Kansei Matsuzawa is the second-biggest star athlete in Japan behind only Shohei Ohtani. The 26-year-old college football player will be on national television in his home country in each of the next three weeks as he continues to kick field goals for Hawaii.
He is perhaps best known as the ‘Tokyo Toe.’
This is one of the best stories in college football this season. Matsuzawa taught himself how to kick on YouTube and now he cannot miss.
Who is Kansei Matsuzawa?
Matsuzawa currently leads the nation in scoring. Seriously. No player in college football has scored more points than the Tokyo Toe as of this writing. He has accounted for 76 points through the first seven games of the 2025 season. And most of his kicks are from distance.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound senior is a perfect 19-for-19 on field goals and 19-for-19 on extra points. That includes one field goal between 1-19 yards, one field goal between 20-29 yards, nine field goals between 30-39 yards, seven field goals between 40-49 yards and one field goal of 52 yards.
And if that was not cool enough, Matsuzawa’s remarkable story makes him impossible to root against.
Born in Tokyo, Japan, he graduated high school in 2017 as a three-year letter winner in soccer, a team captain and one of the ‘Best 8’ in the state. He later taught himself how to kick on YouTube after watching an NFL game on a visit to the United Staets and later moved to Ohio in 2019 to enroll at Hocking College.
Kansei Matsuzawa earned the starting kicker job for the small community college as a freshman even though he did not have any formal training. His ability to speak english was minimal, at best. He had never played football before. Ever.
Now five years later, Matsuzawa is the starting kicker at Hawaii. He led the team in scoring last season. He leads the nation in scoring right now.
The Tokyo Toe is almost as big in Japan as Shohei Ohtani.
It is a very big deal in Japan when one of their local athletes goes international. None bigger than Shohei Ohtani, obviously.
However, it is not always easy for Japanese natives to watch their favorite athletes in the United States because of the time difference and a lack of coverage.
That will not be an issue for each of Hawaii’s next three games— likely more. The Rainbow Warriors recently secured a new television broadcasting deal with Rakuten’s R Channel to ensure people can watch Kansei Matsuzawa in his home country!
The three upcoming games are Saturday’s contest at Colorado State, the Nov. 8 game against San Diego State, and Nov. 29 game versus Wyoming. All of the games will be live streamed on R Channel, which is a free streaming service in Japan, as well as on GAORA On Demand and GAORA ZERO on R Channel.
It might be cool to watch Ohtani lead the Dodgers to the World Series. It is even cooler to watch the Tokyo Toe drain kicks for Hawaii.