When Japanese people hear “Brazil,” the images that come to mind are often quite clear.
Football, samba, the Rio Carnival, the Amazon.
On a map, Brazil is almost on the opposite side of the world from Japan. It is an extremely distant country, and yet Brazil appears surprisingly often in everyday Japanese life.
One obvious example is football.
Pelé, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Neymar.
Many Japanese people came to know Brazil through global superstars like these.
But in Japan, the connection goes much further than that.
Since the early days of the J.League, large numbers of Brazilian players have played for Japanese clubs.
Among them, Zico occupies a particularly important place.
He joined Sumitomo Metal Industries, the predecessor of Kashima Antlers, and continued playing for Kashima after the J.League began. His connection with Japanese football continued long after that, and he later coached the Japan national team at the World Cup.
And Zico was far from the only one.
Alcindo, Bismarck, Dunga, Leonardo, César Sampaio, Emerson, Washington.
Anyone who has followed the J.League for years will probably recognize several of those names.
Some arrived in Japan already famous as Brazilian internationals. Others became familiar to Japanese fans because of what they did for Japanese clubs.
So for Japanese football fans, Brazil is not only the powerhouse they watch at the World Cup. It is also the country of players who have helped shape Japanese football itself.
That is why Brazilian players can feel especially familiar among foreign players in Japan.
There is also a much more ordinary connection: coffee.
In Japanese supermarkets and cafés, the word “Brazil” often appears not in the news, but on labels describing where the coffee beans came from.
In a sense, Japanese people may encounter the name Brazil over their morning cup of coffee.
But when thinking about the relationship between Japan and Brazil, there is something much deeper than football or coffee.
The movement of people.
Large-scale Japanese migration to Brazil began in the early twentieth century, and over time Brazil developed one of the largest Japanese-descended communities in the world.
Japanese people who see São Paulo’s Liberdade district or festivals preserving Japanese culture are sometimes surprised by how visible those connections still are.
Brazil is an extremely distant country, yet generations of people with Japanese roots have built their lives there.
And the movement did not remain one-way.
Later, increasing numbers of people from Brazil moved to Japan.
Today, there are communities in Japan where many people of Brazilian background live, and some Japanese people encounter Brazil through schools, workplaces, shops, restaurants, and local events.
They may see signs in Portuguese, shop at Brazilian supermarkets, eat at Brazilian restaurants, or have classmates and coworkers with roots in Brazil.
Seen this way, Brazil occupies a slightly unusual place in the Japanese imagination.
On the map, it is very far away.
Yet Japanese people see Brazilian players in football, find “Brazil” printed on coffee labels, and live in towns where people connected to Brazil are part of the local community.
Over many years, people, culture, and sport have moved back and forth between the two countries.
For Japanese people, Brazil is a country almost on the other side of the world, yet one they keep encountering inside Japanese society itself.
References
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Federative Republic of Brazil” and Japan–Brazil relations
- J.League materials on Zico and Brazilian players in Japanese football
- Embassy and Consulate-General of Japan in Brazil, materials on the Japanese-Brazilian community
- Brazilian government and Japanese-Brazilian community materials
- Immigration Services Agency of Japan, statistics on foreign residents
