[sumo] Re: Aki Basho Day 11

[Greg Lund <jac@powerup.com.au>]

If it is anything like my most recent visits Jim, you should be able 
to have your pick of the house. I haven't actually attended since 
Osaka in March, but I was amazed to see there, in the latter half of 
the basho, a crowd I estimated at around 65% full.

Jim Bitgood <jimbit1@starpower.net> wrote:

> Subject: [sumo] Aki Basho Day 11

> For anyone in Tokyo who might be able to tell me.
> I expect to be in Tokyo on September  17, which should be Day 11 if I'm
> reading my calendar correctly. What are the chances that I can walk up to
> the Kokugikan about noon or 1pm and get a cheap seat (or any priced ticket
> for that matter)?

>  Jim
> "Chitose-Taikai"

This might also be a good time to make a couple of very brief 
observations, even if not precisely to the point,  in response to 
Earle Jones' question the other day:

> What I have been wondering is this:  Are the postings we read here
> typical of Japanese opinion?  What does the average Japanese citizen
> and sumo fan think about Asashoryu's behavior?  What do the Japanese
> language newsgroups and mailing lists have to say?

It is a good question and I haven't seen a response from anyone since 
it was asked.

I can't answer it directly because I am not in Japan at present, but 
what has struck me during recent visits is the extent to which sumo 
as a topic has simply vanished from the conversation of lots of the 
people I used to discuss it with.  When I raise it with Japanese 
friends who were always pretty well attuned to sumo in general they 
shrug and say they are just not following it anymore.

And younger people (in a sweeping generalisation) appear to have just 
about wiped it from their list of interests in any form.   The day 
after arriving in Japan recently, during Nagoya basho, I asked the 
sports-conscious teenage son of one of my friends who was leading the 
basho and he had no idea. His dad didn't either !!

I discovered that Sumo Digest - as its name implies, a review of the 
day's torikumi in abbreviated form, with a guest commentator - which 
has been running  nightly during all basho ever since I can remember 
(maybe on Fuji TV?) is to be dropped very soon.  It used to be on 
around 10.30, then moved back to 11 p.m., and now seems to be 
wherever they can slot it in, sometimes after midnight. I'm not sure, 
but I think the last program will be televised within the next month 
or two, possibly in conjunction with September Tokyo basho.   Sumo 
Digest was always a great way to catch up if a day's appointments had 
prevented switching on and watching live. It will be very sorely 
missed by me, but obviously the local audience is no longer there to 
support it.

I don't think the reasons all relate to to the presence - even 
domination - by foreign rikishi. People are just less interested in 
their traditions, have other things to watch and do, are not well 
served by the kyokai, which really needs to look at the daily 
schedule at basho to see whether 4-6 p.m. is still the best time to 
be staging makuuchi bouts. Whether for people to attend or to watch 
on TV, it would be hard to find a worse time of day, particularly on 
week days.  And if they don't see it live, it is out of sight and out 
of mind from there on.

So I have to wonder whether whether most Japanese are really thinking 
or saying very much at all about Asashoryu -  or anything else to do 
with sumo for that matter.

And, to come full circle back to Jim's question about seats, young 
people all tell me when I ask them that they just can't sit anywhere 
Japanese style anymore for the two hours that are necessary just to 
watch makuuchi. So all the masuseki - which are all too small to hold 
four younger, longer-legged Japanese in any case - are becoming very 
unpopular.  Where once to be offered a chance to watch from a 
masuseki was something to be jumped at as a once in a lifetime treat, 
now it is easy to decline.

Cheers

Greg Lund

--
Japan Access Corporation
GPO Box 8, Brisbane, QLD 4001
Australia
Tel: (61 + 7) 3831 4245
Fax (61 + 7) 3314 8225
[EndPost by Greg Lund <jac@powerup.com.au>]