(the) Road to the Deep East

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200 years ago, in 1805, Tatsugoro, who was a fire fighter belongs to a group named Megumi, and his fellows visited a sumo wrestling match held at a shrine in Shiba, Edo(Tokyo's ancient name). 200 years ago, fire fighters are exempted from sumo wrestling's ticket fee because fire fighters are heroes who protect the town made of woods and papers. So, Tatsugoro and his fellows enjoyed the show for free, but there was one friend who was not a fire fighter, so one of sumo wrestlers, Kuryu-zan blamed this friend at the entrance gate. Fire fighters got angry about the sumo wrestler's wild and rude words, but Tatsugoro paid the ticket fee, and they pulled back for a while.

After they enjoyed the sumo match and left the shrine, they went to a theater to enjoy a play. But unluckily, the sumo wrestler was also visiting the theater. Then the sumo wrestler began to yell at the fire fighters and insult them in front of the lot of audience. This time, fire fighters couldn't stand anymore.

Then, the huge battle started. Sumo Wrestlers vs. Fire Fighters. Almost all sumo wrestlers and fire fighters in Edo city joined this battle, and it confused the city for 7 hours. 34 people were arrested for this battle, and Tatsugoro and few fellows were exiled from Edo in the end.

This is an incident called 'Megumi no kenka'(め組の喧嘩, the fight of megumi). It became a motif of Kaubki known as "Kami no megumi wagou no torikumi"(神明恵和合取組) , and it is still popular even today.

Anyway, its 21th century version, in this 'Urawa no Kenka' , people didn't involve any players nor the trouble was not caused by the players, but it's sure there were people who caused a trouble with the excitement after the sports even 200 years ago.

So, don't worry. Japanese are not degenerated, nor influenced by anti-Japanese activists too much. Some of Japanese have been just stupid for 200 years. In other words Genetically, Japanese have seeds of hooligans, just as other human beings in the world do.

And you don't have to think this accident is humiliating.

In the kabuki-verison, the fact that Tatsugoro and his friend tried to cook up the bill is being cut. Instead, Tatsugoro are drawn as a pure hero who fight against the sumo wrestlers and their sponsor samurai who insulted them.

So, just like the Megumi's fight became sophisticated kabuki's theme, years later, this battle between Reds fans and Gamba fans may become a theme of a modern art, even if some of the people at the stadium were just enjoying the mimicry of Western hooligans, and thinks that they could become a true football fans, actually.