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M/CLOUDY
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto aims to retract his remark that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa should use its adult entertainment industry to avoid committing sex offenses.
Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.
If you don’t get into the ring once or twice, then you’re a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people’s attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so ...
It may seem perverse to express nostalgia for a category of mental illness, but many sufferers, as well as some psychiatrists, regret the passing of “manic depression.”
Getting slapped by a a coach has always been, as far as I could see, simply another aspect of sports training in Japan.
Of the 700 men active in professional sumo less than 10 percent are foreign-born. Of the six divisions in which they compete, only one went the way of a Japanese rikishi at this year’s Autumn Basho. The remaining five divisions were dominated by men ...
Following his flight home, the Mongolian police and military were deployed to prevent Japanese media access to “their” man, Asashoryu, and not since the time Konishiki was looking at promotion to yokozuna has the line separating Japanese and non-Japanese suitability to hold the rank ...
Every sport has its ups and downs. Every sport has its bad boys. Sumo, in as far as it is classified as a sport, is no different. While allegations of bout fixing have long been circulated by what many would classify the lower ranks ...
Hakuko, Sumo’s 69th yokozuna, overcame his first-ever official yokozuna bout with a convincing yorikiri win against fellow Mongolian Tokitenku of Tokitsukaze Beya. Following that impressive start, however, he flipped on the auto-pilot switch and glided out week one. Stumbling several times in the second ...
At a time when sumo fans were excitedly anticipating the first tournament since late 2003 that boasts two yokozuna, tragedy struck: In late June, a 17-year-old rikishi died after a training session. Niigata native Takashi Saito, known as Tokitaizan and ranked Jonokuchi 39, was ...
Sumo in Japan is on the up and up. We now have two yokozuna with a good half decade of rivalry in the tanks, one young enough to still be around in 10 years time. Irrespective of reports in the Japanese-language media, the sport ...
The 2007 Natsu Basho is over, and it will only ever be remembered for one thing: the 15-0 unbeaten zensho yusho winning record of Mongolian ozeki Hakuho that etched his name forever in the annals of Japanese sporting and cultural history. Holding a festive ...
In the days leading up to the May 5th Yokozuna Soken training session at the Ryogoku Kokugikan the Japanese media was abuzz with things sumo. At a news conference on May 7, ozeki Tochiazuma of Tamanoi Beya makes his long-expected retirement announcement. KYODO PHOTO ...
Sumo in late March and throughout April each year is about pressing the flesh — literally. From almost the minute the Haru Basho ended in Osaka, the majority of sekitori set off on a multi-stop trip back up the Tokaido to Tokyo. This year, ...
Had he been alive today, Japan’s legendary kabuki and bunraku playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) could not have written a better script for the recently completed Haru Basho in Osaka. For thrills (Day 1 carnage with three of five ozeki and the yokozuna all losing), ...
Who is going to take a fall in the Haru Basho? It’s a matter of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” for yokozona Asashoryu. Should the Mongolian yokozuna win the Emperor’s Cup in Osaka is he doing so as a result of ...
Centuries ago, the Europeans and, in some cases, Americans liked nothing better than a spot of witch-hunting on a quiet news day. For those with a talent or two above the norm, perhaps a little stronger, faster in one form or other, more intelligent ...