Imanaga ended Komazawa's 26-season wait in 2014. A year later, the top college lefty in the draft had not pitched all spring

Shota Imanaga pitched in relief as a first-year at Komazawa University and became a main starter in his second spring, web Sportiva's Yuta Ishida wrote in 2020. His breakthrough was in 2014. That spring he threw three straight shutouts, a mark also cited by Baseball Channel. That autumn he won seven league games and swept the MVP, best pitcher and best nine awards as Komazawa took its first Tohto University League title in 26 seasons.

The league title was followed by a national one. Komazawa went on to win the 2014 Meiji Jingu tournament, with Imanaga pitching scoreless relief in the final against Meiji University from the sixth inning. Number Web's Junji Koseki, writing that November, already called him a top first-round candidate for the following year.

Rival pitcher Yasuaki Yamasaki, later his teammate at DeNA, gave Ishida a hitter's view from his time at Asia University: a very good curveball, and a fastball that rose through the zone so sharply it was hard to bunt. Imanaga, for his part, said Yamasaki's relief fastball impressed him more than his starting work.

The next year raised a question. Imanaga did not pitch in the spring 2015 league season, and Baseball Channel's Yu Takagi described him that September as not yet back to his best, in a piece on his return. Takagi's draft review credited him with 18 career Tohto wins and noted he won none that autumn. DeNA made him its only first-round choice anyway. Baseball Channel's Takashi Ishizuka called him the top college left-hander, and said the club should handle him carefully. Takagi predicted he would help right away. He went into the rotation from opening day as a rookie.