Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards and Menko: Osato

Showing posts with label Osato. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2021

WWE's Haku/King Tonga & the story of the Tongan Sumo Wrestlers

The story of Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta (King Tonga/Haku), the famous pro wrestler, is an interesting one and one that is intertwined into Japanese sumo wrestling. Fate always has a way of working itself out and this story is no different.

In 1974, an Asahiyama Stable's fan club's daughter met a Tongan princess while they both were studying in Australia. This relationship resulted in the Asahiyama Stable Master being invited to Tonga as a state guest of King Tupou IV who was a Japanophile and rather large person standing at 6' 5". He encouraged people and groups from all over the 88,000-member nation to come and watch and learn sumo from real Japanese Sumo Wrestlers as part of their 10-day tour of the country. One such group was the Tongan rugby team which Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta was a member. Due to the great success of the tour, Asashiyama invited 4 Tongans to join his stable and professional sumo (really the King told them to join): Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta (Fukunoshima), Alani Falevai (Minaminoshima), Moleni Fe'aomoeata Tauki'uvea (Yashinoshima), and Latu Vaivaka (Hidenoshima). A fifth Tongan, Vailahi Sione (Sachinoshima) joined several months later. All achieved early success in their sumo careers and all were in, or on the brink of, the Makushita division with their eyes set on getting to Juryo which meant a salary, status, and attendants. Then tragedy struck!

Asahiyama, who had done so much to bring the Tongans into the world of sumo, died suddenly on in October 1975! It was simply a tragic death mourned by the Tongans. It certainly was not the first time a stablemaster died while leading a stable and a clear order of succession almost always emerged. As they say, the training must go on and sumo is bigger than one individual. At first the widow of Asahiyma, Mrs. Kusada agreed to let former komusubi Wakafutase buy the Asahiyama kabu (stock) as well as the building and land where the stable was located and take all the stable's wrestlers with him as the new stablemaster. This would allow the Tongans to continue training under an official sstablemaster and continue competing in tournaments. However, Wakafutase didn't have the money and struck an arrangement for a monthly payment over 5 years to settle the debt with Mrs. Kusada. Enter Maegashira Ryuo who offered to purchase the land and building right away if he could get the Asahiyama name upon his upcoming retirement. Since he was an active wrestler under Asahiyama, he could either purchase the Asahiyama kabu/stock or a kabu/stock from someone else and "legally" take the Tongans with him upon retirement. However, there was no other kabu/stock available leaving him only the Asahiyama option. Going with Ryou was a much better deal and Ms. Kusada asked Wakafutase to give everything back to her since she wanted to now deal with Ryuo. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush was her thinking. Wakafutase rightfully refused citing the legally binding contract to own the Aashiyama kabu. However, the Tongans believed the Tongan King put their well-being in the hands of the late Asahiyama and his widow, Ms. Kusada, was the real owner and decided to follow her wishes which was to follow Ryuo. In reality, Wakafutase was the true owner of the Asahiyama name and the Tongans either had to follow him as he set up his new stable or retire for Sumo rules dictate you belong to only one stable and if you decide to separate from that one stable you can't join a new stable and must retire. One year after Asahiyama died, all the Tongans submitted their retirement papers much to the exasperation of the Japanese government for they now had an international "incident" on their hands. The Tongans had been making headlines for the two years they were in Japan and the Japanese government had to get involved and sent an entourage down to Tonga to explain the situation to the Tongan King. In the end, there was nothing the Japanese government and Sumo Association could do except explain the rules to the King and offer their sincerest apologies.

All the Tongans scattered doing various things after Sumo, but the most famous was Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifta who went on to a much more grand and fabulous career in pro wrestling as Haku and King Tonga. Much more than he could have hoped for in the world of Sumo.

