“Ura! It’s Ura!” Up in the nosebleed seats of Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo’s packed-to-the-gills sumo arena, I’m cheering for my favorite wrestler with a skewer of grilled chicken. It’s not that I’m hungry. Japan’s ancient sport, it turns out, goes with yakitori the way American baseball goes with hot dogs. Why? Because a wrestler loses if he touches the earthen ring with anything other than the soles of his feet — and chickens always stand on two feet. So when Ura — a short, feisty underdog whose rotund build makes him look like the Michelin man in a pink silk loincloth — hops into the ring, the crowd waving half-eaten chicken sticks is bringing him luck.
It’s a bucket list moment. Three years as a captive audience to every sumo tournament broadcast on NHK World, my dad’s preferred TV channel, turned me and his small coterie of caregivers into diehard fans. That’s six 15-day tournaments a year, equivalent to 90 total viewing days, roughly a quarter of every year. So when my plans for a spring trip to Tokyo coincided with the May tournament at Kokugikan, I knew what to do: poise my fingers above my computer keyboard the minute online ticket sales went live. I ended up with tickets to Day 14. I already knew what I’d be eating.
Fulfilling my yakitori duty as a fan, though, didn’t prove easy. Despite yakitori’s status as the grand champion of Kokugikan snacks (they’re grilled in a dedicated kitchen in the basement), it was surprisingly hard to find a place to buy it. Wide corridors encircling the arena on two floors are crammed with stalls hawking keychains, plastic topknots (sumo’s characteristic hairstyle), and full-size rubber masks molded from wrestlers’ faces. There’s even a Snoopy plushie in a red loincloth. Sprinkled among the tchotchkes are kiosks selling draft beer, sake, sushi, bentos, and soft serve. By the time I finally find the yakitori, I’ve bought Kokugikan mochi crunch and a stash of sumo tea depicting happy wrestlers basking in cups of the brew. For a faster, more direct route, head to one of the information booths and ask for a map.
When I finally found them, the yakitori stands at Kokugikan weren’t what I expected. Stacks of pre-packaged boxes hold three sticks of grilled thigh meat and two of tsukune, or chicken meatballs — not quite hot off the grill but still good, the delicate touch of the soy-sugar-sake marinade drawing out the umami of the chicken. Kokugikan’s yakitori is so popular that it’s also sold at Tokyo Station, but honestly, unless you’re at the arena watching a live tournament, save your yen.
So does the chicken work as a good luck charm? Ura loses an extremely close match — the referee’s call giving him the win is overturned by a conference of judges. I haven’t given up on the yakitori, though. Next time, I’ll buy two boxes. — Mari Taketa, freelance writer