Shantanu Edgaonkar was crowned winner of the eighth Japan Times Bee on Saturday, earning the right to represent Japan at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington in May.
"I feel really great," the 13-year-old seventh-grader from Global Indian International School in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, said.
The contest, held at the headquarters of The Japan Times in Tokyo's Minato Ward, drew 35 other spelling wizards from across Japan. Edgaonkar prevailed by correctly spelling toxicosis, defined as "a pathological condition caused by the action of a poison or toxin."