Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School defeated Aomori Yamada Junior and Senior High School in the semifinals held in Hyogo, western Japan on Wednesday.
Only 49 baseball teams from about 4,000 Japanese high schools qualify to compete in the prestigious baseball tournament held every summer.
Founded in 1947, initially for ethnic Korean residents in Japan, the school is still attended by students of Korean descent but also accepts students from various backgrounds including Japanese nationals and other foreign residents. According to the Overseas Koreans Education Portal, the small school has a total enrollment of 137 students this year, of which 116 are Japanese.
The school's baseball team, founded in 1999, was widely considered an underdog, but is now set to face Kanto Daiichi High School in the final slated for Friday.
Meanwhile, the team's triumphant advance has come with an unexpected stumbling block as some right-wing Japanese have raised a stir over the school's song, sung in Korean, which is played after each of the team's victories.
The song's lyrics includes a phrase like "across the East Sea, the land of Yamato, the sacred place of our ancestors' ancient dreams."
Tokyo has been calling the East Sea the "Sea of Japan," insisting that this is the only name recognized by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) for the body of water separating the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
