‘High School Quiz’ Crown Goes to Nada High — 5ch: “Nada’s the Only Safety School for Tsukukoma Kids”

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The story

The 46th National High School Quiz Championship, aired on Nippon TV on September 21, crowned Nada High School of Hyogo Prefecture as the top school out of 5,984 nationwide entrants. The competition moved through stages across the country, including a video-based three-choice base-running challenge at Yokohama Stadium and the event’s signature muddy true-or-false quiz at Odawara Castle. On 5ch, threads about the winning Nada High buzzed with elite-school one-upmanship (“Nada’s the only school that can serve as a safety school for Tsukukoma kids”), debate over whether the show has shifted into a showdown between high-deviation-score prep schools, and nostalgic comments recalling the old days when students camped out overnight to compete — all part of a broader discussion about how the show has changed over the years.

Mon, Sep 21, 9:53 PM

The “quiz Koshien,” the 46th National High School Quiz Championship, aired on Nippon TV on the 21st. Nada High School of Hyogo Prefecture came out on top among 5,984 schools nationwide.

The national final kicked off with the first round’s youthful “video three-choice base-running” stage, where contestants sprinted around the diamond at Yokohama Stadium, before moving through various stages across Japan. At Odawara Castle, the show once again carried out its signature “muddy circle-or-cross quiz.”

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

2AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:10
∩∪^ω^)Woof woof!
|   ⊂ノ
|   _⊃=⚽
し ⌒
5AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:11
Because watching Showa-retro exploration videos is more fun than watching Omiya Park's Peace-kun (a famous livestreamed elephant at the zoo there) on YouTube.
6AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:13
Congrats on the trip to New York (´・ω・`)
7AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:14
Who's even happy to see the Stones? Female idols would be way better.
30AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:35
Re: #7
Wouldn't you be happy to see Mick Jagger though?
8AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:17
Are there any questions that let contestants show intelligence in ways that aren't just about deviation scores?
27AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:33
Re: #8
Actually, most of them are like that.
9AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:19
Did Kaisei and Tsukukoma not enter this year?
20AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:25
Re: #9
They just lost in the regional qualifiers, plain and simple.
10AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:21
It's been running for 46 years already? Didn't they used to hold it twice a year early on?
17AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:24
Re: #10
Only the first two years had both a summer and a winter edition.
21AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:25
Re: #10
I went to the very first one at Korakuen. Can't believe it's already the 46th.
11AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:21
I guess quiz-club know-how just keeps piling up generation after generation.
12AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:21
For a while they leaned harder into luck-based elements to give non-elite schools a shot, but that got a bad reputation so they reverted.
18AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:24
Re: #12
If the New Year's Ultra Quiz still did rock-paper-scissors today, they'd probably get flooded with complaints.
13AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:23
I've always liked High School Quiz, but the editing and studio guests these days, man… Is Ultra Quiz gonna end up like this too?
23AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:28
Re: #18
Ultra Quiz originally just used rock-paper-scissors to decide who advanced, you know.
28AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:33
Re: #23
Yeah, that's my point — if they tried that same old-school vibe today, eliminating half the field with rock-paper-scissors at Narita Airport, viewers unfamiliar with the history would probably complain.
29AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:34
Re: #27
So deviation score equals intelligence, huh.
31AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:35
Re: #29
What's your deviation score, like 30?
34AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:39
Re: #1
Back in the day, even the regional qualifiers alone drew over 10,000 high schoolers to the venue — it was a huge event. Riding the last or first train with two friends, only to lose on the first question and head straight home — that was youth.
38AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:41
Re: #34
The level's gotten so high you can't really just enter for the memories anymore, can you?
42AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:42
Re: #38
Show up early at the venue

Get scolded by the bearded security guy

He still lets you camp out under the tent, talking with other high schoolers till morning

