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Upskirt photos lead Japanese high school to redesign cheerleader uniforms

26 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

This year’s iteration of the annual Japanese High School Baseball Invitational Tournament, also known as the Spring Koshien tournament, will be starting soon. Among the 32 teams competing will be Takasaki University of Health and Welfare High School, representing Gunma Prefecture.

Though they’ve never won, this isn’t Takasaki’s first time in the tournament. 2024 will be their second year in a row to take part in the contest, and seventh overall. With the start of the tournament fast approaching, naturally the school is sifting through the experience it’s acquired over its previous Spring Koshiens and looking for ways to applying that knowledge to this year’s trip, and one change it’s making is to its cheerleaders’ uniforms: no more skirts.

During the 2023 tournament, Takasaki says that the its cheerleaders in the student section of the stands were the victims of upskirt photography. The problem had occurred in previous years as well, the school says, sometimes with voyeurs posing as media members covering the game in order to get into position to take the unscrupulous photos, taking advantage of the intense national sports news coverage that gets focused on the games during the roughly week-and-a-half tournament.

So Takasaki is making a change and redesigning its cheerleaders’ outfits. When the squad shows up at Koshien Stadium later this month, they’ll be wearing shorts instead of skirts, and their shirts will also match those of the baseball players’ uniforms. “Voyeuristic photos can potentially cause lifelong emotional damage to our students,” says Takasaki teacher Kohei Shiozawa regarding the redesign, adding that some students have also said that they’d like to cheer for the team in outfits that more closely resemble the players’ uniforms.

The tournament begins on March 18.

Source: NHK News Web

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

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© SoraNews24

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

26 Comments
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Let's see how this goes. I think it will depend on the size of the crowd this year compared to previous years.

-5 ( +5 / -10 )

What a sad reflection of the world we live in. It's heartbreaking that this is necessary.

8 ( +16 / -8 )

What a sad reflection of the world we live in. It's heartbreaking that this is necessary.

I have always thought the same. What self-respecting girl wants to be the frilly sideshow to the mens' event ?

-14 ( +8 / -22 )

Why cheerleaders are necessary? Just have another Koshien for girls too so that they can represent their schools as players.

-6 ( +7 / -13 )

Creeps and pervert cameramen will be devastated at this news. Good.

13 ( +16 / -3 )

Cheerleaders wear shorts/briefs under their skirts so why the need? It's no different from wearing a swimsuit?

8 ( +14 / -6 )

I'm a bit puzzled by this. It's hard not to look up the skirts of cheerleaders. Taking photos of things you can see normally doesn't sound so weird to me - just google "cheerleader photos".

4 ( +9 / -5 )

PaustovskyToday 05:19 pm JST

I have always thought the same. What self-respecting girl wants to be the frilly sideshow to the mens' event ?

I think you missed the point if you think he feels the girls don't respect themselves. It's pretty clear that the person who has no respect is the men sneaking around to take pictures up the skirts of high school age girls.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

albaleoToday 05:42 pm JST

I'm a bit puzzled by this. It's hard not to look up the skirts of cheerleaders. Taking photos of things you can see normally doesn't sound so weird to me - just google "cheerleader photos".

You don't see any difference between the bare glance of partial upper legs one gets when the cheerleaders jump around, and someone sneaking up on the girls to position themselves to take a photo of the exact moment the skirt goes up so that he can capture a full crotch shot of their underwear?

Really?

Seriously?

You honestly think it's hard not to take upskirt pics of cheerleaders? Yeah, I can see how that would be hard not to do. Uh huh....let's see ...

These guys just "happened" to pretend to be a member of the media, "by accident" positioned themselves in juuuust the right way, then waited and timed it juuust right so that they "accidentally" caught the moment more than legs could be seen, and "just happened" to click the camera at the "wrong moment" and "accidentally" got the upskirt pic of ONLY the girls' underwear. Yeah, sounds like a simple mistake to make.

-4 ( +10 / -14 )

Good!

5 ( +6 / -1 )

@girl_in_tokyo

I'm sure there's a difference between people who "sneak up" to take photos and those who simply take photos (e.g. for a newspaper or simply the cheerleader's family). But I don't see a great difference of the effect on the cheerleaders themselves. Don't they generally show what's under their cheerleader skirts when they jump up and down? Not so different from how they might look in a swimming pool.

I'm still reminded of when my son played rugby as a young teenager and there was talk of banning people taking photos in case they were perverts. One of the mothers just laughed and said, "If someone gets a thrill of taking a photo of my son rolling in the mud, that's his problem, not ours."

6 ( +11 / -5 )

Are they going to go back to making those old fashioned swimsuits that the British women use to wear in 1910's too? To avoid these voyeurs.

