World Cup 2010 Jerseys: Japan

May 10th, 2010 | by: chris | View Comments

There’s a reason for everyone to look good at the World Cup. After all, if you can’t look good while winning, what’s the point?

Japan’s reason is damn good: they represent one of the world’s biggest fashion hubs, perhaps the single biggest fashion hub, in Tokyo. Therefore they must put on a show and do honor to the living spirit of Hidetoshi Nakata, who’s surely critiquing their every fashion move.

The brand is adidas, and they didn’t exactly go with their “cookie cutter” 2010 line, instead with a more unique national identity. Plus they have Shunsuke Nakamura pointing and yelling at someone, presumably where in the back of the net his free kick is about to go. The whole thing is simply awesome.

Want one? Grab the Japan World Cup home shirt at our store.

It’s royal blue, what with the Japanese national team being the Blue Samurai and all. Two things jump out immediately: the red patch, or patches, and the intricate design in the blue. That design is actually leaves cleverly hidden.

What it means is merely theory having stumbled around the interwebs to no avail, but given the nature of their placement in the shirt, I think it might be a decent one: Hagakure is a famous book on the bushido, the “way of the warrior” (the samurai code of behavior), which translates to ‘hidden leaves’. It’s a rather famous text, so given the importance and inspiration of the samurai way, the nickname of the team, Blue Samurai, and the leaves being ‘hidden’ in the blue, I think this might be the most ingenious kit at the World Cup.

Above, the clutter across the top with four separate instances of identification is a little busy for me. Personally, I would’ve suggested doing without the adidas logo and moving the Japanese flag over to the right. Pretty sure that would’ve resulted in adidas personnel asking me to leave the room, however. And added on the official shirts but not on the replicas is the new adidas TechFit which looks like a bra on the outside of the shirt: stylish and supported.

There’s an epic manga at the adidas Japanese site which makes one think this kit might have special powers – do report back if it makes you fly with suspicious flames behind you – along with the actual story in Japanese that is beyond my grasp.

Want one? Grab the Japan World Cup away shirt at our store.

These Japanese kits are awully good lookin’, aren’t they? This one’s rather more simple, but no less aesthetic. The classic away white (they’ll add blue shorts) with the three blue adidas stripes running down the shoulder along with that highly identifiable red patch just above the sternum. There’s a better glimpse of the crest here, along with the flag and that pesky adidas logo, all of which doesn’t look quite so busy without those falling leaves. There’s a mesh upper torso so as to keep cool in the South African, err, winter, working up into sort of the half collar, too.

It’s very understated, so to keep it similarly simplified: these are two of the best kits at the World Cup.