Update, October 18: Release day is basically here. The new Samurai Japan uniforms and the SJ cap go on sale Tuesday, October 20 in Japan, through New Balance Japan's official online store and select New Balance stores. Japan's Tuesday starts at 11 AM ET on Monday, October 19, so US fans should start watching Monday. New Balance Japan hasn't posted a launch hour, and its announcement didn't list prices, so keep its Samurai Japan page open. The uniforms also get a real game soon. Samurai Japan's official site says new manager Tadahito Iguchi named a 28-man roster for the Asia Professional Baseball Championship at Tokyo Dome, November 12 to 15. Japan opens against Chinese Taipei on November 12. Iguchi wore the new uniform at the reveal. He said hearing the thinking behind it made him take the job even more seriously, and that the fabric is soft and easy for players to move in. That's about as good a fit review as a jersey gets from a former big-league second baseman.
New Balance just landed one of the biggest jerseys in baseball. New Balance Japan has signed on as the official supplier for Samurai Japan, the country's national baseball teams, and it designed brand-new home and visitor uniforms for the job. The new uniforms and caps go on sale Tuesday, October 20, through New Balance Japan's official online store and select New Balance stores in Japan. No US release has been announced.
The deal is huge. New Balance Japan signed what it calls a Diamond Partner agreement with NPB Enterprises, the company that runs Samurai Japan. That means every national team wears New Balance, from the top pro squad down through the industrial league, U-23, college, U-18, U-15 and U-12 teams, plus the women's team and Baseball5. New Balance is also supplying practice wear, shoes and gear. The players first wear the new uniforms in games at the Asia Professional Baseball Championship 2026, which starts on November 12.
The design is where it gets good. New Balance built the uniforms from scratch with the team. The home uniform runs a new stripe through the middle: a deep red line set inside kachi-iro, a traditional Japanese indigo whose name doubles as the words for "winning color." New Balance says the stripe stands for a "path," the idea of carrying Japanese baseball forward with the discipline of the samurai code. The visitor uniform goes gray, a nod to the quiet, understated cool of wabi-sabi. It also happens to be New Balance's own signature color, which is very convenient. There's also a new "SJ" monogram for the caps, made to look just as right with jeans as it does in the dugout.
New Balance has been building toward this for years with Shohei Ohtani as its baseball face, and now it gets the whole country. The gray visitor uniform is the real win here. A New Balance-gray national team uniform is basically a 990 you can wear to the ballpark. And the SJ cap is the sleeper. Two-letter monogram caps are how baseball gear ends up on people who've never watched a game, so don't be surprised when this one starts showing up far from Tokyo Dome. New Balance Japan's announcement didn't include prices.
At ONENESS: shop New Balance at ONENESS. More New Balance news on Orbit: Tyrese Maxey's first signature shoe and Miu Miu x New Balance RC150.
Source: New Balance Japan's official press release (October 7, 2026) and New Balance Japan's Samurai Japan page, plus Samurai Japan's official site (roster, schedule and Iguchi's comments), with coverage from Hypebeast. Images: official New Balance Japan press images (©2026 SAMURAI JAPAN), used as published.
