Insights from a Kagurazaka Store Owner

Tokyo in September marks the transition from late-summer heat to autumn. The first half remains humid, while the latter half becomes calmer and more comfortable. This guide covers essential information for first-time visitors: the weather, Silver Week crowds, the Grand Sumo Tournament, harvest festivals, Tsukimi, and an evening in Kagurazaka. Introduction If you ask people who have visited Tokyo in September, they often share a common sentiment: it’s a transition month. It’s

The rules of sumo take about thirty seconds to explain. Two wrestlers enter a clay ring. The first to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of his feet, or to step outside the circle, loses. That is the whole rulebook. And yet a single bout can contain more layers of meaning — historical, spiritual, tactical, cultural — than most sports pack into an entire season. The visitors who leave Ryogoku Kokugikan most deeply satisfied are not the ones who understood the

Every sumo bout begins the same way. The wrestler walks to the corner of the ring, reaches into a wooden box, and throws a handful of coarse salt into the air. Some wrestlers throw it in a single elegant arc. Others hurl it toward the ceiling in a dramatic cloud that draws gasps from the crowd. A few scatter it quietly, almost privately, as if offering it to someone only they can see. Then they do it again. And again. Sometimes five or six times before the bout begins. By the

The July 2026 Nagoya Tournament has just ended in extraordinary fashion. Sekiwake Aonishiki claimed his third career championship — and first-ever title won in the same tournament in which a wrestler reclaims Ozeki status — through a three-way playoff against Ozeki Kirishima and Sekiwake Atamifuji. It was one of the most dramatic senshuraku in recent memory, with playoff bouts across every division causing NHK to extend its broadcast by 20 minutes. Attention now turns to the