It used to be an event with that kind of charm to it.
43AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:44
Re: #42
Man, I wish I could've taken part.
50AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:48
Re: #42
Man, jealous. None of my friends were into quizzes so I couldn't go.
39AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:41
Before you know it, this turned into a show where hardcore prep schools go all-out against each other. Influence from shows like Todai King (a quiz show featuring University of Tokyo students), maybe?
41AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:42
Re: #39
That was trendy for a while — quiz shows where celebrities who don't know the answer just react with 'Whoa!' and 'How do you even know that?!'
49AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:47
By the way, this year Nippon TV had this show while TV Asahi ran a 3-hour 'Qsama' and Fuji TV ran a 2-hour 'Neptune League' at the same time — three quiz shows overlapping. Sounds like they were fighting over ratings.
52AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:50
Re: #49
Pretty much neck and neck.

54AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:52
Is Asahigaoka in Aichi actually a prep school?

Kanagawa — Shonan
Hiroshima — Shudo
Nagasaki — Seiun
Kagoshima — Tsurumaru

None of these ever seem to come up.
64AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:03
Re: #54
It's Aichi Prefecture's old First Middle School (the prewar No. 1 school).
57AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:55
When someone says 'never heard of Nada,' what's the correct response?

Trolling? Didn't finish middle school? Not Japanese?
Which one is it??
63AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:00
Re: #57
Is there any answer besides 'It's one of Japan's top prep schools' or 'It's my alma mater'?
70AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:08
Re: #57
Nada only became a super-elite prep school through accelerated curricula starting in the 1960s, so it makes sense for anyone who graduated college before that era.
60AnonymousSep 21, 2026 22:58
Bring back the 'brains, brawn, and luck' concept. What made it fun was being able to make up for lacking brains with physical strength or luck.
62AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:00
Re: #60
Yeah, teams used to include a physical-strength specialist.
77AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:17
Nada's the only school Tsukukoma kids can use as a safety school. Apparently it's a yearly tradition at Tsukukoma Junior High's entrance ceremony for kids to one-up each other over how many points they missed Nada by.
81AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:21
Re: #77
The reverse happens too — Tokyo kids who take the Nada exam, pass, and then don't go. Where the exam fee and hotel money for that came from is… (let's not get into it)
The real exam kings triple-pass Nada, Kaisei, and Tsukukoma, then go to Tsukukoma anyway.
78AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:18
Tsukukoma, Azabu, and Seiko Gakuin don't seem like the type to care about this kind of quiz show.
84AnonymousSep 21, 2026 23:27
Re: #78
Azabu actually appeared before on the high school version of SASUKE, the physical obstacle-course show.

Seiko Gakuin (Yokohama), meanwhile, entered the pretty niche 'News & Trivia Koshien' (National Junior/Senior High School Quiz Tournament) as a joint team with Osaka's Seiko Gakuin — a completely different school that just happens to share the same pronunciation — and they actually won.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

“High School Quiz” is a long-running Nippon TV program built around a format that’s continued for years: regional qualifiers feeding into a national tournament. In the thread, many commenters testified that in the past, even the regional qualifiers alone drew crowds of over 10,000 high schoolers — a grassroots, community-rooted event where participants pulled all-nighters and camped out. Alongside that, there were pointed observations that in recent years the show has taken on more of the character of a showdown between high-deviation-score prep schools, and the shift in the show’s overall character became the central topic of debate. It was also noted that Nada High School only became a super-elite prep school through accelerated curricula starting in the 1960s, meaning it wouldn’t necessarily ring a bell for graduates from before that era — worth keeping in mind that “never heard of Nada” isn’t simply the same as “uneducated.” The same day also saw TV Asahi’s “Qsama” and Fuji TV’s “Neptune League” air, meaning three quiz shows were competing for viewers at once — another point that came up in the discussion.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “‘High School Quiz’ This Year’s Champion Decided — Nada High School of Hyogo Tops All 5,984 Schools Nationwide.”

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