Why Japan and the Bundesliga are a perfect match
From original trailblazer Yasuhiko Okudera in the 1970s to Shinji Kagawa and Makoto Hasebe in more recent times, Japanese players have repeatedly excelled in Germany. With the likes of Kaishu Sano, Ritsu Dōan and Hiroki Ito leading the current large crop of Samurai Blue in the Bundesliga, learn more about the impact that some high-class imports have made.
Matchday 20 of the 2021/22 Bundesliga campaign went down as a significant one for fans of Japanese football.
The meeting of Eintracht Frankfurt and Arminia Bielefeld was always going to be pivotal, with the Eagles pushing for a top-four finish and the visitors scrapping to survive in the top flight for another year.
Bundesliga followers in Japan, however, will remember it as another notable landmark in their football journey. That's because three players from those two clubs - Hasebe and his former teammate at Eintracht, Daichi Kamada, as well as Masaya Okugawa all played leading roles.
Watch: Top 5 Japanese goals in the Bundesliga
The master and his apprentices
Hasebe was a wily defensive stalwart, and that Bielefeld game fell in the week of his 38th birthday.
Attacking midfielder Kamada, meanwhile, had been smartly playing between the lines at Eintracht, and in the end would feature for four full seasons with Die Adler, plus four games in 2017/18. The current Crystal Palace player's efforts and crucial goals even helped Frankfurt to lift the 2022 UEFA Europa League.
Okugawa's second season in the Bundesliga with Bielefeld saw the versatile player take off. He scored eight times, even netting in four games in a row. His overall tally for the Blues before sealing a 2023/24 move to Augsburg was 16 goals and 13 assists in 80 appearances. After 105 games in Germany's top two divisions, Okugawa returned to Japan in 2025.
Bundesliga most popular in Europe
Currently, there are 14 Japanese players on the books in the Bundesliga, with the playing links between the nations only growing on a yearly basis.
In 2019/20, for example, holding midfielder Wataru Endo - now at Liverpool - helped Stuttgart return to the Bundesliga and kept them up with a famous late goal. After finishing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics with Japan, Endo arrived back in Germany to take the captain's armband and found compatriot Hiroki Ito already settling in at the club.
Ito swiftly became a first-team regular too. The 27-year-old centre-back scored his first goal for the Swabians in their 2-1 win over Mainz in 2021 - on his way to claiming the Bundesliga Rookie of the Month award for November that same year. Ito's consistent performances earned him a move to Bayern Munich ahead of the 2024/25 season and after a difficult start to his time at Germany's record champions because of injuries, the defender is now getting regular playing time under Vincent Kompany.
Former Arsenal, Hannover and Stuttgart wide man Takuma Asano, meanwhile, played an important role for Bochum during his three years at the club. Asano - a scorer of nine goals in 53 games for Japan - was a firm favourite on Castroper Straße, having featured 90 times for the club, scoring 14 times.
Ko Itakura also paved his way in Germany, becoming a regular starter at Borussia Mönchengladbach - playing 80 games across all competitions between 2022 and 2025 - before switching to Dutch club Ajax.
Ritsu Dōan, a scorer of crucial goals in Japan's victories against Germany and Spain at the FIFA World Cup 2022, became a fan favourite at Freiburg since signing for the Black Forest club in 2022. The wide man was again on top form in 2024/25, scoring 10 and assisting seven more as Freiburg narrowly missed out on UEFA Champions League football. Dōan, though, completed a move to Frankfurt for the 2025/26 season, scoring five goals and registering five assists in 31 Bundesliga games for his new club.
The 2024/25 campaign also saw the emergence of two new Japanese stars in the Bundesliga in Shuto Machino and Kaishu Sano. Despite Holstein Kiel's eventual relegation from the Bundesliga, Machino - having scored 11 league goals - continued his Bundesliga adventure with Gladbach where he struck three times.
Sano, meanwhile, was a pivotal part of Mainz's successful push for European football, providing an excellent shield in front of the defence with his energy and tenacity before helping the 05ers stave off relegation the following campaign.
Watch: Japanese highlights from 2024/25
The 2025 Bundesliga summer transfer window brought with it four further Japanese talents. Koki Machida joined Hoffenheim and Freiburg acquired the services of Yuito Suzuki, who proved another success story for the Breisgau club having struck four goals and provided two assists in 25 Bundesliga games, while St. Pauli and Mainz secured moves for Joel Fujita and Sota Kawasaki respectively.
Tomoya Andō and Taichi Hara linked up with Fujita at Pauli in the winter transfer window but were unable to prevent the club's relegation after two seasons in the top flight, while Kento Shiogai's one goal for Wolfsburg also wasn't enough to keep his new side in the division.
Ahead of 2026/27, Freiburg have already secured two new Japanese arrivals. Rihito Yamamoto and Keisuke Gotō join from Belgian clubs Sint-Truiden and Anderlecht respecitlvey. Satoshi Tanaka, having played 13 Bundesliga 2 games for Fortuna Düsseldorf joins newly promoted Schalke, and Zento Uno has switched to Gladbach from Shimizu S-Pulse.
It's clear, then, that German clubs are increasingly looking to the home of the four-time Asian champions for decisive and dependable performers. Japan, after all, is now one of the top 10 countries in the Bundesliga in terms of player representation.
Two Japanese players - Okudera and Hasebe - are in the Bundesliga Legends Network. The former was the first from the country to feature at the top level in Germany, lining up for Cologne, Hertha and Werder Bremen in the 1970s and 1980s.
Another of the most successful Japanese players to grace the German top flight was Shinji Kagawa, who scored 60 goals in 216 games for Borussia Dortmund over two separate stints at the club. In the first of them - between 2010 and 2012 - he won two league titles and the DFB Cup in a spectacular young side coached by Jürgen Klopp.
Hasebe, meanwhile, is the longest-serving of the lot. He arrived in Germany in January 2008, anchoring the midfield as Wolfsburg won the Bundesliga for the first time in 2008/09. A year at Nuremberg followed before he moved on to Frankfurt in 2014.
Capped 114 times and a former captain of his country, Hasebe successfully extended his career and enhanced Eintracht's team by dropping into a back three. His anticipation and reading of the game could only be matched by his bravery, and the Eagles beat Bayern Munich to win the 2017/18 DFB Cup before winning the Europa League in 2022 with the Japanese on board.
Hasebe the evergreen record breaker
The Japanese legend continued to play until he was 40, making 384 Bundesliga appearances, setting the record for most games by an Asian player in the German top flight. He was also the oldest active outfield player in the division when he retired.
"He works very hard on his body and puts professional football before everything," then-Eintracht sporting director Fredi Bobic said on Hasebe back in March 2021. "The fact that - at his age - he's still a key player and still indispensable to the team is down to his highly professional attitude more than anything."
Backed by the talent to go with their attitude, Japanese players are leaving lasting legacies in German football, and that looks set to continue in the years ahead.
