4.3 Saga City Cultural Hall4.3佐賀市文化会館EP 152:572024-10-29Venue of the professional public game "14th NEC Cup Go Tournament, Round 1, Game 5" (co-hosted by the Nihon Ki-in) that Shindo Hikaru watched together with Senior Tsutsui. The players were 9-dan Kato Norimoto (Black) vs. 9-dan Fujisawa Kikuo (White), with Murase 9-dan giving the big-board commentary and Yoshinaga 2-dan as the interviewer. Senior Tsutsui told Hikaru, "I never expected Shindo-kun to come watch a professional game with me. I thought you'd say watching games is boring." Hikaru only forced himself to finish watching the middle school Go tournament with Toya for Sai's sake, but soon he couldn't sit still and left his seat. Because of this, he learned about internet Go in the break area and thus discovered sai, the strongest player online. The exterior of this venue is characterized by wide, shallow steps, a spatial layout uncommon in Tokyo. Searching images of the venues for the NEC Cup Go Tournament, I found that Saga City Culture Hall best matches the manga's depiction. From the hall's official website and online images, its interior, especially the 'white porcelain walls' on both sides of the stage and the left and right side seats raised one level above the central first-floor seats, closely resemble the manga scenes. Notably, on May 22, 1999, Saga City Culture Hall hosted the "19th NEC Cup Go Tournament, Round 1, Game 2, Saga Tournament," where the big-board commentary interviewer was then 2-dan Umezawa Yukari. Model for the exterior of the NCC Cup Go Tournament venue. (Vol. 4 p.81)
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