Shun Takayama

Born in Nagano prefecture, Shun's family used to move from one prefecture to another, along with the transfer of his father who works for a major securities company.^[2] When he was about to enter grade school, his family decided to move from Wakayama and settle down in his father's hometown in Funabashi City.^[3]。

During his first grade, he was scouted by a little league coach when he was seen playing catch-ball with his father in a neighboring playground.^[2] He became a full-fledged player in 6th grade, where he played the positions of outfielder, pitcher and catcher, and even appeared in national tournaments. Later, he doubled as an outfielder and pitcher for the Nanabayashi Junior High, where he also placed 4th in the 200-meter run during a prefectural athletics tournament.^[4]

As a freshman in Tokyo's Nichidai Daisan High, he batted lead-off in the Tokyo City tournament and averaged at 0.435. In the same tournament on his 2nd year, he batted at 0.432, drove in 13 RBIs including 4 home runs, and helped his team win the championship.^[5] He played the clean-up role in the 2011 Summer Koshien final where he homered and drove in five runs against Kōsei Gakuin, earning his team the title (11-0).^[6] He recorded 32 home runs in his entire high school career.

He secured the permanent post as outfielder and clean-up hitter upon entering Meiji University, where he recorded 20 hits (.417 BA) in his 1st year at the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League. He was awarded Best Nine for 2 years in a row, and in his 3rd year, he broke the league's all-time total hits record of 127 hits (Shigeru Takada of Meiji U, 1967) when he finished with 131 hits.^[7] In all of his 102 league games, he averaged at .324, batted in 45 runs, 8 of which were over the fence, and grabbed the Best Nine award 6 times.

He also participated for the baseball event in the 2015 Summer Universiade, where Japan won the gold medal.^[8][9]