Major League Baseball will celebrate the league’s 12 active Japanese players through custom manholes that will feature one player in each design, to be installed at locations associated with that player’s roots in baseball, starting Monday, June 16th. Each of the 12 manholes were designed by different artists, crafted to tell the unique stories of the player’s path to Major Leaague Baseball, while capturing the their unique style and characteristics, both as players and individuals.
The manholes will feature content exclusive to those that experience the excitement on-site, through short AR movies that can be viewed on mobile devices by scanning the manholes.
In addition, MLB and Japan Airlines (JAL) will collaborate for a special project that will further enrich the manhole experience for those that visit one of the manholes in-person. Details of this project will be announced together with the launch of the first manhole on June 16th.
Installations of manholes will launch on Monday, June 16th starting with three in Iwate Prefecture: Shohei Ohtani (Oshu), Yusei Kikuchi (Morioka) and Roki Sasaki (Rikuzentakata). Launch venues will be unveiled gradually through MLB’s Japanese Instagram account @mlbjapan.
Installation Schedule
June 16 – Shohei Ohtani: Oshu City, Iwate PrefectureJune 16 – Yusei Kikuchi: Morioka City, Iwate PrefectureJune 16 – Roki Sasaki: Rikuzentakata City, Iwate PrefectureJune 17 – Yu Darvish: Habikino City, Osaka PrefectureJune 18 – Yuki Matsui: Yokohama City, Kanagawa PrefectureJune 19 – Shota Imanaga: Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka PrefectureJune 23 – Lars Nootbaar: Higashimatsuyama City, Saitama PrefectureJune 24 – Seiya Suzuki: Arakawa Ward, TokyoJune 25 – Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Bizen City, Okayama PrefectureJune 26 – Masataka Yoshida: Fukui City, Fukui PrefectureJune 27 – Kodai Senga: Gamagori City, Aichi PrefectureJune 29 – Tomoyuki Sugano: Sagamihara City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Together with the manhole designs, a ‘making-of’ promotional video featuring the manufacturing and design processes has been launched.
AloJapan.com