Date:         Thu, 18 Mar 2004 11:49:05 -0500
Reply-To:     "M.D. Spangler" <edisoncarter@earthlink.net>
Sender:       Japanese Sword Art Mailing List - Athletics Department
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From:         "M.D. Spangler" <edisoncarter@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Modern-day samurai come to blows
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It's been kinda quiet here lately, so I decided to de-lurk again to share with you something (amusing) that I found:

http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/index.html

(Text follows)

Modern-day samurai come to blows
with blow-up weapons

By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer
Mainichi News

March 18, 2004


It took the likes of Tom Cruise to bring it about, but 150 years after shunning them as primitive, Japan is currently going through a "Samurai Boom," according to Weekly Playboy (3/30).

A spate of recent movies focusing on the Bushido boys, such as "Tasogarei Seibei," the Japanese film nominated for the Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar, and, of course, Cruise's "The Last Samurai," have got Japanese turning back to their roots to the guts and gore years of the feudal past when samurai ruled the country.

One of the prime beneficiaries has been a little-known martial art called Sports Chanbara, chanbara being the Japanese word for sword fighting.

Supochan, as Sports Chanbara proponents refer to the game, follows almost identical rules to kendo, the ancient Japanese sword-fighting martial art.

But, instead of the elaborate armor used in kendo, supochan fighters wear only a facemask for protection.

It's not like they need a great deal of help, though, because in lieu of the bamboo staves kendo players use to give off occasionally painful whacks, supochan uses only blow-up weapons.

Supochan players can pick between long or short swords, a naginata ax, or use a combination of the two swords, just like real samurai were legally entitled to do in Japan's days of yore.

Points are awarded for each successful hit made on the opponent's body, just like other dueling sports like kendo and fencing.

"At the moment, there are already 250,000 supochan players in Japan and another 50,000 from 36 countries around the world, including the United States and France," Tetsundo Tanabe, Chairman of the Supochan Association and father of Supochan World Champion Kenichi, tells Weekly Playboy. "During last year's national school athletics championships, supochan got a place as a demonstration sport. I bet it's going to get even more popular from here on in."

In fact, Tanabe predicts blow-up sword fighting is destined for things swifter, higher, stronger.

"I reckon, in the not-too-distant future," the chairman muses to Weekly Playboy, "we might even see supochan as an Olympic sport."


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WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that
originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the contents of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the Mainichi Daily News or Mainichi Newspapers Co.

"Isn't it amazing how the play fits exactly between the time the lights come up and the lights go down?"
--Elvis, in Steve Martin's *Picasso at the Lapin Agile*