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The story
The All-Japan Band Association Championship draws roughly 10,000 ensembles across four divisions — middle school, high school, university, and workplace/general — all vying for a spot in the national finals after regional contests that kick off in June. Ensembles are rated Gold, Silver, or Bronze based on performance level, but because the number of slots to advance is limited, some ensembles that win Gold still don’t get picked to move up. On 5ch, the term itself — “dame-kin” (literally “failed gold,” used for a Gold-winning ensemble that doesn’t advance) — along with the confusing selection system, drew a wave of questions and proposals, including ideas to score performances numerically or add more award tiers.
“Even though it’s a Gold Medal, they call it a ‘Dame-Kin’…” Doubts raised over the brass band contest’s puzzling custom — why can’t Gold medalists advance? We asked people in the brass band world
The 74th All-Japan Band Association Championship is about to reach its national finals. Roughly 10,000 ensembles across four divisions — middle school, high school, university, and workplace/general — entered, and since the regional contests began in June, they’ve been competing for a ticket to the nationals. Amid this, one term keeps coming up in debates on social media: “dame-kin,” used for ensembles that win Gold but still aren’t chosen to advance to the next round. Why can’t a Gold-medal ensemble move up, and how do the people involved feel about the term “dame-kin”? We spoke to people connected to brass bands.
Winning Gold at a district or regional contest but not being selected to advance to the next round — ensembles like this are called “dame-kin.”
Source: shueisha.online / Original article here
What people said
Hmm, that's not a great comparison…
It's the same as letter grades or ◎○△ ratings. There are fixed cutoffs — score this high and you get Gold, this high and you get Silver — and that three-tier rating is announced first. Which schools advance gets announced afterward, and schools that got Gold but don't advance are the "dame-kin." As an exam analogy, it's like scoring within the passing range on the entrance exam but still getting rejected.
That's completely different. By that analogy, a dame-kin school probably wouldn't pass either test.
The gap between Silver and dame-kin is so huge that there'd be real pushback against just treating dame-kin as Silver.
The problem is trying to force everyone into either Gold or Silver. Just do what other competitions do — top 3 schools get Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Everyone else gets a participation award.
Honestly, forget awards at this point — just use numerical scores. You'll get it if you can do basic math.
There is a ranking — some regions just don't make it public, apparently.
I did six years of it through middle and high school, and I'll say it flat out: it's tougher than any actual sports team.
Brass band clubs eat up way too much practice time — how do they end up keeping you longer than sports teams? Even third-years give up their entire summer break and get dragged into practice through September. Sports club kids get to start studying for entrance exams once their tournament ends.
Well, it is literally 'Hagi-kin' after all. (Hagimoto's own nickname — a pun on 'dame-kin')
Kitauji's baseball team is so weak there's no need to even send Monaka to cheer them on. (a character from Sound! Euphonium)
The real issue is that the vast majority end up with Silver. If you're going to sort everyone into a tier no matter what, make most of them Bronze instead.
Well, like Re: #1 says, even if only the bands that advance get Gold, you'd just get people going 'We played really well and we still only got Silver?!' So honestly, it's hard to say whether that's actually better than the current system with dame-kin.
Isn't platinum worth less than half of gold [by price]?
Then how about this instead —
Osmium (Os)
Weight (density):
About 22.59 g/cm³ (the densest/heaviest naturally occurring element on Earth)
Far exceeds gold's density (about 19.3 g/cm³) and even uranium's — at the same volume, it's heavier than gold.
Price:
Varies depending on supply and form (e.g., crystal form), but high-purity ingots or crystals are extremely expensive, sometimes reaching several times to several dozen times the per-gram price of gold.
Think about how the kids feel — getting hyped over winning Gold and then finding out they can't advance.
Just going by what I've seen in the anime, but when Gold gets announced first, there's still a chance it'll turn out to be dame-kin, so the reaction at that point seems more like a light fist-pump. It's only after every school's result is announced, and then the schools advancing to the next contest get called out, that it turns into a real celebration.
Gold is awarded based on performance level, isn't it?
There definitely is. A famous advisor/conductor makes it easier to advance. And the moment the advisor changes, a band can suddenly become weak.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
At the root of “dame-kin” lies the brass band contest’s rating system itself. Gold, Silver, and Bronze are announced first as an absolute evaluation of performance level, but the number of representatives who can advance to the next round is set by a fixed quota per branch or prefecture — so when more ensembles win Gold than there are available slots, some of them end up not advancing. On the thread, confusion about this system was common, with many assuming “winning Gold should mean advancing,” leading to a split between those proposing new award tiers like a Platinum award and those defending the current system, which separates absolute ratings from selection quotas. Neither the article nor the thread addresses the institutional history of why the award names and quota system haven’t been revisited over the years.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuho+) thread “‘Even though it’s Gold, they call it “Dame-Kin”…’ Doubts raised over the brass band contest’s puzzling custom — why can’t Gold medalists advance?“
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