What is the national game of Japan?
Answer: Sumo wrestling is the national game of Japan.
In Japan, sports are an integral part of the culture.
Traditional sports like sumo and martial arts, as well as Western imports like baseball and association football, are popular among players and spectators.
Sumo wrestling is regarded as Japan’s national sport.
Sumo is a Japanese martial art.
The first time this game was played was in the mid-sixteenth century.
Sumo wrestling is a professional sport that is solely played in Japan.
It is a full-contact sport in which a wrestler (Rikishi) attempts to push, toss his opponent out of a circular ring, or force his opponent to the ground using any body part other than his sole.
Sumo wrestling is divided into six divisions: makuuchi, jry, makushita, sandanme, jonidan, and jonokuchi.
Sumo seems to be the only country in which it is professionally performed and where it is designated the national sport. Sumo has kept many historical traditions, and the sport still contains many Shinto ritual components, such as the practice of salt cleansing.
Most sumo wrestlers are supposed to survive in communal sumo training stables, called in Japanese as heya, where rigid tradition governs every part of their daily existence, from food to clothes.
From 2008 to 2016, the sumo world was shaken by a series of high-profile incidents and scandals, which had an impact on the sport’s reputation & ticket sales.
These factors have also had an impact on the sport’s capacity to recruit new players.
Despite the setback, sumo’s popularity & general attendance have revived, thanks to the presence of several yokozuna (or grand champion) for the first time in several years, as well as other high-profile wrestlers capturing the public’s interest.