Haremachi Breakin' 2024.

On Saturday, July 20, the Okayama Breaking Culture Association opened its 2024 battle season with Haremachi Breakin' 2024 at the studio theatre inside the Harenowa arts centre. Using the house rig of eleven speakers plus two foot monitors the association brought in, 43 Breaking 2vs2 crews and 12 Freestyle 2vs2 crews came together from ten prefectures — Okayama, Ehime, Kagawa, Tokushima, Kochi, Hyogo, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Gunma, Tokyo — and Spain. The Breaking field ran through A- and B-block prelims (pickup format) to a 16-crew main bracket.

Breaking ended with Sweet Coast BreakBoys Club filling three of the four TOP4 slots — dawnie / Noneski, Eba / Cica, and Aguro / Swampman — with 1996 (KENTWAVE / takashi, Ehime / Kagawa) grabbing the fourth. The semifinal was an all-Sweet-Coast affair on one side, where dawnie / Noneski edged out Aguro / Swampman; on the other, Cica / Eba eliminated 1996 but Eba was hurt during the round. In the final Cica effectively faced dawnie / Noneski on his own, drawing an ovation from the room for holding his stance unflinching — while a razor-sharp dawnie / Noneski pushed through to take the title.

Freestyle 2vs2 was a smaller field at 12 crews, but the later rounds played up style-war contrasts beautifully. kaya & LANDALL (Okayama) edged 土踏まないズ (TAISE! / Kazu) in a tight final to take the title. Judges were Peeta / HIROTO / nolza on Breaking and 唯愛 / rion the flow / MIHARU on Freestyle; DJs NOV -Roger Groove- and Long Neck ran the sound, with Ku-chang on the mic. Backed by sponsors Innosho Forestry, Blue Ocean Smart Systems, and zerosta, with support from the Okayama Urban Sports Association (UX), the year’s bracket season was off and running — inside a theatre’s closed rig of sound and light.