"Playing Cards" in the United States are known as "Trump Cards" (トランプ カード) in Japan. Not getting political here, but Trump Cards don't have anything to do with President Donald Trump, but rather have to do with the "Trump" being the term used to identify a powerful suit in different types of card games. The tie to sumo wrestling has to do with the fact that these sets are popular souvenirs during tournament time as they depict the different active sumo wrestlers. Since 1973, there have been over 63 sumo wrestling trump card sets released. From quick napkin math, you can see that in some years there was more than one set released. This often was the case when sumo popularity was extremely high and the Japan Sumo Association was trying to capture the latest, ever-changing ranks of the wrestlers. This past September, the Japan Sumo Association released its 63rd set. I scanned the top 3 cards in each suit (J,Q,K) of this 2020 set as these cards depict the 12 highest-ranked wrestlers at the time. Interestingly, the Japanese don't view the Ace as a strong card in general, but with these sumo wrestling sets, the Ace is usually a veteran or someone notable so not necessary the weakest wrestler either.
Very cool playing cards. Out of the 63 decks, how many do you own?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. I have about 20-30 of them. I haven’t counted recently. I’ll never be able to own them all, but fun to try!
DeleteI currently have 30 of the decks--I am trying for all of the Decks from the Heisei Era forward (1989-date). I believe I am still missing 9 decks to complete the run: https://imageevent.com/supplex55/supplex55bbmsumocardcollection1997
DeleteAwesome! There are some tough sets out there in that run.
DeleteCool. I wasn't aware that they ranked them like that in those playing card decks, neat fact!
ReplyDeleteThey did, they were constantly moving successful wrestlers up into the J, Q, K slots.
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