2016 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 5-20
Professional Japanese Wrestling “Sumo” has some aspects which are quite different from other sports. It’s typical aspect is revealed in “tachiai”. Two Sumo wrestlers facing each other rise to grapple by accordance of mind. This moves against the flow of objective rationalization underlying judgement in modern sport. This point is involved with an aspect of performing arts of Sumo.
During the Meiji and Taisho eras, there were even more aspects of Sumo which set it apart from other sports. Although these aspects might seem unsophisticated when compared to modern sport, it should be borne in mind that Sumo was regarded as more festival rather than sport. The Sumo stadium “kokugikan”, in those days, was certainly a festival space. What contributes to abundance of the nature of festival was the ambiguity of rules that was nothing but immature at a standpoint of modern sport and Sumo wrestler’s social position that was despised as an artiste. These factors roused audiences to enthusiasm through making them play the active leading character.
The process by which Sumo evolved from festival into sport is very interesting. In Football that had been playing as folkgame in every place of Europe at the medieval ages, the process by which it had developed as modern sport was based on a logic of internal development in which the united organizations and the united rules were constructed in order to enable large-scale international matches over a wide area to be played. On the contrary, the modernization of Sumo was propelled by external and social circumstances. Along an improvement of dignity by means of becoming a foundation, an authorization by means of an approval of the Emperor’s Cup, and a tendency toward solemnity of the total life of people by means of the propulsion of Fascism on the Emperor system, on one hand the courtesy of Sumo wrestlers and attitudes of audiences was sanctified, on the other hand an ambiguity in the competition and judgement was eliminated, a notion of fair victory or defeat became predominant, and a tendency toward sport was promoted more overtly.