The Tongans were captured on two Japanese card sets during the time they were active in Sumo: the 1974 Nazo Nazo 3 Set & 1975 Osato Mini Card Set. This was highly unusual since low ranked rikishi never got their own cards, but it does highlight how popular and newsworthy their story truly was. It also led to two "Rookie" cards for Haku/King Tonga's Pro Wrestling career and two "Debut" cards for his sumo career.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

RIP - Former Yokozuna Wajima

Earlier this week, former Yokozuna Wajima passed away at the relatively old age of 70. I say old because the average age of the last 8 Yokozuna to pass way (Including Wajima) is only 62. Wajima lived a colorful life both inside and outside of sumo. He loved to have his hair permed, he drove swanky Lincoln Continentals, and associated with the Yakuza. He was the only college graduate in sumo to ever achieve the rank of Yokozuna on top of it all. After retirement, his wife attempted suicide, he put up his stock in the Sumo Association as collateral for a loan which ultimately got him banned, and he joined pro wrestling to make ends meet. He also coached a Japanese football team for a while to boot. All in all, Wajima was a very colorful character and was the type of wrestler that was different enough to be liked by the fans, but skilled enough to win 14 championships and to be respected by his peers. RIP Wajima!

Here is one of Wajima's 1975 Osato Mini Cards showing him in his mawashi and tsuna. [Image courtesy of Yahoo Japan Auctions]

Thursday, April 19, 2018

1975 Osato Sumo Wrestling Mini Card Set

The years 1965 to 1973 were a rough time to be a trading card collector in Japan because production was almost zero. Menko cards had made a valiant production run from the 1930s until 1964 where millions of cards had been mass produced with thousands of different themes. Then, in almost a blink of an eye, menko production stopped in 1964 except for a couple of dozen sets that were sporadically printed over the course of the next 8 years. TV was thought to be the major contributor to the death of the menko era, but in reality it was probably a combination of increased economic prosperity in Japan, better and more sophisticated toys, more focus on education and attention on making Japan a world leader again, and the lack of a card collector base. In the US, kids and adults alike were collecting and trading baseball, football, and basketball cards and they carried the demand with them to spur production. However, in Japan, children were almost solely the collecting base and when their attention turned to other forms of entertainment the demand dried up.

Then, as almost quickly as television had killed menko, television brought about the birth of the mini card era in Japan in 1973. By the early 1970s, color TVs were the standard and by 1975 almost 32 million color TVs were in Japanese households. Color TV allowed for some visual graphic and exciting shows. Television stations started broadcasting in color a variety of diverse programs including popular dramas, anime, sumo, baseball, and music. TV had turned into the norm for daily life for people in Japan in the early 1970s. What this meant was that kids and adults alike wanted to now collect cards of their favorite TV personality, anime series, movie actor and sports hero. Hence the mini card era was born in 1973.

No less than 6 companies jumped on board and started printing mini cards including Yamakatsu(who had made menko a decade earlier), Osato, Calbee, and Amada. The size was standardized at approximately 2” x 3” for most mini cards. Unfortunately, only a handful of sumo card sets were printed in the 1970s. However, one of these sets was by Osato in 1975 and printed to represent the 1975 Haru Banzuke. Like most mini card sets it has 32 cards in it because the card sheets were printed at the factory with 16 cards on them (4 cards x 4 cards). Some of the larger mini card sets had 48 and 64 total cards. These Osato sumo cards were issued in boxes of 50 packs (1 card per pack) that cost 10 yen a pack. These packs were made of brown paper and were stapled across the top with two staples.

Also included in the box were 3 “winner” cards that had a special gold stamp on the back. This stamp allowed the lucky kid to claim one of the 3 card albums included in the box for free. These lucky winner cards were packed separately in the box so the store owner knew which ones were the lucky cards and could presumably control when each of the albums was given away. These albums are made of thin cardboard and have a sumo photo on the front with a picture or two of some of the cards from the set on the back. Inside the album are 7 plastic, 2-pocket pages to hold the cards. There are currently 5 known different album designs.

The cards themselves are fairly standard. Of the 32 cards, 27 have a single color background which is yellow, orange, pink, green, red or blue. The other 5 have a photographic background which includes the audience at the Kokugikan. The backs are printed in blue ink and indicate the rikishi’ s shikona (with furigana above it), heya, birthplace, height, weight and favorite technique. On the bottom of the cards is a picture of a kimarite with the “white” rikishi as the winning rikishi and the “black” rikishi as the losing rikishi. The name of the kimarite is written next to the picture.

