Handball team
Japan
Club · Japan · Asian Championship
«Comet Japan»
Comet Japan reached the top of Asian handball twice in a row, in 1977 and 1979. That peak sits between two long runs of near misses: six silver medals in the Asian Championship, spread from 1983 through to 2024, and five bronzes, most recently in 2020. South Korea supplied the sharpest of those finals during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Japan Handball Association traces back to February 1938, founded under the name Nihon Sokyu Kyokai, but the national side itself has no separate founding date — it stepped onto the international stage only in 1961, finishing 12th at the World Championship in West Germany. Eleven years later came Munich and a first Olympic appearance, closed out in 11th place; the best Olympic finish, ninth, followed in 1976, and the best World Championship result, tenth, dates to 1970, when Nobuyuki Iida top-scored for the side.
The team plays under the name Suisei Japan, in blue and red, and carries no single home ground — matches in Tokyo have gone to the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium and to the Yoyogi National Gymnasium's First Gymnasium. Among the current generation, Yuto Agarie was named MVP of the 2020 Asian Championship, and Shinnosuke Tokuda, who built his career partly at Al Duhail in Qatar, has passed a hundred caps for the national team.
Latest results
Fixtures and results| 29 Sep | Asian Games |
South Korea
H
|
37:32 | W |
| 28 Sep | Asian Games |
Bahrain
H
|
31:35 | L |
| 26 Sep | Asian Games |
Kuwait
H
|
37:32 | W |
| 25 Sep | Asian Games |
Qatar
A
|
28:37 | L |
| 21 Sep | Asian Games |
Hong Kong
A
|
44:17 | W |
| 20 Sep | Asian Games |
China
A
|
31:27 | W |
Standing
Asian GamesGroup stage · Group A
| # | Team | M | W | D | L | Goals | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Qatar
|
3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0:70 | 6 |
| 2 |
 Japan
|
3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0:81 | 4 |
| 3 |
China
|
3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0:87 | 2 |
| 4 |
Hong Kong
|
3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0:122 | 0 |
Team statistics
matches counted in total: 61| Metric | Total | Home | Away |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matches | 61 | 27 | 34 |
| Scored | 1872 | 861 | 1011 |
| Conceded | 1775 | 736 | 1039 |
| Scored per game | 30.7 | 31.9 | 29.7 |
| Conceded per game | 29.1 | 27.3 | 30.6 |
| Difference | +97 | +125 | −28 |
Fixtures of Japan
Honours of Japan
- Asian Men's Handball Championship 1977, 1979 2
- Asian Men's Handball Championship 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, 2004, 2024 6
- Asian Games 1982, 1990, 1994 3
- Asian Men's Handball Championship 1993, 2000, 2010, 2016, 2020 5
- Asian Games 1986, 1998, 2010 3