S.O.S. (Shinjinrui on Sumo)
by Chris Gould
In
the final essay of the trilogy, Chris Gould looks at the structural
barriers which – by all accounts – appear to be preventing Japan’s
under-30s from enjoying sumo.
January 10th 2007. Another weekday, another 45%-full Kokugikan. A despondent Englishman, who has briefly departed the arena for a photo engagement, fails to suppress his inner feelings when greeted by his favourite Kokugikan usher. ‘Konde imasen, ne?’ (‘A crowd, there is not, eh?’), the Englishman complains, in Japanese most charitably described as ‘pidgin.’ A nearby oyakata, doubtless itching to break up the monotony of guidebook duty, overhears my remark and offers a response. ‘He says: “Wait until the weekend. Then the crowds will come,”’ is the usher’s English translation.
Sure enough, the weekend comes and so do the crowds; the man’in rei (full house) banners are lowered on both the following Saturday and Sunday. But my seeds of doubt continue to germinate. I spend a large portion of Day 8 contemplating just how the Japan Sumo Association (NSK) – with a payroll encompassing hundreds of wrestlers, oyakata, officials, guides and clerical staff – can possibly remain solvent with average daily gates of 6,000. If a professional football club, cricket club, rugby team or – dare I say – the Lawn Tennis Association found itself in a similar position, it would be bankrupted within a month. I am no more blind to the vital financial assistance provided by koenkai, kanemochi and other private sponsorship than I am to the presumably limited capacity of these donors to keep bailing sumo out. I simply feel that life for the NSK would be much more pleasant if all tournament seats were sold.
Central to the phenomenon of empty seats are, of course, Japan’s under-30s. Although the term ‘shinjinrui’ (‘new race’) has gradually absented itself from Japanese social commentary, I have applied it to the Japanese youth of today because their outlook on life – and, to a lesser but significant extent, sumo – is indisputably different to that of previous generations. The previous two essays have explored many theories as to why shinjinrui take little interest in Japan’s ‘national’ sport, but could it simply be the case that there are basic structural barriers (financial, geographical, logistical and organisational) that prevent shinjinrui from joining in the fun?
Expensive entrance fee?
‘It’s not that I don’t want to come to sumo,’ says Hiroshi, a 25-year-old air steward. ‘I’ll admit it’s hard to get to bouts during the day, but the thing that puts me off most is the high price of tickets.’
My shinjinrui interviews confirm that Hiroshi speaks for many of his peers. The most common reason youngsters give for not attending sumo is the cost of tickets. In the words of the sumo journalist Liliane Fujimori: ‘The prices are pretty high, and… people with modest incomes will, without doubt, pass up the chance to watch live sumo and remain content with [watching] televised broadcasts.’
The cheapest ticket for a Tokyo basho is a ‘day pass,’ which is priced at around ¥2,100 ($17.50). However, few shinjinrui are prepared to queue from as early as 5.45am to secure one of the 500 passes sold daily, and especially for the miserly reward of a back-row seat. The next lowest-priced ticket costs ¥3,600 ($30), and delivers the purchaser just two rows closer to the action than someone with a day pass. The view from such seats is still satisfactory, but if a youngster only plans to spend two hours watching makunouchi, the ¥3,600 ticket begins to constitute an expensive day out.
To feel confident that the sumotori will hear their shouts of encouragement, youngsters must somehow acquire a masu-seki, a box of four zabuton in the stadium’s first tier. Unfortunately, though, it is the masu-seki which foment shinjinrui perceptions of extortionate sumo ticket prices. The average price of a box is around ¥40000 ($333), which works out at $83 per person, a fee many under-30s have as much chance of paying as they have of finding three friends to take to sumo.
On the two recent occasions that I was able to sit in the masu-seki, a cursory survey of the neighbours revealed that they attract people from a certain background. My colleague, a glamorous kimono-wearing woman in her mid-60s, was married to a senior company executive. The couple sharing with friends to my left had lived in England for two years as a result of the husband’s high-profile employment. The following day, a well-dressed middle-aged couple treating a sumo-loving grandfather occupied the box behind, while four dark-suited, white-shirted businessmen partied away in the box to my right (and seemingly felt that the final 90 minutes’ action alone was worth their $333). The masu-seki occupant is more likely to be 50 than under 30, and is almost guaranteed to hail from the sarariman class or above. In short, this description is poles apart from that of a 25-year-old furita with a ‘modest income.’
