abmj-jr

It is like any other professional sport. The best view is from the most expensive seats. I think the "A" section will give you a decent view and a taste of the sumo experience. You will be a bit further away but the angle is better, looking down on the action, than it would be sitting on floor cushions in a less expensive box. With my arthritic knees I always sit in the arena seating these days. You might enjoy watching a few minutes of the TV coverage on another day to get a better look at the action close-up to compare what you see from the bleachers. The TV cameras have the best view of anyone. Again, like most other pro sports.

One thing to be prepared for - people come and go constantly so don't be surprised if you have to let folks in and out a lot. It is rather like sitting in economy on an airplane. Somebody always has to get out to go to the lav. At the Kokugikan they will be doing that as well as bringing back snacks, drinks and souvenirs. In November the temperature shouldn't be too bad but during spring and summer I've been known to buy a souvenir fan just to use in the stadium for a little breeze.

Your best chance for better seats will be on a weekday in the first week. The place is likely to be sold out on weekends, especially the final weekend if the title is still up for grabs.

If you look around, you may see an area of plush seats high up, near the upper rows, that is unoccupied. That is the royal box. If you are lucky the emperor and empress may come in and watch a few matches. They do that maybe once per tournament so the chances are slim that you will see them. If they come, everything will stop and the participants will bow until the royals are seated.

Also around the upper perimeter of the stadium, you will see huge formal portraits of the last 18 tournament winners.

If you look around the edges of the ring during the action, you will see 4 older men in formal black kimono seated at ringside, plus a 5th on one side, slightly off-center. These are the judges, who are senior members of the association and retired wrestlers who usually now run a training dojo or coach there. Occasionally they will stop the action at the end of a bout and gather mid-ring to discuss a possible reversal of the decision of the gyoji. The action is so fast and violent that nobody can see everything and sometimes the gyoji's view is obscured so the judges are on all sides to give them a better look. The judges work half the matches and will be replaced with another group at the halfway point break.

You may also notice that the gyoji, in their very colorful garb, will rotate in and out every other bout. The senior gyoji only works one bout, the last of the day, and he will announce that it is the final bout in a sing-song chant, in Japanese of course. The gyoji uses his ceremonial fan (the goombai) to indicate the winner of each bout. You may also notice the gyoji hand over one or more envelopes to the winner in some but not all bouts. Those are side bets, called encouragement money, put up by corporate sponsors to support certain wrestlers. It is winner take all for the extra bets and each envelope will contain 10,000 yen or so. If you see someone, usually a yokozuna, carrying out a huge pile of envelopes, you can figure he will be treating his assistants to a nice dinner or round of drinks. When there is side bet money on a match, the ringside attendants will parade around the ring with colorful corporate banners identifying the companies that have contributed.

Enjoy your experience with sumo. It is a quintessentially Japanese experience and if you do a little reading to understand what you are seeing, can be very exciting.

trilinearmipmap

Wow, thanks for the in-depth reply.

RichardInSF

I'm not a sumo fan but I have been to see it in three of the four tournament venues -- Tokyo, Nagoya, and Fukuoka. I have also been inside the ring itself when I had the privilege of being one of the many people who cut a wrestler's hair during his retirement ceremony.

In my view, it's a colorful, entertaining experience that any visitor to Japan should consider seeing once. It's not just watching the matches, you also can wander around and see the wrestlers entering and exiting the building. Staying there all day is probably way too much, get there at 3pm or so, it ends at 6pm.

I do think the floor seats can be uncomfortable for many westerners, so either get a box and leave part of it vacant or get regular seats.

Note that if you are staying at a good hotel, you can write the concierge in advance and ask them to get tickets for you.

bmwe92fan

+1 - agree with all of this. To me it's worth it to go - just realize it's 20 seconds of fury and 20 minutes of waiting... To me the most annoying part are all of the "advertisements" that go on between the match - it's appalling how many Mcdonalds ad's there are at these things lol....

abmj-jr

Those are the "encouragement money" side bets I mentioned up-thread. Each banner represents one envelope and each company has a distinctive logo on their banners. When McDs or somebody else has multiple banners for a given bout, it means they have contributed that many envelopes of money for that match to encourage one or the other wrestler, sometimes both. Many of the lower ranks may have only 1 or 2 envelopes or none at all for their bouts. As the wrestler's popularity goes up, the number of envelopes rises. Someone like the dai-yokozuna Hakuho will have many. Some companies will show their enthusiasm to support the sport and the wrestler by contributing many envelopes full of money for his bouts. One of the pluses for an underdog in beating a top guy is the extra money they can pick up from those envelopes. When you see a parade of lots of those banners before a bout it means there is a pile of extra dough up for grabs to the winner.

mkjr

i also seem to notice the matches towards the end of the day seem to have the most cash on the side....

op487062

Sumo is worth experiencing once but your kids may feel it's a little drawn out if they're not fans of the sport. I'd say it's similar to NFL: on tv it's great because of analysis, replays, commercials, etc--watching it live, you don't get the diversions to keep your attention.

I'd agree with RichardSFO's comments, box seats may be uncomfortable because you have to sit on a mat on the floor and can be cramped if you have to all squish in there. Come for the later matches and bring your own snacks