
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