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Japanese Sports, A History

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Leslie Heaphy
Kent State University
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Japanese Sports, A History

Reviewed by Leslie Heaphy, Department of History, Kent State

University, Stark Campus.

JANUARY 26, 2005 archive

Allen Guttman and Lee Thompson have written a text that fills a needed gap
in sports history. There have been a number of books in recent years written
on Japanese baseball and Sumo wrestling but few others deal with the wide
variety of Japanese sports. This text walks the reader through current
sporting trends as well as those that are ancient and no longer practiced.
This gives one the opportunity to understand the context in which Japanese
sport has grown and some of the influences on those still practiced today.
The goal of the text is clearly stated as a twofold message: what were the
existing sports before the intrusion of Western culture and how has Japan
responded to the coming of modernization.

Not surprisingly the discussion of older sports begins with the national sport
of Sumo wrestling. Sumo is dealt with in both parts of the book because it is
a sport that remains and has had to adjust to changing traditions and the
challenges to its popularity from baseball. After discussing Sumo, the
examination turns to the martial arts as a part of the Samurai tradition and
then to ball games of varying kinds. The second part of the book examines
the growth of more modern sports from the early 1800s through the end of
World War II. Included in this discussion are baseball, physical education
training and philosophies of sport as they relate to military training and
patriotism. The final section focuses on sporting growth since the end of the
Second World War. Initially, with the American occupation, a number of
traditional sports were banned but gradually the martial arts have been
restored to prominence. Organizations were created at the national level to
govern amateur and later professional sports, mirroring the same
developments in the United States. This section also includes some
discussion of Japan's gradual success and acceptance at the Olympic Games.
It ends with a discussion of some of the more recent directions Japanese
sports have taken including the addition of Western sports such as soccer
and an increased emphasis on women's participation, mainly due to the
Olympics.

One of the strengths of this text is found throughout the book as the authors
go beyond talking about the sports themselves to discussion of history and
 traditions. For example, in talking about sword play, part of the focus is on
the role and beliefs of the samurai and how the sword is an extension of
that. It is these traditions that are so threatened when the YMCA introduces
basketball and volleyball to Japanese schools. One of the major problems
was the emphasis on involving women, which was problematic for the
Japanese because of dress codes and existing patriarchal attitudes.

The authors also spend some time in examining how the government viewed
sport during different time periods. In the early days it was about tradition
and showing status. Later, during the Taisho era, it became about national
strength and patriotism. Since the late 1940s, it has been about acceptance
in the world, especially in the Olympics. This discussion is rather subtle and
does not dominate the text but adds another level of complexity to this
subject. The authors rightly capture the difficulties in examining sports that
are different from many Western games and that have so much cultural
significance attached.

This text is a must read for anyone interested in Japanese sports but also for
those looking for an examination of the cultural context surrounding sport. It
will also interest those who wonder about the influence of the West and
modernization on traditional games. The text is well documented and the
notes and bibliography provide excellent resources to continue studying this
topic.

Guttman, Allen and Lee Thompson. Japanese Sports, A History. HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.
307 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8248-2464-4.
Copyright © 2005 by Leslie Heaphy

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