A 40-year-old bullfighter was gored by a bull on Tokunoshima Island on Wednesday morning and pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.
Rikiya Tomi, a transport service provider, sustained an abdominal wound after a practice session with the 1.1-ton animal at the Hetono Bullfight Ring, they said.
The police said Tomi and a friend had put the 4-year-old bull through its paces for an upcoming match but that Tomi was impaled while taking it home.
The bull, which Tomi owns, also attacked Tomi's father in early April, leaving him with broken ribs, an association overseeing the far-flung island's bullfighting industry said.
The bullfighting industry in Tokunoshima is largely tourist-oriented and most of the bulls are privately owned, the association said.