Wataru Yokoo (Kis-My-Ft2) challenges elementary and middle school students to a haiku on "Pre-Battle!!" but says, "I'm not confident..."

■ Yokoo Wataru will be appearing on “Pre-Battle!!” starting at 7pm on August 29th!

Yokoo Wataru (Kis-My-Ft2) will appear on the MBS/TBS program “Pre-Bato!!” which will air on August 29th.

With only a few days left of summer vacation, this time we will be broadcasting “Natsui Selection! National Elementary and Junior High School Students VS Masters and Scholarship Students Summer Inter-Style Competition SP” for the first time in five years. Five haiku poets from second grade to third grade of junior high school selected by teacher Natsui Itsuki from all over the country will stand in the way of the masters and scholarship students with their fearsome sensibility.

The contestants include the special permanent Meijin Tomio Umezawa, permanent Meijin Chihara Junior and Yokoo Wataru (Kis-My-Ft2), Meijin 10th Dan Nakata Yoshiko, and 5th Grade Naito Tsuyoshi, who was recently promoted to a scholarship student. The theme is “eggs,” and each person will compose a haiku based on the same theme photo, and Natsui Sensei will match them up in a one-on-one matchup without knowing whose haiku it is. The winner of each match will be judged strictly by three of Japan’s leading haiku poets.

The elementary and junior high school haiku poets are all talented and have been endorsed by Natsui-sensei as “frightening” and “very original,” and the students themselves are full of energy, saying “We will definitely win no matter who the opponent is!” and “We want to win by thinking like children.” The judges are also enthusiastic, saying “We will grade strictly” and “Age doesn’t matter,” while the masters and scholarship students are fearful, saying “There are some really amazing kids out there” (Chihara Jr.) and “I’m not confident…” (Yokoo).

In each match, the level of the battle was so high that it was impossible to tell which poems were by masters or scholarship students and which were by elementary and junior high school students. MC Masatoshi Hamada said with a bitter smile, “This is dangerous, if the masters and scholarship students lose…!” How good are the genius elementary and junior high school haiku poets? And will the masters and scholarship students who have been working hard on “Pre-Battle!!” be able to protect their pride? The scorching hot battle that parents and children will want to watch at the end of the summer vacation is finally about to begin.