HOT PINK, THOUGH SLIGHTLY ASHEN

The Saidaiji Kendo Club has been feautured in the news. Not because of any great praestations, or their fighting spirit, or because of their valiant efforts in the path of their chosen commonality. But because they were nearly naked and a news reporter caught them. Mayhap a stringer.
Or just a lucky man with a camera.

A lovely picture of glowing pale flesh, outdoors, during the cold season.

[COPYRIGHT: GETTY IMAGES SOURCE: Nearly naked crowd, lucky sticks - BBC]

必勝祈願
西大寺高校
剣道部

That sign carried by the man with black half robe? "Prayer for Victory, Saidaiji High School, Kendo Department.

Three things I should probably clarify here: 1) I do not cruise the internet for pictures of brawny naked men; 2) My highschool (the Hertog Jan College in Valkenswaard) probably had almost nothing in common with Saidaiji High; and 3) None of these people look anything like any of the Kendo practitioners that I am familiar with. Which is only one.

'THE BLUE THUNDER OF FURINKAN HIGH'

Yeah, I am not really very familiar with Kendo. But thanks to reading far too much manga, the personality of Kuno Tatewaki (aka "The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High") is an open book. 

These men are not like him in the slightest.

We probably would have benefitted from the discipline and ideals of Kendo. What we got instead was Field Hockey, in which thirty or so rampant teenage boys are let loose upon each other with wooden sticks in a muddy field, with hopes that the subsequent mayhem will subdue them long enough that the "gymn teacher" can enjoy a cup of coffee and a cigar in the faculty lounge.

Remarkably few hospitalizations ensued.

I remember my high school years with fondness.
But not my actual high school hours.

And there was no nudity.


Of course, I am lucky. As I understand it, most American high schools are brutal environments, where sportive achievement is stressed, dominated by the jocks of the football team and the bitchy blondes of the cheerleading squad, and conformity may be forced upon you. At the very least you'll end up cowed, and resentful of the big galoots in the office building elevator.
Or the macho meatballs in the sales department.

If not that, perhaps drug-addled.



By the way: I really loathe all team-sports.
But quite possibly I would've liked Kendo.




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