This set does have some important rikishi in it. First, the two reigning yokozuna of the 1970s: Kitanoumi and Wajima. It also has up-andcoming Yokozuna Mienoumi (in 1975 he was a maegashira). Most importantly for the Western collector and Hawaiian rikishi collector it has a card of Takamiyama when he was ranked as a maegashira and 3 years after his Makuuchi yusho in 1972. Surprisingly, it doesn’ t have Wakamisugi (Yokozuna Wakanohana) even though he was ranked as a sekiwake when this set was printed.

This set is fairly easy to collect because of the amount of cards on the market. The base cards are fairly easy to find in auctions and usually show up once every several months. More difficult to find are “winner” cards and extremely difficult to find are uncancelled “winner” cards, meaning that the store owner didn’ t mark out or cross out the winner stamp on the back when a kid turned it in. Albums are difficulty to find and unopened boxes of this set are nearly impossible to come across.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

New Set - 1962 Osato Famous Stars Trump (G622)

1962 Osato Famous Stars Trump

G622

This is a set I have seen several times in the past few decades, but only recently did I pick up a sheet of the cards and checklist them. It was made by Osato Gangu in 1962 and the sheet I have features 24 different sport and entertainment stars from the era (note: one card is duplicated on the sheet). Osato made numerous card sets from the 1950s-1970s and most notably the 1975 Osato Sumo Wrestling Mini Card set. The cards are printed on study cardboard stock and come in sheets of 25 cards in a 5x5 arrangement. Gary Engel's Vintage Edition of the Japanese Baseball Card Checklist and Price Guide lists the set (JGA 149) at 44 cards and printed in 1962 or 1963. The backs are printed in blue ink with a mosaic pattern around the Osato lion head and the fronts feature images of the famous star along with a playing card which is in a horizontal position on the card. The front images are CYMK halftone printed with each card measuring about 1 3/16" x 2 3/8" and the entire sheet measuring 12" x 5 7/8". Registration on my sheet is really good with only the blue color being slightly off top to bottom by .25 millimeters or so.

Distribution on these is unknown and likely sold by dagashiya in uncut sheets or potentially as a prize sheet for some other set. It's possible that they might have been inserted in a children's magazine of the era too although all four sides of my sheet are nice and smooth indicating that they weren't necessarily attached inside a magazine.

                                                        Closeup of the halftone print dots

Here is the checklist that I have compiled so far for this set:

Sumo Wrestling:
     - 4 of Clubs - Yokozuna Kashiwado
     - 5 of Diamonds - Yokozuna Taiho

Baseball:
     - 6 of Diamonds - Katsuya Nomura
     - 5 of Clubs - Sadaharu Oh
     - 8 of Diamonds - Masaichi Kaneda

Pro Wrestling:
     - 8 of Clubs - Rikidozan

American Movie Stars:
     - Ace of Clubs - 101 Dalmations
     - 9 of Diamonds - Jack Hawkins (Ben Hur)
     - 4 of Clubs - Charlton Heston & Sam Jaffe (Ben Hur)
     - 8 of Spades - King Kong
     - Ace of Diamonds - Steve McQueen (Wanted Dead or Alive (Kenju Mushuku))

American TV Stars:
     -7 of Clubs - Chuck Conners (Rifleman)
     - Queen of Clubs - Vince Edwards (Ben Casey)
     - 2 of Clubs - George Reeves (Superman)

Japanese TV/Movie/Music Stars:
     - 9 of Clubs - Kinya Kitaoji
     - Jack of Clubs - Hibari Misora
     - 4 of Diamonds - Unknown Samurai with Eye Cut
     - 3 of Clubs - Kayoko Moriyama
     - 3 of Diamonds - Raizo Ichikawa
     - 7 of Diamonds - Sayuri Yoshinaga
     - 6 of Clubs - Tomoko Matsushima
     - King of Clubs - Akira Kobayashi
     - 2 of Diamonds - Komadori Sisters
     - King of Hearts - Kinosuke Nakamura