Even when one of sumo’s six annual grand tournaments isn’t taking place, Ryogoku’s legacy as the sport’s home is still usually enough to draw tourists from around the world looking to chow down on some chanko nabe offered at one of the numerous restaurants in the area or visit the nearby Edo Tokyo Museum.
Others will make their way to the sumo stables dotting eastern Tokyo, hoping to glimpse wrestlers smashing into each other during an early morning training session.
To see the area so empty on the day of a tournament is unsettling. But that’s exactly what it is at midday on Thursday, just an hour before the gates open at Ryogoku Kokugikan for Day 5 of the ongoing Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament.