Sumo is currently experiencing a boom in popularity overseas.

The ability to watch bouts in real time has been a contributing factor, as has the large increase in coverage in this paper and elsewhere.

Sumo¡¯s addictive nature is well documented.

Any online discussion of how fans got into the sport will be littered with ¡°I saw it once and was hooked¡± posts.

A lesser-known gateway drug for the sport recently, though, has been manga.

The popularity of the ¡°Hinomaru Sumo¡± manga has exposed sumo to a demographic that normally has little interest in sport, but one finds sumo with all its ceremony and tradition fascinating.

Japan¡¯s national sport hasn¡¯t been heavily featured in manga but during times of extreme popularity, publishers naturally want to cash in.

During the Waka-Taka Boom of the early ¡®90s, when interest was at an all-time high, sumo manga ¡°Aah! Harimanada¡± was turned into an anime series and even had a video game adaptation.

Outside of the aforementioned books though finding sumo-themed takes a bit of digging.

¡°Okami-san,¡± ¡°Notari Matsutaro¡± and ¡°Sameshima ¡ª The Last 15 Days¡± are probably the only others that had a decent sized readership.

For anyone using comics as a way to learn Japanese, however, the three volume 1988 series entitled ¡°Ottoto! O-Sumokun¡± is well worth a read. It¡¯s a hilarious and irreverent take on sumo and quite easy to read.

While there may not be many sumo comics there is one famous sumo artist.

Junya Kototsurugi is a former rikishi who now creates illustrations for magazines and newspapers and as well as designing whole ranges of merchandise featuring the likenesses of various wrestlers and personalities in sumo.