My girlfriend is Saiki Kusunoki

A straight person cannot bring themselves to kneel down and beg someone, no matter how high their status, for an award or anything else.

"I believe that any competition should be judged by strength. Whether it's Nagumo Akira or Ms. Sawano, I will defeat them fair and square. If I have to beg them for anything, I will feel ashamed."

"Oh well, I already knew you'd say something like that."

President Fujino was not surprised that Naoto would say that.

After all, it's normal for young people to be impetuous.

"Whether the ministers praise me or suppress me, my strength has already reached that level. Even if the ministers forcibly lower my ranking, I believe my work will still gain recognition from others. If one's strength is insufficient, no matter how high the ranking, one is just a clown who is unworthy of the position."

At this moment, the president looked at Naoto and saw an intense confidence emanating from him, as if it were soaring into the sky.

For some reason, when the president looked at Naoto in front of him, it was as if he saw his younger self, the boy who believed that he could make a name for himself with his own strength.

"Haha, alright then. Since you've chosen your path, then go ahead with confidence. But Naoto-kun, if you ever can't hold on anymore, you can come find me. Although I'm old now, I still have some ability."

"President... it's me."

"Alright, you can rest assured about this matter. Although the minister will definitely be biased towards Miss Sawano or that guy Nagumo, he will not be too harsh on what you have done. After all, you are a true genius now. As long as you show your true strength, no one can say anything."

After saying that, President Fujino finished his tea in one gulp and left Naoto's house.

Chapter 182: The Tense and Exciting Selection

"Really? Is my uncle serving as a judge this time? Is it because of Naoto Yamashita?"

At the Sawano family home, Sawano Kiyoko, the eldest daughter, was listening to her mother talk about the judges for the upcoming art award.

When Kiyoko Sawano heard that her uncle would also be a judge, she was surprised and began to wonder why the judging panel had changed so much this time.

"Your uncle came all the way here specifically for this art competition. It seems that you, Qingzi, should be able to achieve a good ranking in this competition."

Kiyoko frowned slightly at her mother's words.

Although her uncle was one of the judges this time, Kiyoko still wanted to rely on her own abilities to achieve good results.

Actually, when Naoto and Akira Nagumo made their challenge, Kiyoko Sawano should have been the one who was the angrier.

Putting everything else aside, shouldn't you, Nan Yunxiao, be her opponent? Now you're abandoning yourself to deal with some greenhorn. What kind of behavior is that?

And then there's Naoto Yamashita. He was clearly a rival in the Young Person Award, so why did he seem to be left out? Nobody remembered that he was the third-place winner in the Young Person Award. Everyone was talking about the showdown between the first and second place winners.

I felt like a nobody.

However, although Kiyoko was very angry, she could not deny that the two of them were very strong, extremely strong.

She wanted to use her own strength to defeat these two people and let them know that she, Kiyoko Sawano, was also their opponent.

She didn't want to get this ranking just because the judges were her family.

Faced with her mother's nagging, Kiyoko sighed silently.

Meanwhile, as a judge, Mizuki Chidori straightened her clothes and, accompanied by Mijutsu, went to the judging venue for the competition.

As a competition among the five major art academies, the judges are naturally mostly teachers and professors from those academies.

In addition, some well-known professional painters and sculptors will be invited to serve as judges, but they make up a very small percentage of the total. They are just there to make up the numbers and show that "the art creation awards held by our five major art academies are fair and open" to shut up the media.

However, in reality, the power of discourse is still largely in the hands of the art academy.

However, that was before, because now their boss, Mizuki Chidori, will be a judge.

As the Minister of Culture, he naturally holds a pivotal position in this selection process.

Even if the entire judging panel doesn't officially have any veto power, once he speaks up, it will become so.

I ask you, among the entire judging panel, who would dare to provoke someone like the Minister of Culture?

So basically, whether it passes or not depends on the minister's word.

Although the judges did not believe that the minister would interfere too much with all the works.

When Mizuki Chidori arrived at the meeting room, everyone in the room turned to look at her.

In fact, Chidori Mizuki, the Minister of Culture, is not very old, only about forty years old, making her one of the youngest among Japan's high-ranking officials.

Most Japanese officials are probably still junior staff members when they are in their forties.

It can be said that the vast majority of people in the entire meeting room were much older than this minister.

However, when the minister entered the meeting room, everyone felt a sense of pressure.

Although the minister looked like an ordinary office worker, his aura of authority made the professors dare not look him in the eye.

"Come on, let's start the selection process. There's quite a lot of work to be done this time."

With the minister's speech, the selection of works began in the meeting room.

This time, the works are even more brutal than those in the previous youth art appreciation exhibition.

