At SoftBank Hawks in Fukuoka, he was Japan's top talent, the number one draft pick, and everyone from top to bottom in the organization acknowledged him as the "Prince of SoftBank." From Chairman Wang Zhenzhi to Coach Akiyama Koji, and even teammates like Shetsu Shou, Nakagawa Seiichi, and Yanagida Yuuki, everyone took his presence for granted from the very beginning.
But when he left Japan and came to the United States alone, everything seemed to change: although he delivered a dominating performance in the Nippon Professional Baseball—dubbed the "4A league"—in the vast land of America, he was temporarily just an unknown.
Even with Tanaka Masahiro, an old acquaintance, helping him avoid some trouble, truly becoming integrated into this team ultimately relied on his own efforts—a reticent person who couldn't even say a word in three tries would never survive in America.
