Japan

The furthest Japan had ever gone at a Rugby World Cup was the quarter-finals, reached in 2019 after a pool stage. They beat Ireland 19–12, then Scotland 28–21, then Russia 30–10, and went into the knockout rounds unbeaten before South Africa ended the run 26–3. It made Japan the first Asian side to reach that stage of the tournament. Ayumu Goromaru finished his career as the team's all-time leading scorer with 711 points. Michael Leitch captained both of those campaigns and holds the most World Cup appearances for the country.

Beyond the World Cup, the team's dominance has been regional rather than global: it has won the Asian Rugby Championship 25 times between 1969 and 2017. The Pacific Nations Cup came in 2011 and was shared in 2014.

The union behind the Brave Blossoms, the Japan Rugby Football Union, was formed in 1926, six years before the national side played its first official international, a 9–8 win over Canada in Osaka. The squad still draws heavily on university rugby, with programmes at Waseda, Keio, Meiji and Teikyo feeding players through to the corporate clubs that make up the country's domestic game.