Ryozo Tatami, the mayor of a small town in Kyoto prefecture, was delivering a speech Wednesday before an exhibition sumo match when he suffered a brain hemorrhage and collapsed, according to the New York Times. Even though women comprise a large part of the sumo fanbase, they’re forbidden from entering the ring…

The 2018 Winter Olympics are over, and there was one clear winner: Soohorang, mascot of the Pyeongchang games.

It does not take a curling genius (or, barring that, just a regular old Canadian citizen) to figure out that Japanese skip Yusuke Morozumi really boinked this one against Denmark.

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea, from 1910 until 1945, was characterized by executions, forced labor, systematic rape of so-called “comfort women,” and other human rights atrocities. Japan’s whitewashing of this time period in their history books today is a continued source of…

Last time the youth of Japan were given an opportunity to demonstrate their sporting acumen in the whimsical world of Japanese game shows, 55 children tried and failed to best a team of a mere two professional players in soccer. Recently, that same game show gave 100 more kids the chance to redeem themselves by…

Kenny Omega is considered by many to be the best wrestler in the world. Chris Jericho is an unquestioned wrestling legend. They both showed why in Tokyo on Thursday.

Yesterday, the committee organizing the 2020 Toyko Summer Olympics announced the finalists for the official mascots of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. As you can expect in a mascot-mad country like Japan, the process was complicated. Seriously, there were eight meetings of the Mascot Selection Process Panel, then…

In the first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball playoffs in Japan, the Hanshin Tigers and Yokohama DeNA Baystars battled through absolutely absurd conditions to play an entire baseball game in the mud. The result was unlike any baseball game I’ve ever seen. To watch the highlights with the full swampy effect, …

Japanese baseball star Shohei Otani, who is in the midst of a Ruthian season for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters—the two-way stud had a 1.86 ERA and 174 strikeouts in 140 innings, to go along with 27 homers and a .322/.416/.588 triple slash in 2016—is reportedly ready to play ball in America. He’ll be doing so on the…

Wednesday’s NPB game between the Rakuten Golden Eagles and Seibu Lions ended after eight innings with an 8-8 tie, because a group of birds wouldn’t get off the damn field.

Remember Momo, the 12-year-old who got booked for an MMA fight in Japan against an opponent twice her age? She choked out the 24-year-old in question in the first round.

Tonight’s low-scoring World Baseball Classic semifinal between Japan and Team USA had none of the playful braggadocio seen in other World Baseball Classic games this year, but the Americans eked out a 2-1 win to advance to the WBC final for the first time.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for the negotiations of Manny Ramirez’s new contract with the Japanese independent league Kochi Island Fighting Dogs, which reportedly grants optional practices, a chauffeured Mercedes, a private hotel suite for road games, a jersey that says “Manny” on the back, and, most…

I don’t know the particulars here, but what I do know is that the above video depicts one big sumo guy slamming into another sumo guy, the injured sumo guy convulsing on the ground and then stumbling in a very pronounced way during his failed attempts to get back on his feet, and that it’s hard to watch.

With his first season with the Dodgers under his belt, pitcher Kenta Maeda returned to his native Japan this winter to do charity work in Hiroshima and visit Disneyland Tokyo. Maeda also disguised himself as an old man and clumsily fielded ground balls before he ruthlessly struck out a child on a game show that aired…

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe became Super Mario tonight in the traditional portion of the closing ceremony that previews the next Olympiad. Mario was joined by Pac-Man and famous anime figures, as well:

Brazilian Thiago Da Silva left the pole vault finals with a gold medal and an Olympic record. Japanese pole vaulter Hiroki Ogita left with a 21st-place finish and a dick foible seen ‘round the world.

Kohei Uchimura is a six-time world champion gymnast, a four-time gold medalist at the Olympics, and, apparently, an aspiring Pokémon trainer. Playing Pokémon Go in different locales can be a great way to accrue a collection of new monsters, but it can also cost you severely. Uchimura reportedly played a bunch after he…