Spring Tournament, by its full name All Japan High School Volleyball Championship Tournament (Japanese:
Contents
History
Interhigh and Spring Tournament were originally two events of the same tournament, which was started in 1948. The events were eventually split into two independent tournaments with slight differences in organization.
Spring Tournament used to take place in March, which is where its nickname comes from, but was moved to January to allow graduating students to compete and to give professional prospects one more opportunity to showcase their skills before graduation.
The tournament used to be held at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Shibuya Ward before being moved to the current venue, Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, which is a sporting complex in the same ward. Spring Tournament uses both the main gymnasium and the smaller gymnasium next to it for the games on the first day.
Qualifications
Each of the 47 prefectures has at least one representative spot for the tournament. Four prefectures have double representation due to their size, which are Tokyo, Kanagawa, Osaka and Hokkaido in real life and Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi and Hokkaido in the story (it is unknown why Osaka was replaced by Aichi in the story). Tokyo gets an additional spot for being the host prefecture, totaling in three representative schools. The total number of participating schools is 52, or 104 for both men's and women's categories.
Qualification tournaments start as early as August and end as late as November. Larger prefectures may have several qualifying events, while smaller prefectures may hold the entire qualification over one weekend. Tokyo is notable in that in its final round, the top four teams compete for three representative spots.
Format
Tournament Bracket
The bracket is divided into the left and right half, four blocks (each containing 13 teams) and eight zones (corner zones contain seven teams and inner zones six), which can be further divided into halves.
Seeding
Due to there being 52 participating schools, it is impossible to hold a single-elimination tournament without seeded teams. In total, there are 12 seeded slots.
There are four main seeds, which are decided by the placement at the previous year's Spring and the preceding Interhigh Tournament held in summer; the four seeds are usually the top four schools from the Interhigh. There is also a fifth seed, which is a seeded slot for Tokyo's first representative. If Tokyo's first representative is at the same time one of the four main seeds, the fifth seed becomes available for raffle.
The remaining eight (or seven, if Tokyo's first representative is in the fifth seed) seeds are decided by a raffle.
Team Allocation
The four main seeds are placed in the corners of the bracket, with the first seed being placed in the top corner on the left side, second on the bottom of right side, third in the top corner on the right side and fourth in the bottom left.
The remaining teams' placement in the tournament bracket is decided by a raffle. To ensure a balanced placement of teams from different regions, teams from the same region are allocated to different zones. Where this is impossible due to a greater number of schools from the same region than there are zones, the teams are arranged in such a way that schools from the same region in the same zone cannot meet before the third round, being placed in separate halves of the same zone. The allocation rule is broken several times in the anime bracket, with Inubushi Higashi and Ajisu facing each other in the first round despite being from the same region, Chūgoku. The issue repeats again with the four teams missing from the bottom of the left side, where two teams from the same region, Shikoku, would be placed.
The bracket revealed in the manga makes a similar allocation mistake, with two schools from the same prefecture, Kanagawa, being placed on the same side of the bracket despite the rule that schools from the same prefecture must be placed on opposite sides of the bracket.
Course
The structure of the tournament is a single-elimination tournament, also known as sudden death. It has six rounds: first round, second round, third round, quarterfinal, semifinal and final round. There is only one round played on each day, with the exception of day three, when both third round and the quarterfinals are played. Day three is consequently known as "Third day Hell".
Matches are played on four courts in the main arena and an additional one in the smaller arena, used only for matches on the first day.
Matches prior to the semifinal are three set matches and the semifinals and the final are five set matches. There is no third place decider match and the third and fourth place are decided by the matchups against the eventual winner of the tournament.
Teams Competing (Manga)
Men's
| 2013 Spring Interhigh Men's Teams | |
|---|---|
| Left Bracket | Right Bracket |
|
|
| Other Teams Mentioned |
|---|
|
Women's
- Niiyama Girls' High (Miyagi Prefecture Representative)
- Iwaki Girls High School (Fukushima Prefecture Representative)
- Kanai Trade High School (Ishikawa Prefecture Representative)
- Takagi High School (Yamaguchi Prefecture Representative)
- Sentoku High School (Hiroshima Prefecture Representative)
- Iseoka High School (Aichi Prefecture Representative)
- Morita Girls High School (Saga Prefecture Representative)
- Sakura Chuo High School (Yamagata Prefecture Representative)
- Kasaneyama High School (Nagano Prefecture Representative)
- Geba High School (Hokkaido Prefecture Representative)