It is therefore vitally important for the NSK to remind shinjinrui that although masu-seki are expensive, they are definitely not out-of-reach. It must reiterate that the day’s action begins at 8.30am, long before the TV cameras are even safety-checked, and should advise youngsters to ‘make a day’ (presumably during a weekend) of any visit to a sumo arena. The NSK must publicize the fact that most spectators do not arrive until after 2pm, and that youngsters who have bought cheaper tickets are perfectly welcome to borrow the masu-seki until their rightful owners turn up. Although they will not be within touching distance of Asashoryu or Kotooshu, youthful cheap-ticket holders can still experience the thrill of being seated extremely near to a jonokuchi, jonidan and sandanme match, and may take some sensational photographs.
The NSK should also expand its ‘day pass’ scheme to facilitate the tackling of under-attendance on weekdays. It was saddening to note that Dejima’s magnificent victory over Asashoryu, one of the biggest upsets of the past five years, was witnessed by barely 4,000 people on Day 3 of Hatsu. Possessing prior knowledge of miserable ticket sales, the NSK should have placed all third-day seats on sale at discount prices from the close of the action on day 2. The ticket office could have opened for 90 minutes from 6pm, in the hope of enticing fans who had only intended to come for Day 2, but might yet be tempted by bargain prices for the following day. The discount sales could then have continued from 9am-4pm on day 3 until all seats had been filled.
There are, of course, two problems with this approach. Firstly, smart consumers might simply never buy their tickets in advance in the hope of forever obtaining discount rates. This could lead to loss of revenue for the NSK and many logistical headaches caused by masses of last-minute ticket-buyers descending upon the Kokugikan. The NSK should overcome this problem by stipulating that discount tickets are only admissible for the makunouchi schedule after 3pm. With full-price tickets being valid for the entire day, the incentive remains for aficionados to buy them in advance. The second problem concerns the likelihood that the NSK would view discounted tickets as an embarrassing admission of sumo’s diminishing popularity. It must therefore consider whether seeking to eradicate empty seats is more embarrassing than putting up with them.
Accessible Association?
Even if ticket prices were made more appealing, some under-30s would still complain that sumo is not accessible enough. ‘The basho are nowhere near where I live,’ is the popular refrain.
Traditionally, professional sumo sought to rectify such perceptions via the jungyo schedule, which dispatched top sumotori to towns far and wide between basho, and ensured that exhibition tournaments were held in communities which could never hope to stage a real basho. In sumo’s heyday, the jungyo system sold out remote venues several days over and undoubtedly boosted support in hard-to-reach areas. But in recent years, demand for jungyo has seemingly dried up. The most sorry example is the demise of the Sapporo jungyo tour, which used to play to packed audiences on four consecutive days, but now struggles to sell every ticket for a one-day event. Although several oyakata have, at various times, been asked to review the system, and the Sumo World annual round-up suggested that more jungyo events had taken place in 2006 than in preceding years, questions remain over whether jungyo is the best method of taking sumo to the masses.
Put plainly, jungyo should continue to be employed wherever it proves popular. When it comes to convincing people that you are worth investing time and money in, there is no better weapon than the personal touch. However, the NSK’s real strengths in the field of accessibility lie closer to home, and desperately need to be marketed.
Its first strength – the offer of close-up action for anybody who arrives early – has already been detailed. Its second strength is the accessibility of the wrestlers themselves. Broadly speaking, professional sumo does not subscribe to the bunker mentality evident in, say, UK Premiership football or international cricket, which results in training sessions for the stars taking place far away from the eyes of the fans, sometimes even behind steel gates. In sumo, so long as the stable is not mired in financial trouble, factionalised by internal disputes, or smarting from past unpleasant experiences with visitors/foreigners, it will allow youngsters the utmost proximity to their favourite rikishi. If a shinjinrui telephones the stable the day before, or asks nicely enough in person, they will be able to sit within touching distance of their sumo heroes for a good couple of hours during asageiko, and will very possibly have the chance to talk to them and ask for a photo. (At amateur sumo tournaments, it is even easier to accost and photograph the stars). Even if a stable classifies asageiko as off-limits to spectators, lower-division wrestlers and famous ex-sumotori (especially among the oyakata) can easily be found wandering around the corridors of the Kokugikan, often to join the queues at the various snack-bars. It is most fruitful to approach these individuals via someone who knows them, but even if this is not possible, some former sumotori will happily engage in conversation if you stun them with an interesting fact about their wrestling career!
