Sports in Japan
Traditional sports, such as sumo and martial arts, as well as Western imports like baseball, association football, basketball and tennis are popular with both participants and spectators.
Martial arts such as judo, karate and modern kendō are also widely practiced and enjoyed by spectators in the country.
On April 26, 1686, a samurai named Wasa Daihachiro competing in the Tōshiya made an unsurpassed record of shooting 13,053 arrows and hitting the mark 8,133 times over a 24-hour period.
During the 1870s, track and field events, baseball, football, rugby union, cricket and ice skating were introduced.
Western sports were initially stressed as a form of mental discipline, but Japanese have now come to enjoy them as recreational activities.
Matches between schools attracted large crowd until after World War II when airing sporting events on radio and television became common.
Manga with sports-themed stories (colloquially called spokon) have also played a part in attracting readers to slightly less popular sports, such as volleyball,[2] association football,[3] basketball,[4] or American football,[5] although there are also stories focusing on more popular sports like baseball.
Initially, running live sports games was viewed with skepticism as it was believed that fans would rather stay at home if they could watch for free.
The most popular professional sports in Japan are baseball, association football (soccer), sumo wrestling, basketball, and golf.
Kindergarten and lower elementary school students can play in a private sport club that can be joined for a moderate fee.
This was announced by RWCL Chairman Bernard Lapasset in Irish capital Dublin[20] at a special IRB meeting on 28 July 2009, along with the host of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, England.
Japan has also been host of the World Figure Skating Championships and ISU Grand Prix Final numerous times.
It is considered a gendai budō, which refers to modern Japanese martial art, but the sport has a history spanning many centuries.
Many ancient traditions have been preserved in sumo, and even today the sport includes many ritual elements, such as the use of salt purification, from Shinto.
The history of boxing in Japan began in 1854 when Matthew Perry landed at Shimoda, Shizuoka soon after the Convention of Kanagawa.
At that time, American sailors often engaged in sparring matches on board their ships, with their fists wrapped in thin leather.
In the 1990s, Noriaki Kasai and Kazuyoshi Funaki scored many wins in the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup.
After long struggling years, they regained momentum in the 2010s and won many medals in the World Championships and the Olympic Games, though experiencing difficulty in surpassing China.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) has been the most popular combat sport in Japan since the 1970s, and the country is considered a world power.
The first example of this sport in Japan was the historic fight between Japanese fighter Antonio Inoki and American boxer Muhammad Ali.
Hiroshi Hiraoka, who was in the United States studying engineering, introduced the game to his co-workers at Japan's national railways in 1878.
Herb Hunter, a retired major league player, made eight trips to Japan, from 1922 to 1932 to organize games and coaching clinics.
The tournaments have become a national tradition, and large numbers of frenzied students and parents travel from hometowns to cheer for their local team.
In the 1930s, the Japan national football team was organized and drew 3–3 with China to win their first title at the Far Eastern Championship Games.
Especially since the emergence of Yuta Tabuse and Takuya Kawamura, basketball has received a recent revival and become a popular sport in Japan.
[28] The Japan national basketball team won the FIBA Asia Championship twice and has qualified for the event 25 out of 26 times.
The sport was introduced to students at Keio university in 1899, by Professor Edward Bramwell Clarke and Tanaka Ginnosuke.
The women's national team has since achieved Olympic podium placements multiple times, including an additional gold medal in 1976.
!, a manga and anime series about high school volleyball, has gained a significant amount of popularity all around the world.
These leagues are the top level of college football in the country, with the East and West champions playing in the annual Koshien Bowl in Nishinomiya.
