The next day, the opening ceremony of the Yuryu Banner National Competition was held at the Fukuoka Budokan. As a landmark building in Fukuoka Prefecture, the Fukuoka Budokan is the largest martial arts hall in Fukuoka Prefecture, with a capacity of 23,000 people. Various activities are held here every year.
Today, small Fukuoka gathers tourists from all over the country, as well as many foreign tourists.
The locals were fine, but the foreigners were even more excited than the locals when they learned that they were going to report on the annual Jade Dragon Banner National Competition. As foreign tourists, they are naturally in high spirits to catch up with such a national competition.
So the seats at the Fukuoka Budokan today were already packed, and in addition to the many reporters, there was a lot of clicking noise. Everyone was whispering to each other, all excited.
"It is an honor for the organizers of the Yulong Banner to come to the Yulong Banner National Competition. On behalf of the Kyushu Kendo Federation, I would like to welcome you all." Osamu Nakajima, the president of the Kyushu Kendo Federation, was wearing a formal suit with gray hair. He looked energetic with a warm smile, "According to statistics, excluding schools that accidentally gave up, a total of 145 high schools across the country have advanced to the Yulong Banner National Competition this year. And 470 contestants have advanced to the Yulong Banner National Individual Competition. Let's Applause goes to these schools and players who advanced."
Although Osamu Nakajima's tone was neither urgent nor slow, the sudden high-pitched voice at the end made the audience involuntarily burst into roaring applause.
Seeing this, Osamu Nakajima was satisfied. In the past few years, hundreds of schools participated in the Yulong Banner National Competition. There were many more participating schools and players than there are now.
But since the reform, Yulong Banner's reputation has improved.
Because after the regional selection competition, the schools that can advance are the seed schools in each region. The members of the kendo club in these schools have gone through many hardships before being promoted. They have an inhuman obsession with winning the national competition.
Every year, we can see elated contestants and tearful contestants in the same frame. It is a shocking picture.
In the first two years of Yulong Banner, there was no regional selection competition and only high schools could register, so the level of the contestants varied.
Compared to a crushing duel, the audience actually wants to see a tit-for-tat competition. That kind of competition can make people's blood boil up. Cheers for the two dueling contestants!
Therefore, since the reform, the popularity of the Jade Dragon Banner National Competition has not been what it used to be, and its gold content has also become much higher.
"Due to the tight schedule, I will keep my story short." After Osamu Nakajima took the microphone and spoke, the audience calmed down and showed respect. After Nakajima Shushang read through the rules of the Yulong Banner National Competition, everyone discovered that this year's team competition is still a death match system, while the individual competition is still a three-way victory system, which is no different from the rules of the regional selection competition.
"In addition, based on online voting and internal voting within the Kyushu Kendo Federation, and in accordance with the rules of the Yulong Banner National Competition, these twelve high schools will automatically become seed teams and automatically advance to the top 64." Osamu Nakajima finished. I couldn't help but feel relieved to see that the audience had no objections. He took out the paper, looked at the schools on it, smiled slightly and said, "The following is the list of the twelve seeded teams in the men's group. I will read them in the order of the prefectures, and the rankings will not be divided into strong and weak."
Hearing this, the audience held their breath. Especially schools with similar strength in each region hope to automatically advance to the top 64. This is not only a way to observe the combat strength of other schools that day, it is also a symbol of honor.
"First place, Tokyo, Yingjiu Private High School Boys Team!"
As soon as the words were spoken, a warm atmosphere arose in the audience seats. The audience sitting in the east area stood up one after another, waving their arms and shouting excitedly.
"Minister Kimura, Japan is the strongest!"
"Minister Kimura, Japan is the strongest!"
After shouting several times, he finally shouted "Oh!" 'The ending is shocking.
If only a few audience members were shouting, it would probably be embarrassing, but there were at least several thousand people sitting there in the East District. The shouts in unison were quite earth-shattering and enough to shock people.
Some experienced people know that according to the unspoken rules, the audience sitting in the East District are all people from Tokyo. This was a deliberately assigned position by officials, in fact, to inspire a sense of regional honor. Of course, it is also because different regions sit in the same position. If there are different opinions, fights will occur. This was very common in the past. It was not until the positions were allocated that this situation became less common.
However, the audience in the East End this year shouted inexplicably. Generally speaking, aren't you cheering for the school... Why do you hear this, it seems like you are cheering for someone from Yingjiu High School. But when they heard the audience shouting "Boss Kimura", they all thought that the kendo club chief of Yingjiu High School must be very strong!
The director also understands people's hearts very well and puts the camera on Kitajima He.
Beijima He couldn't help but cover his face when he saw his figure on the screen, feeling ashamed to see others. I cursed in my heart, you idiot director!
All of a sudden, there were a lot of boos from people in the East End. Everyone was confused, but soon the camera flickered and focused on Kimura Kazuki.
Kimura Kazuki was sitting in the player's seat, which was also the assigned rest area of Yingjiu High School. When the appearance of Kimura Kazuki was displayed on the screen, the audience saw a high school student with helpless eyes.
Obviously, Kimura Kazuki was quite uncomfortable with the shouts of the East District audience. When the camera was shown, the audience in the East End started cheering again. The emotional shifts are very real.
If you are not from Tokyo, you naturally don’t know about Kimura Kazuki’s wonderful performance in the Tokyo Prefectural Qualifiers. Kimura Kazuki conquered them with strength.
After waiting for a full minute, after the atmosphere calmed down, president Osamu Nakajima began to read the second seeded team.
Every time he came to a school, Nakajima would stop and wait. This can also be regarded as a traditional program for the opening ceremony of Yulong Banner, because the seeded teams represent strong strength, and strong teams can get a lot of local support, so there will be a lot of support.
But the most sensational seeded team is Hiroshima Prefecture’s Minghui High School!
An unknown number of spectators wearing white samurai uniforms stood up one after another and waved the school flag of Minghui High School with both hands when Shun Nakajima read Minghui High School.
They didn't speak and cheered, they just waved flags silently, but it was shocking.
Tsukahara Mizuno in the rest area nodded with satisfaction. If you want to attract attention, you must be different.
However, he still set his sights on Kimura Kazuki. He had watched Kimura Kazuki's game videos, and naturally he would not underestimate him. Although he studied in Hiroshima Prefecture, he is from Tokyo. He naturally hopes that he can defeat Kazuki Kimura in front of the Tokyo audience, which must be very comfortable.
After the seeded teams for the men's group were announced, President Osamu Nakajima began to announce the seeded teams for the women's group.
And Yingjiu High School is among them.
(End of chapter)