As SFM’s editor-in-chief has highlighted elsewhere, professional sumo is also becoming more welcoming towards non-Japanese fans. At least two of the Kokugikan’s ushers are reasonably fluent in English, while English-language guide books and torikumi schedules for the top two divisions are available free of charge. The Japan Sumo Association’s website has, of course, been fully translated into English, while stables such as Musashigawa-beya have piloted English-language sumo chat-rooms.
As previously stated, some Japanese may argue that the above information is only useful to those who live close enough to physically attend keiko or basho. However, I find the argument that sumo attendances are poor because basho are held in too few cities extremely difficult to support. For a start, some of the non-sumo fans who have propounded this argument to me actually live in one of the four cities which stage basho! The issue is surely not whether sumo is geographically accessible to everybody, but whether sumo is geographically accessible to enough people to fill every seat during a tournament. It must be the case that the latter holds true, given that the combined population of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka totals some 14 million (rising to 18.5 million if Greater Tokyo is included). If even five per cent of this number were encouraged to grace several days of a tournament with their presence, the supply of seats would struggle to meet the demand for tickets!
The one area where sumo’s accessibility rating tumbles lies, of course, in the field of women’s rights. No-one denies that female spectators are treated very well but the reality remains that, due to professional sumo’s deference to Shinto custom, women are forbidden from mounting the dohyo. The complete absence of female sumotori and officials is particularly noticeable to young, non-Japanese women in the crowd. ‘You mean, there are no women involved here at all?’ two Canadian students asked of me after just five minutes in the sumo hall. I could only respond by stressing that amateur sumo, unbound by Shinto custom, is very accessible to women, and may hold the key to the sport’s future popularity.
Olympic offerings?
Among the upper echelons of amateur sumo, there is a strong view that Olympic status would increase sumo’s exposure, attract new investment and thereby increase the international popularity of the discipline. However, Olympic representation will never become a reality without the assent of the NSK, and this does not appear to be forthcoming anytime soon. Several NSK figures, including a former yokozuna, have claimed that Olympic status would not only relegate sumo from dignified art-form to run-of-the-mill sport, but would divorce sumo from the Japanese traditions which are allegedly integral to its identity. In addition, they claim that whereas Olympians would treat sumo merely as a ‘way of work,’ a pastime that can be pursued and dropped at regular intervals, true sumo is a ‘way of living’ and requires total commitment. By virtue of its deference to a Shinto religion which subordinates females, the NSK is also opposed to accepting the Olympian belief that men and women have equal participation rights.
It was hoped that had Osaka won the bid for the 2008 Olympics, the city’s sumo-mad female governor would have championed the staging of the inaugural Olympic sumo tournament there, doubtless hoping that the Japanese surroundings would placate the NSK. Alas, the 2008 Olympics went to Beijing, and although the following games belong to a city oft touted as the world’s most inclusive (London), amateur sumoists remain pessimistic about their sport’s chances of appearing there. One source maintained that Olympic sumo could come to fruition in 2016, but remained glum-faced when pondering the likelihood of NSK assent.
If opposition to Olympic accreditation is based solely on preserving sumo’s Japanese traditions alone, then such opposition appears increasingly meaningless. Even if those who question sumo’s Japanese roots are ignored, the fact remains that over 80 countries other than Japan have founded sumo associations, irrespective of whether the discipline is recognised at an Olympic level. Diverse individuals from across the planet have long been interpreting sumo in their own way, and adapting it to suit their own lifestyles. Amateur sumo tournaments, such as the US Sumo Open, are staged – and well supported – every year. Many of the participants in these tournaments are female. Seen in this context, Olympic status would merely formalise that which is already happening.
