スクリプトは事前提出されたものですので、ビデオの音声とは異なる場合があります。

Harisen Attacks

HIRAGA Katsumi (Yonago College of Technology)

Do you know a sport called ‘Harisen Attacks?' Probably you don't know it. The Wikipedia, a big encyclopedia on the Internet, has no item about this. It's not as a major sport as baseball or volleyball. So it's natural that you don't know it.

I think you probably don't know this sport, so I'll show you. Watch me carefully. Both players have two weapons in their hands. A player guards and attacks like this. Did you understand and doesn't it look interesting?

Oh, I'm sorry to confuse you. It is a sport the rule of which I enacted in July, 2010. So it's a little funny if you know it.

It is an exciting sport like fencing. A player fights with another player with his or her handmade individual weapons in a field. Oh, did you ask me what the weapon is? It is a piece of paper made into a fan called Harisen or Jabara in Japanese. Do you understand? When a player's Harisen hits the opponent on the face or head, the player can get 1 or 2 points. When one gets 11 points, the game ends and the player wins. If neither player can get 11 points, the winner is chosen by their highest score within 60 seconds.

When I was a 9th grader, my classmates and I wanted to play hard in a gym or on the playground. But we were afraid of the danger about sports so we didn't play even tag through the school corridor. Then we found a new sport to play in our classroom. It was ‘Harisen Attacks.'

Suddenly I heard big sounds of paper and I was surprised. Two classmates were hitting each other's faces with the Harisen. The history of ‘Harisen Attacks' began at this time. I couldn't understand what was happening when I heard those big sounds. Yet it looked exciting. So I asked the player. He answered after the game ended, “This sport is ‘Harisen Attacks.' If you want to know more, surf the Internet.”

I checked the Internet after I came home. I couldn't get any information about ‘Harisen Attacks' of course. It was natural; he made the game then, and also named it then. Perhaps it must have been his joke.

The sport was exciting. The attackers try to hit the opponents' faces. Defenders guard their faces and try to attack during the inattentions of the opponent. It is their psychological warfare, so it may have been fit for the 9th graders with the big problem of entrance exams.

This sport doesn't have a deuce system like badminton, so the players need their best concentration if the score is 10-10. Their supporters cheer much harder. I like the good mood when everyone there is cheering very much.

Time passed. I became a KOSEN student. I heard our KOSEN, Yonago National College of Technology, has a school festival. Then I remembered how interesting and exciting ‘Harisen Attacks' looked when I was a junior high school student. And I decided that I would enact its rule and suggest it as an attraction of our class. Soon I started the work.

The fighting time of the game must be short because it will be also played by small children, so I enacted 60 seconds as the time. Two fields must be in a standard rectangle classroom: the sides are 7meters wide and 9 meters long because I hope children all over the world to enjoy this sport, so the diameter of each round field is 3 meters. The sides of a square equal about 2.1 meters each when the diagonal of the square is 3 meters, so the sides of the square field should be 2.1 meters. The times a player can take breaks are three because players should take several breaks so I decided on this number. This is a hard sport.

It was fun to enact these rules. I hadn't felt fun of this kind before I did it. Although my suggestion was thrown out at the first negotiation, I thought I had been able to spend a precious time.

Everyone, there are many ways to make new sports around us. For example, when we roll gummed tape with some ideas, it goes in different ways, not only straight. When we pitch a ping-pong ball as hard as we can, it moves irregularly. Then, why don't you make new sports and play together? I'll go rushing to you to play new sports whenever you create them. Please call me then!