5 ( +9 / -4 )

Do as you wish.

Hide if you wish to hide.

Expect photos to be taken in a public event...

Isn't that common sense ?

It is god for cheerleaders if that is their choice.

I am still sure some would show (off) more if they could. And some the opposite.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

I must be missing something here. Is this team's skirts different than all the others? Are they wearing underwear under the skirts? What about the other 31 teams? Have they experienced any of the same problems? There are TV cameras placed all over the stadium and I'm sure they must have accidentally caught various "upskirt" photos. Is that voyeurism too?

2 ( +5 / -3 )

albaleoToday  05:42 pm JST

It's hard not to look up the skirts of cheerleaders.

What?

Did you say it's difficult to avoid looking UP their skirts?

I hope this is a case of you not being a native English speaker, and thus not knowing the difference between "look up" and "look at."

Otherwise, if you truly think it's normal, natural, and even unavoidable to actually look UP a girl's skirt ... I don't want to know you.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

This is Japan!

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

They shouldn't have to re-design their uniforms.

Instead -- and I know it's out of fashion in this day and age -- people (particularly men in this case) should be expected to control and restrain their own behavior.

Just because a teenage girl or young woman is wearing a short skirt doesn't release us men from the responsibility of treating her like a human being ... and not like a pleasure object.

I do think it would be nice if people, including women, dressed a bit more modestly than they often do these days. But even when they don't, we shouldn't let it alter our behavior.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I'm not sure wearing shorts instead of a skirt is a whole issue of redesigning, but good on them. Perhaps this might even extend so far down the leg of society for them to realize that practical shorts and pants serve a purpose beyond blocking the cameras of perverts. For example, allowing kindergarten kids to wear pants to keep warm instead of ultra-high shorts and saying "They look genki!"

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

I'm surprised they didn't go with Lycra shorts. It is Japan, after all.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

@Quo Primum

I hope this is a case of you not being a native English speaker, and thus not knowing the difference between "look up" and "look at."

I do have difficulty with English sometimes - usually when mixed with geometry. If a cheerleader raises her right knee so it is at the same height as her hip and I see whatever is underneath, am I looking up her skirt, under her skirt, or in a line parallel to the right side of her skirt?

But at Koshien, don't the cheerleaders usually stand on the steps between the rows of seats? So the "up angle" would vary depending on where I was located. (Where's my protractor?)

Anyway, below is a link to a photo of cheerleaders at Koshien wearing shorts (from last year.). They look happy.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14872756

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Are they going to go back to making those old fashioned swimsuits that the British women use to wear in 1910's too?

This year: shorts. Next year: bloomers.

Coming soon: burqas.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

albaleoMar. 5 06:45 pm JST

@girl_in_tokyo

I'm sure there's a difference between people who "sneak up" to take photos and those who simply take photos (e.g. for a newspaper or simply the cheerleader's family). But I don't see a great difference of the effect on the cheerleaders themselves. Don't they generally show what's under their cheerleader skirts when they jump up and down? Not so different from how they might look in a swimming pool.

You think there is no difference between accidentally seeing up a girls' skirt when she jumps or moves around, and taking a picture up a girls' skirt. Or is it only cheerleaders whose feelings of safety and security and right to self-ownership over their own bodies that you think don't matter?

I'm still reminded of when my son played rugby as a young teenager and there was talk of banning people taking photos in case they were perverts. One of the mothers just laughed and said, "If someone gets a thrill of taking a photo of my son rolling in the mud, that's his problem, not ours."

And you're comparing men purposefully taking photos up the skirts of teenage girls for their own perverse pleasure, with what is pretty clearly a silly policy born of an overreaction by a conservative, over-protective helicopter parent?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

PseudonymouseMar. 5 09:21 pm JST

Where in the article does it say men are taking the photos ?

Lets be realistic and acknowledge it's not just men taking the photographs

I pointed out that it's the photographer who is lacking in respect for the bodily autonomy of the cheerleaders, and you come back with "it's not only men doing it."

Well, okay then.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Jonathan PrinMar. 5 08:15 pm JST

Do as you wish.

Hide if you wish to hide.

It's not that they "wish to hide." It's that the men can't behave themselves so they are being forced to hide.

Expect photos to be taken in a public event...

Isn't that common sense ?

Expect photos to be taken up the skirt of teen girls in a public event?

So ... it's the girls' fault, or the event's fault, but not the fault of the perverts because it should be expected that they will be there?

It is god for cheerleaders if that is their choice.

I am still sure some would show (off) more if they could. And some the opposite.

They aren't "showing off" for men. Honestly, the number of grown adult men who look at teen girls and see them as serious potential sexual partners is disgusting.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

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