On the other hand, though, Olympic status should not be hailed as the universal antidote to sumo’s woes. It is true that the move would probably enable amateur sumo to be introduced to households that might otherwise ignore it, while women’s sumo could also receive a large boost, but it is also true that recent additions to the Olympic family, such as curling, still receive miniscule amounts of media attention, while (in Britain at least) key figures in even the more established Olympic sports, such as gymnastics and skiing, complain regularly of media ignorance and government under-funding.
Conclusion
Given the tone of certain paragraphs, readers could be forgiven for thinking that sumo is not watched by any shinjinrui at all. I should stress that this is not the case. Some shinjinrui do watch, but not enough. The composition of recent Tokyo tournament crowds suggests that more shinjinrui are trying sumo out; but tune into a football match or – if you can bear it – an evening tarento show like Music Station, and you will find many more youngsters, especially female, than ever could be spotted in a sumo hall.
On the plus side, there has been considerable growth in the number of non-Japanese under-30s attending sumo tournaments. Some have obviously been encouraged to come by Japanese friends, but others have been attracted by a novel tourist authority campaign to market sumo as a ‘uniquely Japanese’ experience which should appear on every gaijin’s must-see list. The marketing tactic would appear to be a wise one; Japan’s foreign visitor numbers nigh-doubled between 1996 and 2006.1
A further positive is that the Kokugikan houses sparkling pieces of evidence which suggest that maybe, just maybe, shinjinrui attitudes towards sumo are beginning to change for the better. The young women who lick their lips while photographing Kotooshu’s torso at ringside, coupled with the emergence of Hanako Dosukoi’s book ‘Cute Sumo,’ would appear to signify an unexpected revival of the concept of sumotori sex-appeal. Meanwhile, several youthful men in the audience seem to feel a sense of affinity with Asashoryu’s outgoing personality, and view Takamisakari’s pre-match antics as those of a rather cool comedian. However, I remain less convinced than the NSK that such developments are an expected gift from Mother Nature; that sumo is somehow automatically due an upturn in popular support after several years in the wilderness.
If sumo’s popularity ever did follow a cyclical trend, then this ended somewhere in the early-1990s. For a number of years, the diminution of sumo’s core support base was masked by the outreach project launched by Waka and Taka, the media savvy-ness of which strongly appealed to shinjinrui. Obscured by the Waka-Taka bubble, though, was the undeniable fact that sumo’s most dedicated supporters were becoming older, and – for a variety of reasons – unable to pass on their love of sumodo to younger relatives. When the proliferation of tabloid and tarento culture spotlighted youth, and the idea of feeling young, as never before, sumo seemed to age very quickly, and suddenly appeared desperately at odds with the values of the society surrounding it. Sumo has become ostracised by the under-30s on an unprecedented scale, drowned by the myriad of new sports, better communications technology and previously-unparalleled consumerism which have entered the consciousness of youth. If the resultant shift in young Japanese attitudes is irreversible – and there is every indication that it is – then it cannot possibly be treated as a cyclical phenomenon.
Rather, professional sumo is in danger of resembling an ailing, traditionalist political party. It appears in denial that the electorate’s worldview has moved on, that it can no longer win enough support by preaching to the converted, simply because the converted have significantly diminished in number. It has struggled to get to grips with the changing electorate, having failed to recognise that its audience must be drawn from consumers who shop around for the best deal, and not simply individuals who attach their hearts to sumo with steel bolts. There may be individual things that sumo says and does which strike a chord with the consumer audience, but when the whole package is put up for popular approval, it is usually rejected in favour of more modern-looking alternatives. The fact remains that an average of 3,500 tickets remain unsold on each day of a Tokyo basho (an average which rises in Fukuoka), and that relations between the sumo community and shinjinrui are very far from perfect.
I am delighted that sumo seeks to preserve the fascinating samurai tradition, so that people of my generation can continue to glimpse, and try to understand, a world which no longer exists on the street. Long may this continue. But the sumo package clearly needs tinkering with if the sport is to blossom in the 21st century, and once again capture the hearts and minds of the Japanese. The refrain of the reformer forever centres upon the theme: ‘The ends must stay the same, but the means of achieving them need not.’ I hope that this philosophy at least begins to permeate Japan’s national sport in the coming years. As this trilogy of articles hopefully shows, grounds for introspection certainly exist.
