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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
Kyushu 2009 will, if for nothing else, be remembered as the tournament in which the old warhorse ozeki Kaio breaks former sekiwake Takamiyama’s long-standing record of 97 basho in the sport’s top flight. For Kaio — Kyushu will be number 98. Most will realistically ...
The Nihon Sumo Kyokai — the Japanese Sumo Association — recently announced it is once again considering an overseas jaunt. Destination this time? Sin City — Las Vegas, Nevada. Again! Exactly why the sumo association has again opted for an American city to host ...
What better way could there possibly be for a sumotori to celebrate his birthday than to be presented with the Emperor’s Cup, having earlier the same day picked up his 24th basho in a career that will, statistically, always be regarded as one of ...
No one is immune to the current swine flu pandemic, not even professional sumo. Global health concerns have already hit amateur sumo in the past. A World Championship in the 1990s was cancelled due to the then SARS-related travel issues that swept Asia, and this ...
To many Japanese, the closest they will ever get to a sumotori — just one of several words employed in Japanese to describe a professional sumo wrestler, — is at one of the six annual honbasho tournaments held in Tokyo (3), Osaka (1), Nagoya ...
In July 1999, longtime Musashigawa Beya sekitori Dejima Takeharu won his first and only career Emperor’s Cup after defeating former yokozuna Akebono in a play-off victory. Exactly a decade later, in July, 2009, the Ishikawa native called it quits on 13 years in the ...
As the long hot summer descends on Japan, and the people of Nagoya prepare for the annual visit of the Japanese Sumo Association, this year’s basho, like that held last year, looks like being make-or-break basho for at least one rikishi in terms of ...
The Nagoya Basho 2009 is just around the corner. Several rikishi in makunouchi, notably Kakuryu of Mongolia and Aran of Russia, will be fighting at career-high ranks, yet the majority of eyes will be on one of the lightest men in the division as ...
In statistics alone, Asashoryu Akinori may go down as one of the greatest yokozuna of sumo in the modern era, but at the close of the Summer 2009 Grand Sumo Tournament, much of the talk was about when he would retire. With his performance ...
In the fortnight ahead of the annual Natsu Summer Basho, there is always something of a lull in the sumo world. The springtime tours are over, and with Natsu and the warmer, humid months of summer beckoning, the only thing to do is train ...
For the 140 or so years non-Japanese have known of the existence of sumo, many have referred to it as Japan’s national sport. But are they correct about the status of this ancient form of wrestling found only in these islands, misinformed entirely, or ...
In the month he turned 24 years of age, Yokozuna Hakuho Sho will leave the city of Osaka, site of the March Haru Basho, an Emperor’s Cup winner for the 10th time. Already two ahead of fellow yokozuna Asashoryu Akinori at a comparable age, ...