Armstrong Ozuma

Armstrong Ozuma (アームストロング・オズマ) is a character from the Kyojin no Hoshi manga and anime series. He is a player for the St. Louis Cardinals team. He throws left-handed and hits left-handed. He is an outfielder.

## Baseball Info & Player Records

### Baseball Team(s)

* St. Louis Cardinals (セントルイス・カージナルス) - Former
* Chunichi Dragons (中日ドラゴンズ)

### Uniform No.

* Cardinals - #13
* Dragons - #130

## Profile

### Background

During Armstrong Ozuma's childhood, he lived in extreme poverty and was destined to live his life only as a "baseball robot."

He came to Japan as a member of the major league St. Louis Cardinals. He appears as a pinch hitter and has a deadly fight against Hyūma Hoshi's Dai League Ball. He persuaded the owner of the Cardinals, who was reluctant after returning to Japan, to join the Chunichi Dragons with a deadline of one year. He built a master-student relationship with his coach, Ittetsu Hoshi. He even batted a "invisible swing" (created by wearing the Dai League Ball Training Cast) and managed to overthrow the major leagues, and perfectly struck Hyūma's first Dai League Ball.

In the original story, Ozuma's situation is recounted by a commentator on the TV broadcast of the Japan-U.S. Baseball Tournament as something he heard from an elderly African-American man who sat next to him when he used to cover Major League Baseball. The commentator also recalls that the old man may have been Ozuma's father. In the original story, Cardinals manager Shane Deenenst states that Ozuma was educated by the Cardinals staff for 15 years from the age of two, but his parents and friends from his hometown do not appear in the story, and the circumstances of his joining the Cardinals are not clearly described.

In the anime version, when Ozuma was a child, he stole bread (baguettes) from a supermarket and jumped over a fence to escape. His physical prowess caught the attention of the Cardinals' staff, who mananged to locate Ozuma's home and negotiated with his parents. After being offered a large sum of money, Ozuma's father signs a contract with them in the hope of getting money for liquor. The Cardinals take him by force and train him to become a gifted baseball player. He is able to identify himself with Hyūma Hoshi because of their similarities in circumstances. However, the process of becoming a professional baseball player is quite the opposite from that of Hyūma, who underwent training that could be described as the height of anachronism, while Ozuma became a Major Leaguer through the accumulation of training based on the latest sports science (of the time.) In the final stage of training, his mother informs him that his father is in critical condition, and he asks the coach to temporarily suspend his training, but the coach refuses. Later, during the training session, he is informed that his father has passed away. He is forced to abandon his father, and thus he abandons his human mind and completely becomes a baseball robot.

#### First Confrontation with Hyūma

His first encounter with Hyūma was at the Japan-U.S. Baseball Tournament against the Cardinals, who came to Japan after the 1968 Japan Series. Ozuma, who came in as a substitute batter, broke Dai League Ball No. 1 once in a tricky way: he let go of the bat and dropped it in the batter's box to make a Dai League Ball into just a ball. After this, Ozuma's bat dropping technique blocked the magic ball, Hyūma pitches took a series of hits and he lost three runs, but he continued to pitch with Ban as the catcher and succeeded in hitting the falling bat. Ozuma then threw the bat directly at Hyūma in the next at-bat to prevent the magic ball from hitting him, and even if it did, he took a two-step strategy to interfere with the defense after the pitch, but the result was an infield single.

#### After Coming to Japan for the Second Time

Ozuma would soon break Dai League Ball No. 1 when he joined the Chunichi Dragons on a one-year contract at the eager invitation of Ittetsu Hoshi. He had to wear a "big-league ball-busting cast" designed by Ittetsu to defeat the Dai League Ball, and after special training, he perfected his "Invisible swing." It is thought that this swing could not have been achieved by a Japanese person, and it is a strategy that could only have been achieved because of Ozuma, who possessed outstanding physical ability. (In the same way, Hanagata's upper body was temporarily rattled when he tried to attack the Dai League Ball No. 1 with the similar brute force.) In the process, he has come to show a little more human emotion than when he first appeared, such as calling Ittetsu "Boss," to which he initially felt even contempt, and responding with a supreme "Yessir" in return, and even developing a kind of friendship with Hyūma that goes beyond animosity.

After this, Kawakami ordered Hyūma to take a plan to strike out by turning the Dai League Ball into a high inside fastball by breaking off the prediction of the bat's trajectory in the middle of the pitch, but he predicted that Ozuma would be able to hit it two months later by the intensive strength training with the Gibbs to beat the Dai League Ball, and Hyūma, who could not take a shortcut, refused and was dropped again to the second team.

Just before the appearance of No. 2 (the disappearing magic ball), Akiko goes to the Chunichi's practice field to visit Ittetsu and pleads to him to stop the father-son quarrel, but from Akiko's slip of the tongue, Ozuma guesses the new form of the Dai League Ball No. 2. Ozuma says, "The disappearing magic ball bounces after pitching and generates a cloud of dust to make it look like it disappeared." However, he is furious when Ittetsu tells him, "Your theory is a kindergarten-level guess that will only astonish Akiko and others who don't know anything about baseball. He also says, "I trained Hyūma with all my heart and soul, but he can't make such a cheap magic ball!" He curses him. After the appearance of No. 2, Ozma fell into a deep slump due to the appearance of a magic ball that was far different from his own theory, and he returned to the United States at the end of the season due to contractual reasons between Chunichi and the Cardinals without being able to conquer the ball. Note that after Ban's draft to the Chunichi Dragons, Hyūma plays against the San Francisco Giants and pitches the Dai League Ball No. 2 just before he is struck down, but Ozuma, a Cardinals player, does not appear, indicating that the SF Giants players have "zero prior knowledge" of the "disappearing magic ball" as well.

