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-- Chapter 1

  Episode 2 - Longing - Strength is what I sought!


Time passed, and when I was in the upper grades of elementary school, I had to return to my parents from the countryside. At that time, my friends and I were addicted to reading Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of Giants), Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe), Karate Baka Ichidai (Karate Master), and other manga written by Ikki Kajiwara. Among them, Karate Baka Ichidai was a manga adaptation of the autobiography of a real person, Masutatsu Oyama, who was nicknamed "Cow Slayer" and was admired by boys as a god-like being.
Oyama founded Kyokushin Karate and gave a powerful impact on traditional karate by holding Japan’s first full-contact karate match which was an open tournament, so anyone could participate, and Kyokushin Karate showed its power by defeating all of the skilled traditional karate fighters and Thai kickboxers who were also competing. Furthermore, Willie William, who fought a bear, was a disciple of Kyokushin Karate, and all of the characters in the manga were real people.
Kickboxing was at the height of its popularity on TV following pro wrestling, with Tadashi Sawamura, who was called “the kick demon” being a hero. All these things shows that it was the dawn of an era in which new martial arts were replacing the old martial arts becoming the symbol of "strength" and shining like bright stars.

By the time I entered junior high school, the restaurant my parents ran had moved to Kabukicho, so I moved to Shinjuku, and one of the most exciting places in Japan became my playground with my friends. I was amid the "tenacity in sports boom", "martial arts boom", and a very susceptible period in my life. The combination of teenage youth and passionate thoughts was unstoppable.

When summer vacation came and I headed back to the countryside, I didn’t go fishing or to the beach anymore. Yes, summer vacation is all about training! All my passions had been slammed into the "rolled straw" set up in the backyard, along with strikes! And the more I struck, the more my interest in martial arts grew....
After almost a month of satisfying training, I returned to Tokyo feeling myself more like a martial artist who had finished his mountain retreat. What awaited me was the relentless baptism of the dangerous Kabukicho district.
Kabukicho at the time was an incomparably more dangerous place than it is now. It was a town where gangsters walked around, and fights and troubles were a part of life there. The place was far from the wholesome society and could be called a different world.

It was late one night. On my way home from picking up my mother at Kabukicho, I was unlucky enough to get tangled up with two drunks. I thought to myself, "Gee, I’m getting into a mess" but at the same time, I thought, "This is my chance to test the results of my training! "
(I have a plan for the battle...all I have to do is set it in action...)
I was walking along, pretending not to be bothered by them, when, sure enough, one of them grabbed me from behind!
”Now for it !” With my mind made up, my back fist flashes!
A well-trained fist catches the opponent in the jaw as I turn around...! I nailed it. The man is blown away, several meters! The other guy, a big guy, is losing his will to fight and is shaking like a leaf. My fists, trained with a dauntless spirit, have successfully burst away!
So it was supposed to be ..........
In reality, although the back fist hit, the opponent did not blow up or even fall...he just stood there, stunned by the unexpected first strike.... I was shocked to find that my well-trained fist had not even knocked him down, far from an instant win.
I was in a state of shock.
After both parties had tasted the shock of each other, we suddenly came to our senses and the second round began.
Our fight had begun just on the crosswalk!
I recognized “this is not a good place” and recovered quickly from the back-fist shock, and ran to the gas station nearby to secure a spot. My opponents saw this and, perhaps thinking that I had run away, followed enthusiastically, determined not to let me escape. To reach an open space, I jumped over the gas station chain and turned around only to find that the larger man was closer than I had expected. Sure enough, he tackled me to the abdomen with all his might. The other, skinnier man came around behind me and put me in a chokehold. It was now a dirty fight. There were no special moves, just grabbing and being grabbed. I was struggling to kick and punch the guy in front of me but that might have looked like jostling and messing around, and before I knew it, onlookers had gathered around us. Finally, a gangster among them intervened and the fight was over. When I looked at my opponent again, he was holding his chin and groin, but he seemed to be okay, while my shirt was shredded, but there was no damage to my body at all. The gangster who intervened said to the two who had attacked me, "What are you two grown men doing with a child?”, preaching to them.

In those days, some of my classmates were actually victims of muggings in Kabukicho, and it was a dangerous world where many victims existed, although their damage did not go public. Unlike today, there were no monitoring cameras in the area. It was a time when every man know that he had to protect himself and young people naturally strength.




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