- Yunokawa Girls High School (Hokkaido 2 Prefecture Representative)
- Myouken High School (Kagoshima Prefecture Representative)
- Hisamitsu High School (Tokyo Prefecture Representative)
- Wanaka Girls' High (Tokyo 3 Prefecture Representative)
- Onita Girls' Academy
- Sakogawa High School (Osaka Prefecture Representative)
- Yamato Girls' High School (Aichi Prefecture Representative)
- Rado High School (Chiba Prefecture Representative)
Matches (Manga)
| Spring Interhigh Nationals (Manga) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round | Match | Score | Chapters | |
| 1 | Karasuno High vs. Tsubakihara Academy | 2:0 / 25-23, 25-23 | 232-243 | |
| Nekoma High vs. Kiyokawa High | 2:0 / 29-27, 25-21 | 243 | ||
| Fukurōdani Academy vs. Eiwa High | 2:0 / 25-22, 25-21 | 243-244 | ||
| Kamomedai High vs. Chikuida High | 2:0 / 25-20, 25-18 | 245 | ||
| Sarukawa Tech High vs. Amanoshiro High | 2:1 / 20-25, 25-21, 25-19[5] | 292 | ||
| Umakita High vs ???? | 2:1 / 25-?, 23-25, 25-20 [6] | 232 | ||
| Higashihara High vs. Sangu Tech High | 2:? | 243 | ||
| Takagiyama High vs. Oga Daifu High | 2:? | ? | ||
| Matsuyama Nishi Biz High vs. Koya Daiichi High | 2:? | 326 | ||
| Sengoku Biz High vs. Sakyū Chūō High | 2:? | 326 | ||
| Matsukawa Tech High vs. Yamazaki Tachibana High | ?:2 | 326 | ||
| Kenritsu Yoshinami High vs. Samae Tech High | ?:2 | 326 | ||
| 2 | ||||
| Akaneyama High vs. Minamiike High | 0:2 / 20-25, 19-25 | 248 | ||
| Karasuno High vs. Inarizaki High | 2:1 / 27-25, 16-25, 32-30 | 249-291 | ||
| Fukurōdani Academy vs Morikawa High | 2:0 / 28-26, 25-21 | 292 | ||
| Nekoma High vs. Sarukawa Tech High | 2:0 / 25-23, 32-30 | 265-269 | ||
| Mujinazaka High vs. Samae Tech High | 2:? | 326 | ||
| Matsuyama Nishi Biz High vs. Raihō High | 2:? | 326 | ||
| Sengoku Biz High vs. Yamazaki Tachibana High | 2:? | 326 | ||
| Kamomedai High vs. Shinta Tech High | 2:? | ? | ||
| Takagiyama High vs. Yagitani High | 2:? | ? | ||
| Niiyama Girls' High vs ??? | 2:? | ? | ||
| 3 | Karasuno High vs. Nekoma High | 2:1 / 25-27, 26-24, 25-21 | 293-324 | |
| Fukurōdani Academy vs. Matsuyama Nishi Biz High | 2:0 / 25-22, 25-18 | ?-326 | ||
| Kamomedai High vs. Takagiyama High | 2:0 / ??, 25-22 | 326 | ||
| Mujinazaka High vs. Sengoku Biz High | 2:? | ? | ||
| Itachiyama Institute vs. Tamamine High | 2:0 / 25-18, 25-17 | 327 | ||
| Mineoka High vs ???? | ?:2 | 327 | ||
| Shiritsu Sakae High vs Ōsawa High | 2:? | 327 | ||
| Quarter-Finals | Fukurōdani Academy vs. Mujinazaka High | 2:1 / 23-25, 25-22, 25-22 | 328-337 | |
| Karasuno High vs. Kamomedai High | 1:2 / 20-25, 25-22, 23-25 | 338-367 | ||
| Itachiyama Institute vs. Inubushi Higashi High | 1:2 / 25-22, 20-25, 27-29 | ?-368 | ||
| Ichibayashi High vs Shiritsu Sakae High | 2:? | ? | ||
| Semi-Finals | Fukurōdani Academy vs. Inubushi Higashi High | 3:? | ? | |
| Kamomedai High vs. Ichibayashi High | ?:3 | ? | ||
| Finals | Fukurōdani Academy vs. Ichibayashi High | 2:3 / 18-25, 25-21, 26-24, 23-25, 13-15 | 392 | |
Teams Competing (Anime)
Men's
| 2013 Spring Interhigh Men's Teams [7] | |
|---|---|
| Left Bracket | Right Bracket |
|
|
Differences and Discrepancies Between Manga and Anime
Manga
- It is unknown where exactly Tamamine and Inubushi Higashi are located within the manga tournament bracket. However, their general position can be inferred based on the fact they faced off against Itachiyama in the third and quarter-finals respectively.
- Ichibayashi, to play Fukurōdani in the finals, must be placed in the right half of the bracket. Their exact position is not directly seen in the manga, but can be inferred from the lines shown in Chapter 326.
- In the manga, Eiwa is labeled as a representative from Oita, the same prefectural as Mujinazaka. This appears to be an error since Oita usually only has one representative in the real-life tournament.
- Eiwa's prefecture is corrected to Miyazaki in the anime.
- According to the final guidebook, Inubushi Higashi is the representative for Kyoto. It is changed to Hiroshima in the anime.
Anime
- In Season 4 Episode 9, the Furukata is announced as the representative of Fukushima. However, the bracket appears to show a different school name. The name is romanized as "Raiho" in the official English translation of the manga.
- In the Manga, Itachiyama Institute supposedly played against Inubushi Higashi (Hiroshima Prefecture Representative) in the quarter finals of the Spring Tournament. However in the anime, Inubushi is placed as the #6 team in Itachiyama's bracket, which would mean that they would play Itachiyama in the 3rd round. It is unknown if this is a corrected error from the manga or the anime.
- In the anime, Mujinazaka and Fukurōdani are placed on the right side of the bracket, along with Karasuno and Kamomedai. This would mean that Kamomedai would face Fukurōdani in the Semifinals, as opposed to the manga, where they faced Ichibayashi. It's unknown if this is a corrected error from the manga or the anime.
Trivia
- In the introduction of the tournament, it was also referred to as Kōshien of volleyball, which is a reference to the biggest high school level baseball tournaments.
- Real-life 2013 Spring Tournament was held in Saitama Prefecture due to repairs at Tokyo Metropolitan Gym. This means that, if the manga had followed real-life to that extent, Hinata's dream of standing on Tokyo's orange court wouldn't have come true.
- Due to the fact that qualification tournaments had already taken place, the 2013 tournament had 53 participating teams since Tokyo got to keep their three representatives and Saitama was given an additional one.
