Saitama Sakae High School

Saitama Sakae Senior High School has two main courses: the general course divided into four specialized courses (α course, S course, special course, art class), and the Health and Physical Education course.

This course is designed to prepare students for entrance exams to prestigious national and public universities such as Tokyo Institute of Technology, the University of Tsukuba and Saitama University, as well as challenging private universities such as Waseda University and Keio University.[7]
This course is itself divided into four sub-courses:

• α course, a course specializing in preparation for medical university entrance examinations
• S course, to prepare for non-medical entrance examinations
• special course, to prepare for university entrance exams via a system of balance between study and extracurricular activities
• art class, a specialized course accessible only from the second year onwards and designed to prepare students for entry into art and music colleges

A specialized course alternating theoretical studies with an emphasis on sports practice, with the aim of creating top-level athletes.[8] In this particular course, Saitama Sakae High School graduated have gone on to success in sports such as sumo, badminton, baseball and track and field.

Tottori Jōhoku High School has athletic facilities including an artificial turf field, tartan course, baseball field, training room, and arena gymnasium.[9] The school offers its students sports activities including:

The school is regularly referred to as a "sumo power house", with more than a dozen wrestlers graduating from the school having reached the status of sekitori.[10] Every year, several students from the Saitama Sakae sumo club decide to become professionals, and the school regularly produces around five professional wrestlers a year.[11] The school usually gives one keshō-mawashi (ceremonial apron) to each student who becomes a sekitori. Since Gōeidō, 26 alumni have received an apron.[12] Between 2019 and 2022, the school raised six different high-school yokozuna.[13] In July 2022, 14 out of the 70 sekitori in professional sumo were alumni from Saitama Sakae sumo club,[12] and in July of the following year, 11 of the 42 makuuchi (sumo's top division) wrestlers were from the high school.[14] The club's current director, Michinori Yamada, is a graduate of Nihon University and amateur yokozuna. He has managed the club since 1988.[15]

Saitama Sakae High School is considered a pioneer in girls' high school baseball and was the second high school in Japan to establish a girls' baseball team in 1997.[1] The girls' baseball team notably won the national championship, both in the invitational tournament in spring and summer championship, 12 times.[1] The men's baseball team is regularly ranked among the top 8 teams in Japan.[16]

In November 2022, the running team seted records of 13:59 at a competition in Yokohama City and at the national 5,000 metres tournament. It was the first time in 13 years that a runner from the same high school had clocked 13:54 (a prefectural high school record) since 2009.[17]

As of 2023, the men's badminton club is ranked among the top 5 Japanese clubs.[18] The club notably won the All-Japan Junior High School Championships in March 2022[3] and the National High School Spring Championships in March 2023.[19]

In 2022, two 17-year-old members of the sumo club found a child who had been missing all morning. After comforting him with food to calm his hunger, the child was taken home. For their actions, the students received a certificate of commendation from Omiya Nishi Police Station.[10]

In March 2023, a student attacked a 60-year-old teacher at the school with a knife. Although the teacher was lightly injured, the assailant later revealed that he had attacked at random before being contained by other teachers who had come to the aid of the first.[20]

In March 2023, the members of the association football team had to publish an official apology video after some of their members had ironically commented on the fate of the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake in a video that became viral.[21]