83rd Kasou Taishou

One thing I always look forward to around the turn of the year is the show Kasou Taishou (欽ちゃん＆香取慎吾の全日本仮装大賞), currently hosted by Kinichi Hagimoto and Shingo Katori. Kasou (仮装) means costume and taishou (大賞) is the grand prize. Even if you don't know the title of the show, most peeps on the internets are sure to have seen the Matrix Ping-Pong vid on the YouTubes:

The 83rd edition of the bi-annual show aired on Sunday evening here in J-land. For some reason, there seemed to be quite a few kids this year, possibly more than in previous years. While all of the performances were cute, fun, and for the most part solid, I did not see anything truly outstanding as in years past. I think the judges were in agreement as well, and it showed in their scores. Only two contestants failed to pass, and there was only one perfect score (20 points), for Surfing (サーフィン):

This large group of kids managed to pull the top prize of ¥1,000,000 (a couple bones less than $11,000 US). They said they'd use the prize money to buy an air conditioner for their dance studio.

For those of you who watched, did you have any favorite performances? Aside from Surfing, the Ping Pong Racket was probably my favorite, second would be the Alice in Wonderland one. You can check out most of the performances here.