In Japan, a statue of Colonel Sanders appears to have placed a curse on a beloved football team: years later, KFC Japan also intervenes.
In the wide variety of Japanese yokai, supernatural creatures with the most disparate appearances, from the cruelest and most frightening demon to the mischievous little spirit, not even the most expert scholar of Japanese folklore could expect to include a peaceful old man dressed in white, whose main power is that to produce large quantities of fried chicken, thanks to a secret formula of herbs and spices of his own invention. Yes, it’s the colonel Sandersfounder and mascot of KFC and, apparently, it is better not to joke about it, and deli fans Hanshin TigersOsaka’s baseball team, learned this the hard way.
Strange celebrations
Tigers fans are known for their fervent support and the attachment to the team: founded in 1935, it is the second oldest team in the country, and has always had the role of eternal second, eternal challengers to the excessive power of the Tokyo Giants. The perfect recipe for creating a group of loyal fans. For this reason, when in 1985 they found themselves surprise winners of the Japan Series by beating the Seibu Lions, the celebrations exploded.
One initiative was particularly colorful. After gathering lookalikes of the players chosen from among fans, they began diving from a bridge into the water of a canal below. Among these, no one was found who sufficiently resembled Randy Bass, former Major Leaguer and main proponent of the Tigers’ success and, as an American, it was decided to replace him with a plastic effigy of Colonel Saunders, taken from a neighbor KFC.
The beginning of the curse
They had never done it. The Tigers didn’t win a title again until last year, and the fans, notoriously prone to superstition, had no doubts: it’s the curse of the colonel, and it wasn’t enough to recover the effigy from the water in 2009, clean it and even have it blessed by a priest before putting it back on display, although visibly ruined, outside the fast food restaurant. Well, this statue will now be destroyed – as announced by the American giant itself – but, to be safe, an auspicious rite was still performed at a temple, where none other than the president of KFC Japan who offered the participants sake and fried chicken. Who knows if he will be enough to appease the wrath of the submerged colonel.
2024-03-21 10:34:10
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