1 Source www.tourism.jp
Sumo Fan Magazine Home
January 10th 2007. Another weekday, another 45%-full Kokugikan. A despondent Englishman, who has briefly departed the arena for a photo engagement, fails to suppress his inner feelings when greeted by his favourite Kokugikan usher. ‘Konde imasen, ne?’ (‘A crowd, there is not, eh?’), the Englishman complains, in Japanese most charitably described as ‘pidgin.’ A nearby oyakata, doubtless itching to break up the monotony of guidebook duty, overhears my remark and offers a response. ‘He says: “Wait until the weekend. Then the crowds will come,”’ is the usher’s English translation.
Sure enough, the weekend comes and so do the crowds; the man’in rei (full house) banners are lowered on both the following Saturday and Sunday. But my seeds of doubt continue to germinate. I spend a large portion of Day 8 contemplating just how the Japan Sumo Association (NSK) – with a payroll encompassing hundreds of wrestlers, oyakata, officials, guides and clerical staff – can possibly remain solvent with average daily gates of 6,000. If a professional football club, cricket club, rugby team or – dare I say – the Lawn Tennis Association found itself in a similar position, it would be bankrupted within a month. I am no more blind to the vital financial assistance provided by koenkai, kanemochi and other private sponsorship than I am to the presumably limited capacity of these donors to keep bailing sumo out. I simply feel that life for the NSK would be much more pleasant if all tournament seats were sold.
Central to the phenomenon of empty seats are, of course, Japan’s under-30s. Although the term ‘shinjinrui’ (‘new race’) has gradually absented itself from Japanese social commentary, I have applied it to the Japanese youth of today because their outlook on life – and, to a lesser but significant extent, sumo – is indisputably different to that of previous generations. The previous two essays have explored many theories as to why shinjinrui take little interest in Japan’s ‘national’ sport, but could it simply be the case that there are basic structural barriers (financial, geographical, logistical and organisational) that prevent shinjinrui from joining in the fun?
Expensive entrance fee?
‘It’s not that I don’t want to come to sumo,’ says Hiroshi, a 25-year-old air steward. ‘I’ll admit it’s hard to get to bouts during the day, but the thing that puts me off most is the high price of tickets.’
My shinjinrui interviews confirm that Hiroshi speaks for many of his peers. The most common reason youngsters give for not attending sumo is the cost of tickets. In the words of the sumo journalist Liliane Fujimori: ‘The prices are pretty high, and… people with modest incomes will, without doubt, pass up the chance to watch live sumo and remain content with [watching] televised broadcasts.’
The cheapest ticket for a Tokyo basho is a ‘day pass,’ which is priced at around ¥2,100 ($17.50). However, few shinjinrui are prepared to queue from as early as 5.45am to secure one of the 500 passes sold daily, and especially for the miserly reward of a back-row seat. The next lowest-priced ticket costs ¥3,600 ($30), and delivers the purchaser just two rows closer to the action than someone with a day pass. The view from such seats is still satisfactory, but if a youngster only plans to spend two hours watching makunouchi, the ¥3,600 ticket begins to constitute an expensive day out.
To feel confident that the sumotori will hear their shouts of encouragement, youngsters must somehow acquire a masu-seki, a box of four zabuton in the stadium’s first tier. Unfortunately, though, it is the masu-seki which foment shinjinrui perceptions of extortionate sumo ticket prices. The average price of a box is around ¥40000 ($333), which works out at $83 per person, a fee many under-30s have as much chance of paying as they have of finding three friends to take to sumo.
On the two recent occasions that I was able to sit in the masu-seki, a cursory survey of the neighbours revealed that they attract people from a certain background. My colleague, a glamorous kimono-wearing woman in her mid-60s, was married to a senior company executive. The couple sharing with friends to my left had lived in England for two years as a result of the husband’s high-profile employment. The following day, a well-dressed middle-aged couple treating a sumo-loving grandfather occupied the box behind, while four dark-suited, white-shirted businessmen partied away in the box to my right (and seemingly felt that the final 90 minutes’ action alone was worth their $333). The masu-seki occupant is more likely to be 50 than under 30, and is almost guaranteed to hail from the sarariman class or above. In short, this description is poles apart from that of a 25-year-old furita with a ‘modest income.’
