Good piece I’d meant to post a day or two ago, courtesy of my friend Eric. It’s about the recent uptick in violence within the world of Sumo wrestling. Quite a bit of this makes it into the Korean media, but this story in the Washington Post summarizes what’s been happening and draws the conclusion that it represents a larger problem in Japanese society.

The piece begins with the story of Takashi Saito, a 17-year-old junior wrestler killed last during a ritualistic beating — or, hazing if you will. His death was ruled the result of “heart disease.” Last month his stable master was arrested and has since told police he beat Saito because he had a “vague attitude” about his career in sumo.

Three wrestlers have also been arrested in connection with the beating. But it took until Thursday — more than eight months after Saito’s death and a month after the wrestlers were indicted — for the powerful Japan Sumo Association to take action against them. The JSA decided that it would ban the three from competing in sumo tournaments and said that, if they were found guilty, it would expel them from the profession.

The death, the arrests and the measured response of the JSA have cast a cold light on the closed world of sumo, laying bare the bullying, brutality and hierarchical torment that are routine in the self-governed sport, which is 2,000 years old and has been a profitable professional endeavor for nearly four centuries.

The meat of the story, and the most interesting part for me, the claims that it represents a larger piece of Japanese society as a whole.

“This happens all across the country, in schools and workplaces, and it is probably one of the cultural characteristics we have in Japan,” said Naoki Ogi, a professor of education at Hosei University in Tokyo and longtime critic of the culture of discipline in Japanese schools.

The abuse that occurs in sumo stables, Ogi said, is a contemporary echo of the beatings that were routine inside the Japanese military in the years before World War II, when the armed forces had pervasive influence on Japanese society. This abusive pattern, he said, persists in business and education, albeit in ways that are far more psychological than physical.

“As a society, Japan has yet to go through a full democratic review of this kind of behavior,” he said.

Here’s a nicely argued point by a blog based in Japan (it’s also where I got the photo from) . Can’t say I completely agree with him, but it’s well stated.