Aoba Johsai High

Aoba Johsai High (Japanese: 青葉 (あおば) 城西 (じょうさい) 高校 (こうこう) , Aoba Jōsai Kōkō), also known as Seijoh (Japanese: 青城 (せいじょう) , Seijō), and Blue Castle, is a private high school in Miyagi Prefecture.

Uniform[]

Aoba Johsai, like most Japanese schools, has a uniform and dress code. The male uniform consists of a pale blue shirt, dark red tie, cream sweater vest, white blazer, and light brown pants with dark details.

Oikawa — Aoba Johsai's volleyball uniform.

The boys' volleyball club's uniform consists of a white tracksuit with turquoise details. The members wear turquoise t-shirts and white shorts during practice matches, and often don a lime green sports bib on top. During official matches, all the players excluding the libero don a white jersey with turquoise details, and turquoise shorts with a white vertical stripe on the side. The libero has a contrasting jersey in turquoise with white details. If they have to play against a team with a similar looking uniform, they have an alternate outfit—a turquoise jersey with white details, and the libero, a white jersey with turquoise details.

Volleyball Club[]

AobajousaiBanner — The official banner for Aoba Johsai reads "Rule the court" (**コートを制す**).

The Boys' Volleyball Team is ranked in the top four of the prefecture. For years, it had always been in the finals of the Interhigh and Spring High, only losing to Shiratorizawa. Most of the players are powerful enough to become aces of the team. Most also went to Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High and were invited to Aoba Johsai to join the volleyball team.

Aoba Johsai's most notable players are Oikawa, Miyagi Prefecture's best all-around player, team captain, and setter, and Iwaizumi, the team's vice-captain and ace with his powerful spikes and serves, and also Kyōtani, a second-year that struggles to play along with his teammates but has powerful spikes.

It has been noted that the team's current strength is partly due to the star setter, Tōru Oikawa, who balances and brings out all of the players' abilities.

Members[]

Name	Position	Year	Status
Nobuteru Irihata	Head Coach	Graduate	Active
Sadayuki Mizoguchi	Coach	Graduate	Active

Name	Number	Position	Year	Status
Tōru Oikawa	#1	Setter / Captain	3rd Year	Active
Issei Matsukawa	#2	Middle Blocker	3rd Year	Active
Takahiro Hanamaki	#3	Wing Spiker / Outside Hitter	3rd Year	Active
Hajime Iwaizumi	#4	Vice Captain / Wing Spiker / Outside Hitter / Ace	3rd Year	Active
?	#5	?	?	Active
Shigeru Yahaba	#6	Setter / Pinch Server	2nd Year	Active
Shinji Watari	#7	Libero	2nd Year	Active
?	#8	Libero	?	Active
?	#9	?	?	Active
?	#10	?	?	Active
?	#11	?	?	Active
Yūtarō Kindaichi	#12	Middle Blocker	1st Year	Active
Akira Kunimi	#13	Wing Spiker / Opposite Hitter	1st Year	Active
Kentarō Kyōtani	#16	Wing Spiker / Opposite Hitter	2nd Year	Active
Kaneo Yuda	?	Wing Spiker	3rd Year	Active
Motomu Sawauchi	?	Middle Blocker	3rd Year	Active
Heisuke Shido	?	Wing Spiker	3rd Year	Active

Former Members

Name	Number	Position	Current Age
?	#1	Setter	18-19
?	#4	?	18-19
?	?	?	19-22
?	?	?	19-22

Practice Matches[]

Aoba Johsai High School vs ??? (Past) (?:?)

Aoba Johsai High School vs Karasuno High School (1:2 / 25-13, 22-25, 23-25)

Aoba Johsai High School vs Unnamed College Team (w/ Oikawa) (?:?)

Interhigh-Preliminaries (2012)[]

For Interhigh's Miyagi Preliminaries, Aoba Johsai was registered as team 1, Block A. Their venue was the Sendai City Gymnasium, along with Block B. They were exempt from the first round of matches and played over the span of three days (one game on the first day, three on the second, one on the third). After losing to Shiratorizawa in the finals, they became Miyagi Prefecture's Interhigh runner-up.

Second Round

Aoba Johsai High School vs Oomisaki High School (2:0 / 25-14, 25-12)

Third Round

Aoba Johsai High School vs Karasuno High School (2:1 / 25-15, 23-25, 33-31)

Quarterfinal

Aoba Johsai High School vs Senseki High School (2:0 / ??, 25-22)

Semifinal

Aoba Johsai High School vs Johzenji High (2:? / ??, ??, ??)

Final

Aoba Johsai High School vs Shiratorizawa Academy (0:2 / 22-25, 23-25)

Spring High-Miyagi Prefecture Representative Playoffs (2012)[]

Aoba Johsai was exempt from the first preliminary after placing within the top four during Interhigh preliminaries.

For the representative playoffs, Aoba Johsai was registered as team 16. They played at the Sendai City Gymnasium over the span of two days (one game on the first day, two on the second). Because they lost to Karasuno, they placed within the top four.

First Round

Aoba Johsai High School vs Niiyama Tech High School (2:0 / 25-20, 25-21)

Quarterfinal

Aoba Johsai High School vs Date Tech High School (2:0 / 25-19, 25-22)

Semifinal

Aoba Johsai High School vs Karasuno High School (1:2 / 23-25, 28-26, 24-26)

Spring High-Miyagi Prefecture Representative Playoffs (2013)[]

Final

Aoba Johsai High School vs Karasuno High School (??:3/ ??)

Spring High-Miyagi Prefecture Representative Playoffs (2014)[]

Semifinal

Aoba Johsai High School vs ??? (??:2 / ??)

Trivia[]

Though "Aoba Johsai" is typically romanized as "Aobajousai" or "Aobajōsai", the name is spelled "Aoba Johsai" on the back of their team uniform^[1].

The school has a girls' volleyball club.

The school is shown to have a boys' baseball team^[2].

Ushijima compares this volleyball club to plants growing in infertile soil though some players have disagreed with his analogy.

Aoba Johsai literally means "west of Aoba Castle", which is historically known as Sendai Castle.

Kageyama was invited by the coach of Aoba Johsai to join the school, but he wanted to attend Shiratorizawa Academy. When he was not accepted to Shiratorizawa Academy, he decided to attend Karasuno after hearing that Coach Ikkei Ukai was coming out of retirement.

The school's shortened name is 青城 (romanized as Seijō or Seijoh). It comes from Aoba Johsai's first and third kanji being put together.
- 青 can be pronounced as Ao [ex. 青写真 (Aojashin) – Blueprint] and as Sei [ex. 青春 (Seishun) – Youth].
- The most common pronunciation for 城 as a standalone word is Shiro and Jō when it appears in names of castles.
- In English, it translates to "light blue castle".

Most Aoba Johsai's volleyball team members' (coaches and players) family names come from onsen (hot spring) locations (towns and establishments) in Iwate Prefecture, the author's native prefecture, the exception being Oikawa.

Aoba Johsai is represented as plants (the characters for "aoba" can also be read as "green leaf") or as a kingdom with Oikawa as the king and the other players as knights.