The absolute single most excellent thing about Osaka was the SUMO TOURNAMENT that was going on when Matt and I visited.

We took our seats hours before the main action began to see some of the lower level fights (which is how I managed to get a video from just beside the ring) before even a small fraction of the arena was full.

Match-day starts with very quick bouts between low-ranked fighters.

As the hours draw on the higher rankings of the new wrestlers means they are allotted more time to prepare mentally for their duels. Even as the rankings increase, though, some of the fights just seem unfair.

Finally, the last match features the star of the show: the Yokozuna. Those with a sharp memory for 1990’s WWF wrestling will remember that this is the biggest, meanest dude around. Inconveniently, for this tournament the Yokozuna (pictured with white ribbon) seemed to be doing his best to keep his well-aired cheeks pointed towards me the whole time, so I didn’t manage to get any good shots of him from the front.

Very early in the day’s matches before most the the crowd arrived, I managed to get up close to the action on the stadium floor. Here’s one entire low-level sumo match.

Pardon the occasional manic shaking and the salary man that walks in front of the camera.  I was worried enough about being out of place in a Japanese arena that I didn’t stick around to film a second match.

(Point of interest: the costumes of the referees are said to mimic the dress of the medieval Ashikaga shogun era.)

There are parts of traveling Japan that are easy to replicate elsewhere in the world – the amazing Japanese food or that slight lingering weirdness of being in any drastically different culture for the first time – but being in Osaka surrounded by a Japanese crowd for a sumo tournament is something never yet replicated in all my travels since.