We kick off our previews of the new J1 season with seven clubs, and Seamus Johnston joined Jonny and Ben to chat about the first cab off the rank, 2025 runners-up Kashiwa (to 30:57).

Then, with a ten minute time limit per club experiment in place, we stay in Kanto, and run the rule over defending champions Kashima (to 41:15) and their promoted Ibaraki chums Mito (to 50:55), before we switch our attentions to Machida (to 1:00:45) and the two remaining Kanagawa clubs - Kawasaki (to 1:09:15) and Yokohama F.Marinos (to 1:18:20) - rounding things off with a trip down the Tokaido Line and into Shizuoka to preview Shimizu.