While Ozuma called Ittetsu "boss," it is unclear in the original story how he referred to Director Mizuhara, but in the anime version episode 139, "Hanagata, Samon's Persistence," in the new spring of 1970, Ozuma called him "Director-san" in an international letter sent to the Chunichi Office from Ozuma after his return to Japan. This text was all in katakana Japanese.

Immediately after joining Chunichi, Ittetsu Hoshi had Ozuma confront and defeat three Chunichi pitchers (Eiji Bando, Senichi Hoshino, and Tatsumi Yamanaka) in order to caution him against his pride.

#### After Returing to Japan (anime only)

Although Ozuma's subsequent disappearance immediately after joining Chunichi was not depicted in the original story, his tragic end was depicted in the anime version's episodes 171 "The Return of Ozuma" and  172 "Ozuma's Death"," as follows. In order to warn Ozuma of his pride, Hoshi Ittetsu had him face off against three Chunichi pitchers (Eiji Bando, Senichi Hoshino, and Tatsumi Yamanaka) and defeated them.

After returning to Japan, Ozuma returned to the Cardinals and was so successful that he suddenly won the triple crown in the Major Leagues. However, the U.S. was in the midst of the Vietnam War, and Ozuma received his military service card (call-up notice) at the time of his triple crown party. Ozuma's childhood friend Jenny, who lives in a black neighborhood, and her male friends try to stop him from going to war. Ozuma says,"I am an American. I have to fulfill the duty given to me as an American." and then went to war. (Here, Jenny argues against Ozuma, "The people of the black town have not forgiven you for selling your soul.")

In the battlefield, Ozuma achieves extraordinary results, but is honorably wounded when a shell fragment pierces his back while he is defending his comrades. Ozuma is awarded the Medal of Honor as a wounded soldier and is allowed to return home via Yokota Air Base in Japan, where he is reunited with Hyūma and shares his joy (in a reminiscent scene in which he tells Hyūma about his aforementioned exploits). Later, on an unoccupied field, Ozuma finally achieved a confrontation with the Dai League Ball (it was already the age of No. 3), which had been a lingering regret of his: on the second pitch, he mistakenly believed that No. 3 was an application of No. 1, and "then the 'invisible swing' should work." When he tried to hit the third pitch, the wound suddenly became painful (by the way, the bat hit the ball, just for the record. ) He was crouched down holding the area near his right shoulder, even though the pain was supposed to be in his back. He promised to compete again with Hyūma, and once again returned to Japan with a sense of disappointment.

Upon his return, Ozuma was hailed as a hero, but his time there was short-lived. The shell fragment lodged in his back could not be removed by treatment at a field hospital, and it had reached his spine, leaving him with a permanent spinal cord injury. Ozuma's performance improved as he endured severe pain in his back. He became a double hero on the battlefield and in the baseball world. However, during a game against the Pirates, Ozma's swinging posture became rigid with his back turned up due to severe pain, and when a pitch hit him there, the debris cut into his spine. The doctor told him, "Surgery is not possible because if we remove it, the nerve will be severed." The coach reports to the team that he has been declared "absolutely bedridden, but he is already losing the freedom of his right leg." Ozuma, who is happy to be out of the hospital, is sent a notice of dismissal. Unaware of the fact that he is incapable of re-injuring himself (both Jenny and her mother kept quiet about it). Ozuma is not satisfied with his dismissal and goes directly to the manager, where he is told the truth. He also realizes that he has lost everything once he learned that the wheelchair he was riding in, which he thought the team had bought for him in the hopes of reviving his career, was actually the money from the manager's pocket. He was nursed by Jenny and his mother and looked at the lights of the buildings and the neon shining night view of the white neighborhood, wishing for the glory of his rival, Hyūma, and clutching the medal he had received from his country, he said, "In that beautiful light, this is all I got after all. In that beautiful light, this is all I have gained so far. This is all I have gained so far!" He died with a breathless cry. He died an untimely death.

The tragic news was sent by international mail to Hyūma's apartment, and included in the letter was a request to return the "Major League Ball Overthrow Gibbs" back to Ittetsu. At this time, the letter describes Hyūma Hoshi as "the only best friend in the world."

The ending of this animated version of the story has been covered in the media in later years by a similar case called the "Vietnam Veteran Issue."

## Trivia

* Armstrong Ozuma is the main reason why Hyūma destroyed his own christmas party. He simply told him that he was a baseball robot like himself, which Hyūma didn't take too well... - (*Kyojin no Hoshi: Episode 92*)
* He received a special education for baseball, and has a body of iron, and eyes as accurate as a machine with extreme precision for detecting pitches.

## References

1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20050216003107/http://www.whv.jp/title/kyojin/chara/010.html

## External Links

* https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アームストロング・オズマ
* http://www.whv.jp/title/kyojin/chara/010.html