What an interesting configuration. Like fighting in a Roman Coliseum against lions The smile that lights up a thousand rooms. What's there not to love about little Noz? Congrats to her; on to bigger and better things.
It is the 2nd gymnasium of the Yoyogi National Stadium as used/built for the '64 Olympics for the basketball event and nowadays still used for basketball mostly (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/国立代々木競技場#.E7.AC.AC.E4.BA.8C.E4.BD.93.E8.82.B2.E9.A4.A8_2) (picture source http://www.obayashi.co.jp/company/rekishi/kakushin/yoyotai.html)
Here is an article written by Miyuki: http://www.badzine.net/news/all-japan-okuhara-gets-maiden-title/17807/
Looks like all the organisers are trying to be the one with the largest trophy size to human size ratio. Nozomi should win, since she is so small, lol.
Hardworking BadlandMovie has been terribly busy videocaming these few days. Since there are too many videos to post, I shall just insert the link to his youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/BadlandMovie/videos
Looks to me like a huge cooking pot containing seaweed jelly topped with Azuki beans. Her opponents certainly weren't smiling as much, lol. Poor Yuki Fukushima lost to Baby Nozomi yet again this year. Minatsu received a 9-21 drubbing in the rubber. And I don't recall Sayaka Sato ever throwing her raquet into the air after a match. (3:22 in the video below) As for Eriko, she must have run off to hide . Just joking, of course. [video=youtube;s1wO1Verrvg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1wO1Verrvg&feature=plcp&context=C20519UDO EgsToPDskJ8s77bhWfqRZymifrGmz7X[/video]
The architect of this creation, Kenzo Tange, was recently featured in the NHK documentary Begin Japanology on the 26th of May this year: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/japanology/archives201105200600.html He has other interesting works all over the world. Here are some of them: And finally, the former badminton hotel Grand Prince Akasaka.