In feudal Japan, the country was ripped apart by conflict between its most powerful provinces. Demand for warriors increased, and many schools of swordsmanship sprung up. The popular Ittoryu (“one sword school”) would provide the seed of kendo.

The martial art started to take its modern appearance in the late 18th century. Protective armour (bogu) was introduced, as well as a less-painful, bamboo sword (shinai). These became necessary, because so many people were getting hurt practicing without protection, they couldn’t fight for real.

In the modern form of kendo, competitors wear a lot of protective padding, and are masters of 3 types of sword. Shinai, the practice swords, are made of split bamboo. Bokken are wooden swords used to practice kata (set patterns). In formal competitions dull metal swords (habiki) are used.

International kendo championships are held every 3 years. The rules for kendo competition are strict. “Thrust” attacks are allowed only at the throat, while “strikes” target the top of the opponent’s head, sides of the body and forearms.

Legal attacks must be accompanied with an appropriate yell to score points in a match. This yell names the area being targeted. The first person to score two points wins the match.

• Kendo America
  Dedicated to the promotion of kendo in the US
  
• Kendo (Wikipedia)
  

When karate came to Japan from Okinawa in 1922, the exotic sport faced a fight for acceptance. New kanji were adopted to make it seem less foreign to the nationalistic Japanese people. Elements of Zen Buddhism were introduced, including meditation and the focus on composure and awareness. White uniforms were borrowed from judo.

By World War II, karate had found nation-wide popularity and was introduced to high schools. Its popularity was spread to the West after the war, when returning US soldiers took it back to America.

Unlike judo, karate has no single set of rules or techniques. Modern karate is broadly split into traditional styles and full contact styles, and hundreds of different schools. The most famous traditional forms are Shotokan, Gojo-ryu, Wado-ryu, and Shito-ryu. Kyokushin-kaikan is the most popular contact style.

Karate is not an Olympic sport. The martial art is so diverse that an international governing body is impossible. However, there are individual and team competitions in kata (fixed set pieces) and kumite (sparring).

In kata, points are awarded for style and quality of the performance. In kumite, two fighters face off in bouts lasting 3 to 5 minutes. Scoring and rules depend on the style, a scoring point in a full contact style might be illegal in a traditional, half-contact style.

• Karate on the Web
  Numerous karate links, mostly US-related
  
• Karate (Wikipedia)
  

The game is played on a 19×19 grid. Two players, black and white, take turns placing their pieces (stones) on the intersections (points) of this grid. The aim is to ? enclose? more empty points with your stones than your opponent does with theirs. When a stone is surrounded by opponent stones, it’s removed from the board.

The rules are extremely simple, but the strategies are extremely complex, with a greater scope than chess. It is commonly said that no game of Go has ever been played twice, as there are an unthinkable number of possible outcomes, and an equally unthinkable number of different ways to reach them.

There is also something distinctly human about the game. While computers have been taught to play flawless chess, Go is too difficult for them. At an advanced level, the game requires deep understanding of intangible concepts, which computers are not yet capable of.

The most important concept of Go is “life and death”. In every game, a few of your stones will be captured and “die”. It’s crucial to predict this, and focus your strategy on the “live” stones which will remain on the board.

In international tournaments, honors are usually shared between Japan, Korea and China. Players from other countries had never found any success until 2000, when an American called Michael Redmond reached 9th dan (the highest grade).

• Go (Wikipedia)
  
• History of Go (GoBase)
  
• How to play Go
  

An impressive performance in the 1998 World Cup earned him a move to Italy’s Serie A, and he’s been club-hopping around Europe ever since.

He’s had a stormy relationship with the mass media, preferring to release news independently on his own website.

A gay icon and one of Japan’s most eligible bachelors, he has been linked with supermodel/actress Mila Jovovich and scandal-plagued actress Rie Miyazawa.

• Official English language homepage
  

Surprisingly low-tech by Japanese standards, it’s massively popular among young people.

Print club machines can be seen all over urban Japan, usually surrounded by Japanese schoolgirls swapping pictures.

