Kanagawa Prefectural Ikuta High School (1)

Q. What about Ikuta High made you feel you'd made a good decision in coming here?

Takao: The Field Day.

Takahashi: The teachers are sweet. Not nice, but rather, pushovers. I think it's a good thing, because they don't get mad even if you break school rules.

Anno: Lax?

Takao: I don't know if that's quite it. I feel like shouting "Yes!"

Q. What sorts of things have you done that you figure you'd get in trouble for at other high schools?

Kuramoto: I bleached my hair, but all I heard was, "Interesting shade.".

Anno: Like a veiled threat?

Kuramoto: No, not like that.

Anno: Did you think you'd get scolded?

Kuramoto: I'd known for a while that this was how it was, so I figured I was safe.

"The Pep Rally Is Intense"

Takao: For me it was the Field Day.

Miyabu: At the beginning of June, we have a dance which is called a Pep Rally. Everyone splits up into four groups, with no regard for what year you're in, and we spend a month practicing dancing before the event. It doesn't matter what year you're in at all. Everyone just gets together, and it's really intense. I served as a group leader.

Q. What sorts of dances do you do?

Miyabu: Hip-hop and stuff. It's fun.

Takahashi: My group won. And the way we won is, since it's all dancing, the first rule is to keep the audience from getting bored. We made our dances with the people watching us in mind. The girls really worked hard on the choreography. All I did was talk an give orders.

Miyabu The group leader organizes everyone, which makes him important. At first, some people show up looking to draw attention to themselves, but by the end, everyone's taking it seriously, and giving their all. It's the biggest event of the year.

Q. What about the Culture Festival?

Oda was head of the operating committee for that, right?

Oda: The Culture Festival is, well, organized by class, and the organizers are selected, and they build it up. But since it's organized by class and not as something on the part of the whole school, it has little or no life in it. The Field Day has long hours of practice behind it, and feels like it's all together. Field Day has it all over Culture Festival in terms of sense of accomplishment. I think this explains why Culture Festival is so dull.

"The Audience Can Also Enjoy Themselves"

Q. Are these events fun?

Okuhira: The junior-high students and local people who come to see are also participants, so that it's not just the dancers enjoying themselves, but also the audience, and that makes it fun.

Q. Are there people who feel down during the Field Day because they can't compete?

Miyabu: Yeah, there are. There's a fair number that can't get in the mood. A lot of incoming students don't have any enthusiasm, and then they get further and further behind in practice. When I came across kids like those, my words got more and more severe, because I was up against a wall. I'd say things that even I felt were probably too much, cutting deeper and deeper with my words. But as I did, the first-year students got more and more worked up, concentrated on their practice, and were somehow able to perform for real when the time came.

"Couples Get Together After the Events"

Q. Do couples form after these events?

Oda: There were more couples after Field Day, weren't there?

Miyabu: Yeah, though I don't think they last very long. I'm the type that lets the waves carry me where they will, myself.

All: (Laughter)

Anno: Couples who meet at Field Days expire after three months.

Q. We hear that high-school students don't stay together very long.

Okuhira: Some couples do last, though. Two years or thereabouts.

Miyabu: The shortest ones tend to be about two weeks.

(From the July 16, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate School News)