Cultural / Context information for the jury

Kanazawa High School Sumo Tournament is the longest-running amateur sports tournament in Japan. However, the 2020 tournament was cancelled for the first time since the end of World War II due to COVID-19, and the stage for the final tournament for high school seniors was lost. Club activities were also suspended, and the players spent an unhappy time. In 2021, after two years of headwinds, we were finally able to hold the tournament. Because the Corona disaster was different from the time when the tournament was held every year as a matter of course, a visual was required to strongly affirm and encourage the players who had spent the two lost years.

Translation. Provide a full English translation of any text.

Let's check the answer. If we were right to keep practicing every day in a world where club activities were not an option.

Tell the jury about the art direction.

In order to strongly affirm and encourage the athletes who faced such headwinds, we created posters starring the athletes as they pierced the headwind. We deformed their strong bodies and drew them in huge sizes, giving them a dramatic contrast like steel. And we portray them in a dynamic and captivating way, from a perspective that looks up at and celebrates the players. At the same time, we used charcoal to draw them wildly, expressing the unfinished and wild energy unique to students. The headwind is represented by red, the image color of the tournament, and gold stripes, representing victory, to emphasize the dynamism of the athletes. We used paper with a gold leaf texture, and printed white ink on the body parts of the players, and then added black ink on top of that to create the presence of the players and the strength of their huge bodies.