Futabayama Sadaji is the only sumo wrestler who was ever dubbed 'Extraordinary Yokozuna'. His legend has never been surpassed. He won 69 victories in a row in sumo. Futabayama Sadaji was undefeated champion 8 times, and he won a total of 12 competitions.

He is still remembered as a famous sumo wrestler in his hometown Usa, where a statue of him stands. His old house has become a monument to pass on his achievements to the next generation. In the harbor of the town, there are also statues, as well as the former sumo wrestling stable: inside, it is like a museum with exhibits of sumo implements. There is also a room where movies of the famous Yokozuna are shown.

Since its opening, this sumo place has been crowded with sumo and Futabayama fans.

Japan is probably ahead of many other countries in the variety of spinning tops in terms of the shape and structure. There are many ways of spinning and competing that have been handed down from the old times. You can spin a top by pinching the stem with your thumb and fingers and twirl it, by twirling with your palms, by winding a string around the top and throwing it to unwind the string, or by lifting up a top with thread wound around the stem and hitting the top against the floor. Which way to choose depends on the type of tops. You can also play games with tops in several ways including the game in which the strength of the top is contested by hitting the tops against each other, the one in which the elapsed time of the rotation is competed, or the competition in which the spinning skills are contested. If you play with a top by yourself, you can enjoy the changes of the shape or patterns of a top in rotation, or the sound made by the mechanism inside a top. In Japan there are also many kinds of acrobatic top performances such as spinning a top on a parasol or tightrope spinning.

Kite flying has become one of the plays of the New Year’s holidays since the late Edo period, when a kite with Kabuki actor’s image or famous wartime warrior’s image painted on it was considered to have a magical power or bring good luck. The appeal of kite flying lies in how to control a kite, taking the length and tension of the string and the wind direction into consideration. Besides the competition for the height of flying, there are also several kinds of kite fighting games called tako-gassen or kenka-dako. In the kite fighting, you will contrive the ways to keep flying your kite longer than others by crashing it to or cutting off the string of the competing kites. Many kite flying contests in design and display are held all over the country.

Karuta games (card game) of Japan originated in the Kaiawase game (shell game) played among the women of the noble families in the Heian period (794−1192). Later in the Edo period (1603−1867), the rectangular cards of Uta-garuta with tanka poems written on them began to be played, which developed into the present Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (poems of one hundred poets). In this game, the Yomite (reader) reads kaminoku (the first 17 syllables of a poem) in the yomifuda (reading cards) and the players have to find its torifuda (grabbing cards) in which the associated shimonoku (the rest 14 syllables) are written. Kyogi-Karuta (competition karuta) is usually played between the two players but three players take part in the game in some cases. Other kinds of karuta are Iroha-Karuta with a kana letter of 48 Japanese alphabets and a picture are written in torifuda while a proverb connected to the picture is written in yomifuda and Eawase-Karuta for infants to learn the language.