Participants show off their writing at a calligraphy contest to the celebrate the New Year in Tokyo on Wednesday. About 3,000 calligraphers took part in the contest writing different characters depending on their school grade. The contest is part of a bigger competition, in which about 11,000 entrants hope to win the "Prime Minister's Prize" by being judged as the best drawing. The winner will be announced in late February.
© Japan Today
Character-building
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lostrune2
Sarge, props for knowing the classics!
ShizukaMorley
Natsukashii! I took Shodô classes in high school and University!
Sarge
It's a chicken scratch contest, braaaaaaack!
I see the title of the photo is "Character-building." Calvin, of Calvin & Hobbes, said "Every time I've ever tried building character I've regretted it!" Ha ha!
KansaiTruth
Enjoy the beauty and Japaneseness of the picture!
Yuichi Kitagawa
Such number of entrants will be telling that Japan still hold its own culture. Being a calligrapher even during the new year holidays would be welcomed.
Needabrew
After 30 sheets of splattered shoji and 2 days of struggling with brush stroke length, width, balance and form (not to mention the unforgivably severe instruction from mother), my daughter finally produced an ironical ”美し朝”.
Zenny11
My son finished his Shodo school-work for this holiday. Hanging up to dry.
Not that easy to do a neat and clean writing.
Lunchbox
It's shodo (calligraphy), so it's all about form, neatness, size, balance, the way the ink has spread, etc. In this category there is no room for originality, there are other categories for that though. Like most Japanese arts that end in Doo (kendo, shodo, chado etc) practice makes perfect. These kids will most probably attend weekly lessons, they are pretty good.
Yukikochan
I'm actually more wondering about the written text. As far as I can read a lot of them have written the same. Unless that depends on their school grade? In that case good luck to the younger classes compared to the elder classes, though that might explain why some of them only have written hiragana.
yokomoc
That was a genuine request for information but thanks for your valuable input. Maybe I shoulde elaborate:
Out of this sizeable subset (probably around 200-ish) to my eyes I don't see anything that stands out from your average shop sign in the city. I'm presuming then that the criteria the judges are using are not exactly the same as what I would use (e.g. creative fonts)
gaijinstud
Yes, you would surely win this competition ^^^^^ Can you see all 3000 entries in this photo?
yokomoc
What's the criteria here - smoothness of brushstrokes? Original fonts? These all look very ordinary.