• Purikura (Wikipedia)
  
• Print Club – Japan photo sticker fad
  
• Purikura Power!!!
  
• Purikura (greggman.com)
  

As the legend goes, it was born in Kobe, when a canny restauranteur encouraged customers to sing over a backing tape when his act didn’t show up. This is probably rubbish though.

Japan’s karaoke culture’s way ahead of the West – welcome to private, sound-proofed booths, open 24-hours a day with waiter service and cheap all-you-can-drink deals. In any other country, it would get very messy…

These luxury boxes are a favourite shennanigan location for randy Japanese teens not brave or rich enough to get a room in a love hotel.

• History of Karaoke (Karaoke Scene Magazine)
  
• Karaoke (Japan Guide)
  

Professional sumo started in the Edo period (1603 -1867), when struggling samurai would tussle for public entertainment in order to raise money. In the Meiji Restoration (1868), it was officially chosen as one of the gendai budo (modern martial arts).

The rules of sumo are simple, and matches rarely last more than a few seconds. There are two main ways to win a sumo bout: push your opponent out of the clay ring (dohyo), or knock him to the floor. Rikishi (wrestlers) will also lose if they use an illegal technique, or if their mawashi (sumo nappy) becomes undone.

Although the fights themselves are short, they are preceded by elaborate rituals. Following a minute or so of ritual stomping and fat-slapping, rikishi cleanse their mouths with special chikara-mizu (“power water”), before purifying the ring with handfuls of salt.

Sumo Lifestyle

Sumo wrestlers lead a highly controlled life. Every rikishi must be trained by an experienced wrestler in a “stable”, a kind of sumo training commune. In Japan, there are about 50 training stables for over 700 wrestlers. They follow a strict hierarchy: junior wrestlers do all the stable’s menial jobs, and attend to the every need of senior wrestlers. Already conspicuous in public, all wrestlers are expected to wear traditional clothes outside the stable.

Rikishi are not usually allowed breakfast, but eat massive lunches, followed by a nap. Combined with intensive training, this builds the formidable bulk that they need in the ring. Of course, many people aren’t physically capable of this, or the stable?s arduous lifestyle, and junior wrestlers often drop out.

Rankings are decided by 6 annual grand sumo tournaments: 3 in Tokyo and 1 each in Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagoya. Each competition lasts 15 days, and the top wrestlers fight every day. Whoever wins the most matches, wins the tournament.

Scandal

The sumo establishment has had to cope with its share of scandal. In 1997, a former wrestler claimed that many rikishi smoke marijuana, cheat on their taxes, associated with yakuza, arranged orgies, and lost matches for money. The practice of intentionally losing matches goes right back into the history of the sport, when it was done to help other wrestlers.

Sumo’s current yokozuna (grand champion), the Mongolian Asashoryu, is no stranger to controversy. In 2003, he earned Mike Tyson comparisons for grabbing his opponent’s topknot (samurai-style haircut) in the ring, and slamming him to the floor. It was an act of supreme disrespect, for which he lost the match.

His popularity is not helped by his nationality. There is growing resentment about the number of recent non-Japanese yokozuna. The first was Akebono, who was born in Hawaii. He was followed by Musashimaru, a Samoan, and Asashoryu.

• Sumo FAQ
• Nihon Sumo Kyokai Official Grand Sumo
• Sumo Information Archive
• Sumo has bigger problems than bribery to worry about (MDN WaiWai)
  “Accusations of bribery are as old as the ancient sport of sumo itself, though in the past proponents were much more open about bouts being fixed”
• Do sumos really retract their testicles into their bodies? (Japan Probe)
  “It’s a belief widely held in the West that sumo wrestlers, through years of dedication and practice, are able to retract their testes into their pelvis before a basho.”
• Gaijin grapplers muscle in on the sacred dohyo (MDN WaiWai)
  “Sumo, the nation’s sacred, ancient and national sport, is being taken over by foreigners, according to Shukan Taishu”