It is therefore vitally important for the NSK to remind shinjinrui that although masu-seki are expensive, they are definitely not out-of-reach. It must reiterate that the day’s action begins at 8.30am, long before the TV cameras are even safety-checked, and should advise youngsters to ‘make a day’ (presumably during a weekend) of any visit to a sumo arena. The NSK must publicize the fact that most spectators do not arrive until after 2pm, and that youngsters who have bought cheaper tickets are perfectly welcome to borrow the masu-seki until their rightful owners turn up. Although they will not be within touching distance of Asashoryu or Kotooshu, youthful cheap-ticket holders can still experience the thrill of being seated extremely near to a jonokuchi, jonidan and sandanme match, and may take some sensational photographs.
The NSK should also expand its ‘day pass’ scheme to facilitate the tackling of under-attendance on weekdays. It was saddening to note that Dejima’s magnificent victory over Asashoryu, one of the biggest upsets of the past five years, was witnessed by barely 4,000 people on Day 3 of Hatsu. Possessing prior knowledge of miserable ticket sales, the NSK should have placed all third-day seats on sale at discount prices from the close of the action on day 2. The ticket office could have opened for 90 minutes from 6pm, in the hope of enticing fans who had only intended to come for Day 2, but might yet be tempted by bargain prices for the following day. The discount sales could then have continued from 9am-4pm on day 3 until all seats had been filled.
There are, of course, two problems with this approach. Firstly, smart consumers might simply never buy their tickets in advance in the hope of forever obtaining discount rates. This could lead to loss of revenue for the NSK and many logistical headaches caused by masses of last-minute ticket-buyers descending upon the Kokugikan. The NSK should overcome this problem by stipulating that discount tickets are only admissible for the makunouchi schedule after 3pm. With full-price tickets being valid for the entire day, the incentive remains for aficionados to buy them in advance. The second problem concerns the likelihood that the NSK would view discounted tickets as an embarrassing admission of sumo’s diminishing popularity. It must therefore consider whether seeking to eradicate empty seats is more embarrassing than putting up with them.
Accessible Association?
Even if ticket prices were made more appealing, some under-30s would still complain that sumo is not accessible enough. ‘The basho are nowhere near where I live,’ is the popular refrain.
Traditionally, professional sumo sought to rectify such perceptions via the jungyo schedule, which dispatched top sumotori to towns far and wide between basho, and ensured that exhibition tournaments were held in communities which could never hope to stage a real basho. In sumo’s heyday, the jungyo system sold out remote venues several days over and undoubtedly boosted support in hard-to-reach areas. But in recent years, demand for jungyo has seemingly dried up. The most sorry example is the demise of the Sapporo jungyo tour, which used to play to packed audiences on four consecutive days, but now struggles to sell every ticket for a one-day event. Although several oyakata have, at various times, been asked to review the system, and the Sumo World annual round-up suggested that more jungyo events had taken place in 2006 than in preceding years, questions remain over whether jungyo is the best method of taking sumo to the masses.
Put plainly, jungyo should continue to be employed wherever it proves popular. When it comes to convincing people that you are worth investing time and money in, there is no better weapon than the personal touch. However, the NSK’s real strengths in the field of accessibility lie closer to home, and desperately need to be marketed.
Its first strength – the offer of close-up action for anybody who arrives early – has already been detailed. Its second strength is the accessibility of the wrestlers themselves. Broadly speaking, professional sumo does not subscribe to the bunker mentality evident in, say, UK Premiership football or international cricket, which results in training sessions for the stars taking place far away from the eyes of the fans, sometimes even behind steel gates. In sumo, so long as the stable is not mired in financial trouble, factionalised by internal disputes, or smarting from past unpleasant experiences with visitors/foreigners, it will allow youngsters the utmost proximity to their favourite rikishi. If a shinjinrui telephones the stable the day before, or asks nicely enough in person, they will be able to sit within touching distance of their sumo heroes for a good couple of hours during asageiko, and will very possibly have the chance to talk to them and ask for a photo. (At amateur sumo tournaments, it is even easier to accost and photograph the stars). Even if a stable classifies asageiko as off-limits to spectators, lower-division wrestlers and famous ex-sumotori (especially among the oyakata) can easily be found wandering around the corridors of the Kokugikan, often to join the queues at the various snack-bars. It is most fruitful to approach these individuals via someone who knows them, but even if this is not possible, some former sumotori will happily engage in conversation if you stun them with an interesting fact about their wrestling career!
