2023 Japan Series | ||||||||||
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Dates | October 28 – November 5, 2023 | |||||||||
Venue(s) | Kyocera Dome Osaka (Orix) Koshien Stadium (Hanshin) | |||||||||
MVP | Kōji Chikamoto (Hanshin) | |||||||||
FSA | Kotaro Kurebayashi (Orix) | |||||||||
Broadcast | ||||||||||
Television | FNN (Games 1 & 7) NHK-BS1 (Games 1, 2, 3, & 5) TXN (Game 2) JNN (Games 3 & 6) NNN (Game 4) ANN (Game 5) TVer (All Games, live streaming)[1] | |||||||||
Radio | NHK Radio 1 ABC Radio MBS | |||||||||
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The 2023 Japan Series (日本シリーズ, Nippon Shiriizu) was the championship series of Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) 2023 season. The 74th edition of the Japan Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the winners of the Central League (CL) and Pacific League's (PL) postseason tournament, the Climax Series. The Hanshin Tigers and Orix Buffaloes each won their respective CL and PL titles in the regular season, which advanced both teams directly to the final stages of the Climax Series; each then earned Japan Series berths by winning their respective CL and PL Climax Series.
The Tigers and the Buffaloes both play in Japan's Kansai region, which made it only the second time that two Kansai-based teams played each other in the Japan Series, the other being in 1964. Because of the teams' close proximity, the series was dubbed "The Great Kansai Derby" and the "Namba Line Series" by Japanese media. While Orix won the previous year's championship, the last title for the Tigers came 38 years prior in 1985, then the second-longest active championship drought in NPB. Starting on October 28, 2023, and ending on November 5, 2023, Hanshin won the series in seven games, thus ending their championship drought and the Curse of the Colonel, a superstition that was believed by some to be responsible for the team's struggles. Koji Chikamoto was named the series' Most Valuable Player and Kotaro Kurebayashi won the Fighting Spirit Award as Orix's best player in the series.