They all look the same...

mark schilling schill at jcom.home.ne.jp
Wed Sep 1 10:12:55 EDT 2004


> I thought that sumo had been in decline (ticket recepits) for years? Many
of
> the wrestlers sit out tournaments, seem to always have strapping on, and
NHK
> taling sumo digest off air must have had an enromous effect. I'm not sure
> the decline can all be blamed on Asashoryu!

Please bear with me -- there is a movie connection in this apparently
off-topic post.

First, I've been watching sumo for 29 years, worked as a staff writer for
"Sumo World" magazine for 20 years and have been commenting on sumo for NHK
for 13 years, since the start of the bilingual tournament broadcasts. Here's
one observation from all those hours in front of the tube and in the
broadcasting booth: Sumo, as a commercial enterprise, is star driven the way
NBA basketball is star driven -- and the number of true sumo stars in any
given era is tiny.

Just as Michael Jordan filled arenas in the nineties, so did Takanohana and,
to a lesser extent, his brother Wakanohana. When the brothers were at their
peaks, in the early and mid-nineties, the Sumo Kyokai was dropping the
man'in onrei (full house) banner every day, basho after basho, year after
year. TV ratings, especially in the final days of the tournament when the
brothers were shooting for another yusho, were sky high.

They had strong foreign rivals in Akebono and Musashimaru, but the Hawaiians
were the supporting players and, to many fans, the bad guys. When the
brothers beat them in a big bout, the zabuton flew.

Then Wakanohana,. weakened by injuries, retired and Takanohana lost his
winning form. Ratings went down and the arenas started emptying out. Now
Asashoryu, who has the potential to exceed Takanohana's records, is on top
and the arenas are still empty. The fans are waiting for the new Japanese
Hope.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that Yao Ming is not just a superior
position player, but dominant the way Michael Jordan was dominant. Imagine
other talented Chinese players entering the NBA and joining Yao at the top
of the stat tables, on championship teams. Now imagine the reaction in the
African-American community. Basketball was their game -- the nearest they
had to a kokugi -- and now, suddenly, it's not. Are they going to tune into
games and line up for tickets in the same numbers as before?

I can't say with certainty that Japanese audiences will react the same way
to "Memoirs" that sumo fans have to Asashoryu. What I do know -- here's the
tie-in -- is that the industry is gearing up for at least four big-budget
war movies: Fuji TV with "Lorelei," Shochiku and Herald with "Bokoku no
Ijisu," Kadokawa with a remake of "Tengoku no Jietai" and Kadokawa Haruki
with "Senkan Yamato."

This outpouring reflects a nationalistic mood that had been growing for some
time, spurred by the dispatch of SDF troops to Iraq and the brouhaha over
the North Korean "returnees." I'm not saying that we'll soon see crowds on
train platforms waving little Japanese flags as they send off troops bound
for Asian battlefields, but the anti-war sentiments of  an "Utsukushi Natsu
Kirishima" (Kirishima 1945) are fading into a now distant past, even though
the movie itself was a hit. Instead, we're seeing more pride in being
Japanese (all those Olympic medals!), more righteous anger at perceived
slights from outlanders (those lying North Koreans!).

To conclude (and I do mean conclude!), if I were the Japanese distributor of
"Memoirs" I would be, not panicked, but concerned. And I'd make Watanabe's
face the biggest on the poster.

Mark Schilling





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