As SFM’s editor-in-chief has highlighted elsewhere, professional sumo is also becoming more welcoming towards non-Japanese fans. At least two of the Kokugikan’s ushers are reasonably fluent in English, while English-language guide books and torikumi schedules for the top two divisions are available free of charge. The Japan Sumo Association’s website has, of course, been fully translated into English, while stables such as Musashigawa-beya have piloted English-language sumo chat-rooms.
As previously stated, some Japanese may argue that the above information is only useful to those who live close enough to physically attend keiko or basho. However, I find the argument that sumo attendances are poor because basho are held in too few cities extremely difficult to support. For a start, some of the non-sumo fans who have propounded this argument to me actually live in one of the four cities which stage basho! The issue is surely not whether sumo is geographically accessible to everybody, but whether sumo is geographically accessible to enough people to fill every seat during a tournament. It must be the case that the latter holds true, given that the combined population of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka totals some 14 million (rising to 18.5 million if Greater Tokyo is included). If even five per cent of this number were encouraged to grace several days of a tournament with their presence, the supply of seats would struggle to meet the demand for tickets!
The one area where sumo’s accessibility rating tumbles lies, of course, in the field of women’s rights. No-one denies that female spectators are treated very well but the reality remains that, due to professional sumo’s deference to Shinto custom, women are forbidden from mounting the dohyo. The complete absence of female sumotori and officials is particularly noticeable to young, non-Japanese women in the crowd. ‘You mean, there are no women involved here at all?’ two Canadian students asked of me after just five minutes in the sumo hall. I could only respond by stressing that amateur sumo, unbound by Shinto custom, is very accessible to women, and may hold the key to the sport’s future popularity.
Olympic offerings?
Among the upper echelons of amateur sumo, there is a strong view that Olympic status would increase sumo’s exposure, attract new investment and thereby increase the international popularity of the discipline. However, Olympic representation will never become a reality without the assent of the NSK, and this does not appear to be forthcoming anytime soon. Several NSK figures, including a former yokozuna, have claimed that Olympic status would not only relegate sumo from dignified art-form to run-of-the-mill sport, but would divorce sumo from the Japanese traditions which are allegedly integral to its identity. In addition, they claim that whereas Olympians would treat sumo merely as a ‘way of work,’ a pastime that can be pursued and dropped at regular intervals, true sumo is a ‘way of living’ and requires total commitment. By virtue of its deference to a Shinto religion which subordinates females, the NSK is also opposed to accepting the Olympian belief that men and women have equal participation rights.
It was hoped that had Osaka won the bid for the 2008 Olympics, the city’s sumo-mad female governor would have championed the staging of the inaugural Olympic sumo tournament there, doubtless hoping that the Japanese surroundings would placate the NSK. Alas, the 2008 Olympics went to Beijing, and although the following games belong to a city oft touted as the world’s most inclusive (London), amateur sumoists remain pessimistic about their sport’s chances of appearing there. One source maintained that Olympic sumo could come to fruition in 2016, but remained glum-faced when pondering the likelihood of NSK assent.
If opposition to Olympic accreditation is based solely on preserving sumo’s Japanese traditions alone, then such opposition appears increasingly meaningless. Even if those who question sumo’s Japanese roots are ignored, the fact remains that over 80 countries other than Japan have founded sumo associations, irrespective of whether the discipline is recognised at an Olympic level. Diverse individuals from across the planet have long been interpreting sumo in their own way, and adapting it to suit their own lifestyles. Amateur sumo tournaments, such as the US Sumo Open, are staged – and well supported – every year. Many of the participants in these tournaments are female. Seen in this context, Olympic status would merely formalise that which is already happening.
