The All Japan Kendo Championship is a tournament, in which the best male Kendoka in Japan will be decided through a sudden death system. A total of 64 kendoka are participating in the championship. To win the title, the competitor needs to win all of his six bouts. The competitors are not only required to show strength, but also courtesy in accordance with the martial arts spirit. The winner receives the Emperor's Cup.
Qualification
The qualification are conducted on prefectural level. Each prefectural Kendo Federation of the All Japan Kendo Federation is responsible for their own qualification. The winner of each qualification tournament will be qualified for the All Japan Kendo Championship. However, in Hokkaido, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi and Hyogo the runner up of also qualifiers, while in Chiba, Tokyo, Osaka, Saitama, Fukuoka both runner up and the third placed Kendoka are qualified for the tournament. Until the 32nd tournament in 1984, only 6th Dan kendoka were allowed to qualify, before the restrictions were lowered to 5th dan at the 38th tournament in 1990. Since the 43rd tournament in 1995, there are no restrictions in age and rank.
Police officers provide by far the vast majority of the competitors, followed by teachers. The competitors, who participated in the early years of the tournament were from various professions, but the police force emerged from around 1965 and began to compete with the teachers for the championship in the 1950s. From then on police officers dominate the championships and Japanese kendo at professional level. They are Kendo personnel selected as part of the tokuren, a special unit of the riot police dedicated for doing professional kendo as a profession. The largest tokuren squads fully dedicated to kendo are the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the prefectural police departments of Osaka, Kanagawa and Hokkaido. Kendo police officers in smaller prefectural police departments may also conduct regularpolice work in the riot squad more often than in the latter mentioned departments due to shortage. Teachers also provide a large group among the competitors. Most of them either teach physical education at high school level or kendo. A third significant group at the championships are students. They either qualify via the All Japan University Kendo Championship or through the prefectural qualifying. Two of the youngest winners of the championship were students with Yuya Takenouchi being the first student to win the championship in after 43 years.
