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Hiroshima Carp Baseball Player Yoshihiro Maru Uses Sword Art Online II Theme as Entrance Song

If you've never been to a Japanese baseball game, some of the culture of it might seem a little surprising. Huge crowds of fans of both teams line specific areas of the outfield seating with instruments, flags, and small plastic bats, wearing team jerseys and paraphernalia to root for their home team. Every player on the team has a special cheer with words and a beat for when he's up to bat, and these fans perform the cheer in complete unison, never letting up for every inning.

In addition to this fan spectacle, every player has a specific song that plays when he comes on the field when its his turn to bat.

This year, Yoshihiro Maru, an outfielder for the Hiroshima Carp team, has chosen Eir Aoi's "IGNITE" theme song from Sword Art Online II. According to various baseball blogs, Maru also used other anime songs as his entrance songs this year, including LiSA's "Rising Hope" and GARNiDELiA's "grilletto," both of which were opening themes to the The irregular at magic high school anime series. He has also previously entered using LiSA's "catch the moment" song from Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale. It seems clear that Maru is quite the anime fan.

Relatedly, the entrance song for Masahiro Nishino from the Orix Buffaloes team is Dean Fujioka's "History Maker." It's unknown if Nishino is a fan of Yuri!!! on Ice or is just using the song to get pumped up to make history every time he's at bat.

Masahiro Nishino YouTube video taken by ANN staff

Sources: daina0716 Twitter account, Baseball Morelents via Yaraon!