On the other hand, though, Olympic status should not be hailed as the universal antidote to sumo’s woes. It is true that the move would probably enable amateur sumo to be introduced to households that might otherwise ignore it, while women’s sumo could also receive a large boost, but it is also true that recent additions to the Olympic family, such as curling, still receive miniscule amounts of media attention, while (in Britain at least) key figures in even the more established Olympic sports, such as gymnastics and skiing, complain regularly of media ignorance and government under-funding.
Conclusion
Given the tone of certain paragraphs, readers could be forgiven for thinking that sumo is not watched by any shinjinrui at all. I should stress that this is not the case. Some shinjinrui do watch, but not enough. The composition of recent Tokyo tournament crowds suggests that more shinjinrui are trying sumo out; but tune into a football match or – if you can bear it – an evening tarento show like Music Station, and you will find many more youngsters, especially female, than ever could be spotted in a sumo hall.
On the plus side, there has been considerable growth in the number of non-Japanese under-30s attending sumo tournaments. Some have obviously been encouraged to come by Japanese friends, but others have been attracted by a novel tourist authority campaign to market sumo as a ‘uniquely Japanese’ experience which should appear on every gaijin’s must-see list. The marketing tactic would appear to be a wise one; Japan’s foreign visitor numbers nigh-doubled between 1996 and 2006.1
A further positive is that the Kokugikan houses sparkling pieces of evidence which suggest that maybe, just maybe, shinjinrui attitudes towards sumo are beginning to change for the better. The young women who lick their lips while photographing Kotooshu’s torso at ringside, coupled with the emergence of Hanako Dosukoi’s book ‘Cute Sumo,’ would appear to signify an unexpected revival of the concept of sumotori sex-appeal. Meanwhile, several youthful men in the audience seem to feel a sense of affinity with Asashoryu’s outgoing personality, and view Takamisakari’s pre-match antics as those of a rather cool comedian. However, I remain less convinced than the NSK that such developments are an expected gift from Mother Nature; that sumo is somehow automatically due an upturn in popular support after several years in the wilderness.
If sumo’s popularity ever did follow a cyclical trend, then this ended somewhere in the early-1990s. For a number of years, the diminution of sumo’s core support base was masked by the outreach project launched by Waka and Taka, the media savvy-ness of which strongly appealed to shinjinrui. Obscured by the Waka-Taka bubble, though, was the undeniable fact that sumo’s most dedicated supporters were becoming older, and – for a variety of reasons – unable to pass on their love of sumodo to younger relatives. When the proliferation of tabloid and tarento culture spotlighted youth, and the idea of feeling young, as never before, sumo seemed to age very quickly, and suddenly appeared desperately at odds with the values of the society surrounding it. Sumo has become ostracised by the under-30s on an unprecedented scale, drowned by the myriad of new sports, better communications technology and previously-unparalleled consumerism which have entered the consciousness of youth. If the resultant shift in young Japanese attitudes is irreversible – and there is every indication that it is – then it cannot possibly be treated as a cyclical phenomenon.
Rather, professional sumo is in danger of resembling an ailing, traditionalist political party. It appears in denial that the electorate’s worldview has moved on, that it can no longer win enough support by preaching to the converted, simply because the converted have significantly diminished in number. It has struggled to get to grips with the changing electorate, having failed to recognise that its audience must be drawn from consumers who shop around for the best deal, and not simply individuals who attach their hearts to sumo with steel bolts. There may be individual things that sumo says and does which strike a chord with the consumer audience, but when the whole package is put up for popular approval, it is usually rejected in favour of more modern-looking alternatives. The fact remains that an average of 3,500 tickets remain unsold on each day of a Tokyo basho (an average which rises in Fukuoka), and that relations between the sumo community and shinjinrui are very far from perfect.
I am delighted that sumo seeks to preserve the fascinating samurai tradition, so that people of my generation can continue to glimpse, and try to understand, a world which no longer exists on the street. Long may this continue. But the sumo package clearly needs tinkering with if the sport is to blossom in the 21st century, and once again capture the hearts and minds of the Japanese. The refrain of the reformer forever centres upon the theme: ‘The ends must stay the same, but the means of achieving them need not.’ I hope that this philosophy at least begins to permeate Japan’s national sport in the coming years. As this trilogy of articles hopefully shows, grounds for introspection certainly exist.
1 Source www.tourism.jp
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