In just the first round, about two thousand works will be selected from six or seven thousand to advance. Roughly two-thirds of the participants will be eliminated.

Because of the large number of participants, the number of people eliminated each time is astonishing.

For this reason, oil painting competitions are also known as a hellish meat grinder.

The remaining two thousand or so works will proceed to the next selection stage.

The so-called selection process involved cutting 1,500 works from these two thousand-plus submissions, leaving only 500 for the second round of review—this cut reduced the number by three-quarters again, resulting in countless deaths. The brutality was comparable to a world war.

All the works were judged in three days, which was naturally a considerable challenge for the judges.

Of course, teachers from other colleges will also help with the selection, and in the end, the number of people who can be selected by the judging panel will be at most around 500.

At this moment, Minister Shuiyue sat alone in a chair, looking at the works that had been presented to him.

It's as if this minister really came to select works.

The judges present all watched the young minister with bated breath, trying to discern some deeper meaning from him.

Although they are all celebrities in the art world and top artists, the judging pressure is not great for these student-level works.

But with this person here, who dares to speak casually?

Moreover, this person's identity is not so simple.

It is said that this Minister of Culture, who comes from the Mizuki family, is highly accomplished in the arts, even though he graduated from the University of Tokyo.

Although he chose to go into politics after graduation, his teacher is said to be a true giant in the art world.

Kiyoko Sawano's choice to pursue painting was actually closely related to her uncle.

A person of high status who also possesses profound artistic talent would naturally cause these professors great concern, who suspected that this minister had ulterior motives.

Indeed, that was the case with the minister.

Previously, the minister had not been aware of domestic affairs due to his business trips abroad.

Upon learning that a genius painter had emerged in his country and had even surpassed his niece, he became very interested.

The ministers were well aware of Sayako's level of ability, which is why they wondered how strong anyone would be to defeat her.

Furthermore, he learned that this genius was just an ordinary student a little over a year ago, without any art training, yet he had already achieved what he has today, even winning the Nebula Award.

Even abroad, you can hear about what Naoto Yamashita has been doing.

"Let me test whether this legendary genius, said to be one in a century, is really as strong as the rumors suggest."

Chapter 183: Abyss and Stars

In the conference room, the judging panel was quickly flipping through the entries. Among the thousands of submissions, there were quite a few that they considered exceptionally good.

Before the selection, the judges thought that naming the topic "friendship" would stump many people.

Surprisingly, many of the works in this exhibition are quite good, at least in terms of painting skills.

Of course, with excellent works, there are also many people who try to take advantage of the situation.

This art competition was large in scale, and the quality of the works varied greatly due to the diverse range of participants. Many young people who had never studied art and whose drawings were terrible submitted their work out of a "what if I win?" mentality.

Anyway, there's no harm in giving it a try.

For this reason, about half of the works in this exhibition room are by students from Tokyo's five major art academies.

After all, how many genius students are there?

University students who have received formal, systematic art education at Tokyo's top five art academies naturally have an advantage over those from untrained backgrounds across the country.

Of course, this doesn't mean that no works from other regions made it to the final selection... it just means that the number was relatively small, roughly the same as the number of students from the five major art academies in Tokyo.

"There are some pretty good works among this batch of pieces."

"But deciding on the ranking is quite difficult."

"Although some of the works are technically good, the concepts are somewhat lacking. For example, this painting, 'Koshien,' is so many years old."

"And this painting, 'The Zaporozhian People's Letter to the Turkish Sultan,' is clearly a copy."

"This painting, 'Farewell,' is quite good. It uses the theme of friends saying goodbye and mutual appreciation. The painting technique is also very good. It uses a harmonious combination of cool and warm colors. I remember that the genius Naoto Yamashita liked to use this kind of painting technique."

"That's right, it's definitely the method that Naoto Yamashita prefers, but it's a bit different from his, and it looks a bit awkward."

"And this one, a relay race scene where a teammate falls down and a friend helps them up and they continue on together, is also quite good. I think it deserves at least a silver award."

"However, the composition is a bit cluttered, it seems the basics are not very good."

"Shall we try for the bronze prize first?"

The judges discussed the matter in hushed tones, offering various opinions, which were then rejected.

This is the drawback of having a common subject matter in paintings.

The fact that all the participants chose the same theme resulted in many oil paintings having weak themes and concepts.

Although these works are all excellent, it is not easy to rank in the top ten and win an award.

After all, there are only so many spots available, and some are excellent while others are even more so. You can't just throw away someone else's ranking like that.

While the judges were debating, Minister Shuiyue sat quietly in his seat, constantly flipping through the selected works.

He saw his niece's work in the exhibition hall, as well as Nan Yunxiao's work.

It must be said that these two, who are known as the golden couple of the art world, have both improved their painting skills a lot recently.