Well, the problem is that top Japanese players (e.g Yamashita, Cho U...) don't usually play preliminaries of international tournament. Or they get seed, or they don't participate. If Japan can get good result in this LG Cup, I hope this will change.Well, we can't forget that zero Japanese players advanced through the preliminaries. That was the main reason that there were only four from Japan in the final (China had only five seeded players, see the OP). Nevertheless, the results so far make it look like the right two guys are fighting it out back home in the Honinbo.
In the preliminaries, I see some hopeful Japanese names like Murakawa Daisuke, Anzai Nobuaki or Fujita Akihiko, but they're all knock-out.
By the way, it was a shame that all Korean lost on their homeland.
Go Iyama, I don't want to see China dominates the Go world!!
