From our other sites
The story
On Saturday, November 14th, after the Japan vs. Brazil soccer match, a buzzer-quiz tournament thread went up on 5ch’s VIP (News Express) board and quickly took off. The thread’s regular quizmaster, “Rx,” posted around 30 questions spanning geography, history, and literature, with players buzzing in for points: 4 for first place, 2 for second, and 1 for third place and below. Along the way, answers split over how to read the title of the Chinese classic “Liaozhai Zhiyi” (聊斎志異), and some players jumped the gun by mixing up the rule term “win threshold” with “elimination.” In the end, it was these little quibbles over wording — more than the trivia answers themselves — that got the thread buzzing.
What people said
◯ Official wiki: ttps://quizinvip.playing.wiki/
◯ Detailed rules: ttps://quizinvip.playing.wiki/d/%a5%c6%a5%f3%a5%d7%a5%ec
[ Quizmaster ]: Rx ◆IRC1/LAAAk
[ Rules ]
◎ Buzzer quiz: 30 questions
◎ Scoring: 1st place 4pt, 2nd place 2pt, 3rd place and below 1pt
◎ Win threshold: 50pt
What's a "win threshold"? Does that mean "elimination"?
Rules: Re: #2
[ Answer ]
Nagatsuki
(the old name for September)
[ Scoring ]
4pt: Re: #88
2pt: Re: #89
1pt: Re: #90-91
Re: #93 Yep, it's "elimination" — that was a typo on my part, lol
Rules: Re: #2
[ Answer ]
Kannazuki Stakes
*Kannazuki Prize → Kannazuki Special → Kannazuki Prize → Kannazuki S.
[ Scoring ]
4pt: Re: #98
2pt: Re: #99
Guess once you've been at this long enough, seeing an "S" at the end just makes you read it as "Stakes" on reflex — occupational hazard.
◯ One answer attempt per person, 30-second time limit
◯ Silent/unpronounced symbols can be left out
Extra characters count as wrong ("X")
*For now, when answering with half-width numerals, adding one unpronounced character is allowed
◯ Names: full name for people from kanji-using cultures,
surname only is fine for everyone else, as a rule
◯ Unless stated otherwise, answering in hiragana is fine
Hiragana OK for prompts like: "What's the kanji?" / "What's the English word?" / "Answer in 3 kanji characters"
Hiragana NOT OK for prompts like: "[Specify: kanji]" / "Please answer in 3 kanji characters."
Hobo Island, famous for "Hobo no Shio" (Hobo Salt), is located in which city in Ehime Prefecture?
Imabari City
(No one got it)
[ Coming up ]
Next: 13:30
China's second-largest peninsula, home to cities like Dalian, was recommended for return to China under the Triple Intervention after the First Sino-Japanese War. Which peninsula is it?
Liaodong Peninsula
(Ryoutou Hantou / Liaodong Bandao)
Re: #9 Correct
Now running on a much more user-friendly quiz app
[ Coming up ]
Next: 15:00
The theme song for the anime "Astro Boy" — its lyrics personally commissioned by the original creator, Osamu Tezuka — became a massive hit, reportedly earning an estimated 100 million yen in royalties.
It later came out that, out of consideration for Mushi Production's financial struggles, the songwriter sold (handed over) the copyright for just 500,000 yen.
Who is this poet-turned-lyricist?
Shuntaro Tanikawa
(No one got it)
◎ [ How to Answer – 1 ]
・One answer attempt per person, 30-second time limit
・No special notation needed by default (unless stated otherwise)
(X) Typos, conversion mistakes, extra symbols, chit-chat
[ Coming up ]
Next: 16:30
"Gintama: The Movie"
*Most of the money ends up in the pockets of shady corporations like Shueisha and Sunrise.
(No one got it)
[ Coming up ]
Next: 18:00
Monogatari
*These are all technically part of the "Monogatari" series (not really)
Re: #23-24 Correct
Which one hits home for you?
[ Coming up ]
Next: 19:30
This is a [ Fill-in-the-Tweet Quiz ].
Apparently my tweet from last month, "#[What] Clocking Out," reached Tetsuya Komuro himself, and he sent me a thank-you video message saying, "Thanks for spreading it around!"
