Mystery Solved - 1980s Sumo Wrestling Game

Last week I published a quick post on an unknown sumo wrestling game (相撲ゲーム) that I picked up with unknown contents inside the envelopes.  These would have hung up inside toy/candy shops to entice kids to spend their hard-earned yen on the contents inside.  I posed the question on what is inside of these.....now the big reveal. 

It turns out this game is played somewhat like a board game.  Inside each envelope are 30 playing pieces that come on a 2x15-piece perforated sheet.

The back of the envelope was used to keep score over 15 rounds.  It took me a while to realize, but the back of the 2x15-piece sheet is covered in a thick, purple tissue paper that is meant to be torn off.  How you would play would be to tear off two end pieces of the sheet and then randomly chose who gets each piece.  You would then remove the purple tissue paper off the back to reveal your winning (or losing) technique.  If your piece was a winning piece it had a white circle on it...if it was a losing piece, you would get a black circle on your piece.  You had to pull off two at time from the end because so there would always be 1 winner and 1 loser.  Some pieces had a tie and a losing piece which would result in a tie and you would indicate that on the score sheet with two circles, one inside the other.  There were 15 rounds and the winner was the player with the most wins (white circles).

Well, there you go.  I guess the envelope would be the collectible "card" in this instance as it had three of the most popular rikishi of this time.

Thanks for tuning in this week and have a great finish to your weekend!