From 1961, Fuji Television aired a showed about a young boy from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and his trials and tribulations trying to make it big in the world of sumo.  The show was somewhat popular in part fueled by the guest appearances from actual sumo wrestlers.  Capitalizing on the success of the show, Maruta produced a set of BC-series menko depicting various scenes from the show and what appears to be some behind the scenes views.  It is unknown how many of these menko there are, but likely somewhere around 32....needless to say they are extremely difficult to find.  I have accumulated 3 over the years and fortunately have one of Yokozuna Wakanohana (left side below).  Menkonohako has some great images of more of the menko including the one below of Daisuke getting some encouragement from his stablemaster.  There were manga printed to accompany the show as well.  I'd love to land a full set of these someday!

Image courtesy of http://menkonohako.web.fc2.com/untitled.htm58.htm

This is a fun set printed at the very end of 1961 presumably in preparation for the January 1962 tournament.  Up until recently I thought it was printed later in 1962, but I discovered the Maegashira Matsunobori card and could narrowed it down to late 1961 since he retired following the November 1961 tournament.  I was fortunate to pick up a partial taba pack of these (9 packs) and realized it was printed by Ito which made various paper products in the 1950s and 1960s.  For cataloging purposes that is important because it will hopefully help fill in holes and help identify other sets with similar printing styles.

Kami Zumo (Paper Sumo) games are really easy to play as kids would stand up their cards on a paper ring on top of a card board box or something that vibrated.  With this set, these cards were meant to be rolled and secured on the ends by tabs.  Then each kid would tap the cardboard box which in turn caused the paper wrestlers to move and push against each other.  The one that fell over or was pushed out of the ring was the loser.  For those that grew up in the 1980s, do you remember the vibrating football games?  Same concept.  The 1961 Ito Kami Zumo set is interesting because it has actual photographs of the wrestler's head superimposed on the paper to give it a more realistic feel.

This G621 set came in taba packs (see photo below) that were hung up from the ceilings by a string. In this case a kid would pay 5 yen (about 2 cents in 1961) and pull a cellophane pack down....each taba pack contained 30 individual packs.  Inside each cellophane pack were a paper ring, 3 cards and as well as trophy and referee fan.  The trophy and fan cards could come in any of these three colors: purple, pink, or red.  Each of the wrestler cards, however, came in only one of those three colors, although I am not 100% certain on that.






Here is a good YouTube video of how it's played.

Here is the latest checklist at 19 cards.






















There are two key cards missing from this checklist - Ozeki Kotogahama and Sekiwake Sadanoyama so I am thinking there are probably closer to 25 in the complete set.