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Thread: Sumo wrestler dies of internal injuries...

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    Default Sumo wrestler dies of internal injuries...

    Does anyone know if there has been anymore follow up on this case? It seems somewhat fishy, but I can't tell really from the English versions of the Japanese papers....

    http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/sports...sp005000c.html
    Jeremy Frank

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    Well I guess this answers that question....

    http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/nation...na019000c.html
    Jeremy Frank

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    Hi Jeremy,

    I don't recall hearing anything about the first case you mentioned, but the next one is big news here. The sports newspapers (read tabloids) are all over it. Predictably the Sumo Association are closing ranks and hoping it will all blow over as they are in all sorts of trouble right now with one of their Yokozunas being AWOL and all. The police are investigating though, and I think it is safe to say that somebody will eventually go down for this. If it exposes the psychotic "hazing" practises that go on the Sumo training houses then it probably will be a good thing.

    Regards,
    Justin August

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    I hate to say it, but to some degree it reminds me of the hazing that can go on in American high-school sports, though generally not to that degree. I saw on the Mainichi that the Association was preparing to dismiss the stable manager, but after he entered some sort of excuse that might not happen!?! WTF?
    Jeremy Frank

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    Unhappy Coverage of the story by the BBC

    More information, including the sacking of Tokitsukaze Oyakata...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7029366.stm


    John McCulloch

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    Thanks for the link John! It's a sad thing, but hopefully the example made will help other stablemasters think before they discipline or haze their students...
    Jeremy Frank

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    Hello,

    I very much doubt it. Hazing is an extreme form of ijime, commonly translated as bullying, and this is institutionalized in many forms in Japan. It will take more than one death to bring about any substantial changes. Japan's is still a tribal culture and there are all the elements of the scapegoat here. Even TV shows exhibit some aspects of ijime to a degree.
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    Hello,

    I very much doubt it. Hazing is an extreme form of ijime, commonly translated as bullying, and this is institutionalized in many forms in Japan. It will take more than one death to bring about any substantial changes. Japan's is still a tribal culture and there are all the elements of the scapegoat here. Even TV shows exhibit some aspects of ijime to a degree.
    But I think putting victims 'severed head on school gatepost' might be taking Iijime too far.

    Asahi Newspaper 27.05.1997
    Towards evening the police received a report that the severed head of a child had been found in the municipal school in the Suma district of Kobe. The head was identified as that of the eleven year old Jun, son of the doctor Hase, resident of the same district. The boy had been missing since the afternoon of 24 May and the police had been searching for him. There had been two attacks on schoolgirls in the same district in quick succession in March. Of them had died subsequently of her injuries. The police are not discounting the possibility that the three attacks are linked. According to police reports, the head was found on a gatepost in front of the school. The boy's mouth had been slit open and in it there was a threatening letter addressed to the police, obviously placed there by the perpetrator himself.
    Gusta Paulo Novak

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    I am not sure to what extent the murder of Jun Hase was the direct result of the murderer being the victime of ijime. The discussions I have read tie the case to hikikomori, social withdrawal, which is another phenomenon among young people in Japan.

    The reason I connected the hazing of the sumotori with ijime is that this sometimes happens in Japanese sub-cultures, which tend to intensify the conformist tendencies of Japanese society as a whole.

    I have direct experience of this, since a student of mine once died as a result of injuries suffered during training in a Japanese university sports club. The student died as a result of unusually severe training at the hands of the more senior students. The reason for the severe training was to try to make him conform more closely to the established training methods of the club.
    Last edited by P Goldsbury; 7th October 2007 at 03:19.
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Unhappy Hazing

    The excellent (but poorly named) movie Budo - the Art of Killing contains disturbing footage of sumo hazing.

    The current case is very disturbing. If you know the size of a Japanese beer bottle, you'll know that being hit over the head with one is serious business. No sane person would do that.

    Awful.

    John McCulloch

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    I have a bit of experience of this, mostly through observation, while watching a group of Japanese exchange students study Karate from another exchange student at my university. They took a lot of punishment that most wouldn't have just because of his percieved status (age and rank) vis-a-vis them. An American black belt that had started training with them quit due to the treatment the Japanese black belt was giving to the students.

    I have to say that ijime on tv has also bothered me. My wife watches a lot of taped shows from home and sometimes the things that she finds funny just make me wince... Some of the stuff Downtown does particularly...
    Jeremy Frank

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