I've loved him since elementary school, so I'm too overwhelmed to even form sentences!!! Thank you so much!!!! Having Tetsuya Komuro himself say my name — I'm just completely moved…
Apparently so — in 1999, "Ai no Wakakusayama Monogatari" was a 4-panel manga by Reiko Terashima, later adapted into a short anime.
[ Answer ]
#GetWild Clocking Out
(a nod to TM Network's "Get Wild," the song fans joke is the ultimate signal that it's time to go home)
(No one got it)
[ Coming up ]
Next: 22:30
This is a [ Headline Quiz ].
[2012/11/14 – Sankei]
[Who] has died — starred 2,017 times in the stage play "Horoki" (A Wanderer's Notebook)
Mitsuko Mori
Re: #34-35 Correct
Re: #36 Wonder how many times this has come up in quiz threads by now — total question count is a little over 21,000, I think
[ Coming up ]
Next: 24:30
A figure who has appeared in portraits on the 20-yen, 100-yen, and 200-yen Bank of Japan notes is Fujiwara no [Who]?
Fujiwara no Kamatari (Lord)
(No one got it)
Re: #41-43
That's an ominous lineup of names, lol
When Kyosuke Kindaichi gave a lecture to Emperor Showa, he was allotted 15 minutes but ended up talking for far longer than that about one topic: "[What] in the northern Tohoku region." What was it?
Place names of Ainu origin
(No one got it)
[ Coming up ]
Next: 27:30
The Japanese Wikipedia describes this word as "a textile product made by sewing fabric (the outer shell) into a flat bag shape and stuffing it with fiber filling." What is it?
Futon
(No one got it)
[ Coming up ]
Next: 29:00
Starting April 7, 2025, "Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI)" was designated a Category 5 infectious disease. What is it commonly called, in two characters?
See you around sometime
14 years old
*Born 1997/11/14
Re: #77 Correct
Re: #80 Good game, everyone!
That wraps up the example round.
Thanks for playing!
Now on to the main event — stick around!
It's 1st place 4pt, 2nd place 2pt, 3rd place and below 1pt.
Re-timed: 46:00
Come on, no need to get shy about it — jokes aside, nice read on what the question was going for.
Rules: Re: #2
[ Answer ]
"Liaozhai Zhiyi" (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio)
(Ryousai Shii)
[ Scoring ]
4pt: Re: #151
2pt: Re: #152
1pt: Re: #153, 155
Re: #156 Even if the answer's technically right, tacking on a "?" or something like that means I can't count it as correct — if you're going to write it, commit to it!
Rules: Re: #2
[ Answer ]
"Liaozhai Zhiyi" (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio)
(Ryousai Shii)
[ Scoring ]
4pt: Re: #153
2pt: Re: #155
This is probably the right call — re-awarding the points.
Rules: Re: #2
[ Answer ]
Chess
[ Scoring ]
4pt: Re: #203
Re: #207
Everyone gets a point on this one, so no need to panic — take it easy.
Background and Key Points of This Thread
On 5ch’s VIP board, regular quizmasters have long run recurring buzzer-quiz threads, and this round’s host, “Rx,” is one of them. The questions ranged widely — from the Chinese classic “Liaozhai Zhiyi,” to the anecdote of Fujiwara no Kamatari’s face once appearing on old banknotes, to the story of Shuntaro Tanikawa selling Mushi Production the copyright to the “Astro Boy” theme song for a bargain price. What split the thread wasn’t the correct answers themselves, but how to interpret the rule wording. “Win threshold” is a house rule where crossing a set point total makes you the winner, but some players confused it with “elimination,” a term more familiar from games like shogi. There was also confusion over how to read “Liaozhai Zhiyi” — the official reading is “Ryousai Shii,” but many people read it as “Ryuusai Shii” instead, leading the quizmaster himself to misjudge an answer once before correcting it. These small quirks of pronunciation and wording are exactly what make buzzer quizzes like this one so entertaining.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express VIP) thread “[After the Japan-Brazil Match] Saturday Night Quiz Thread [About 30 Questions].”
Leave a Reply