The Daily Yomiuri,
1-7-1 Otemachi,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8055
I agree with Deborah Iwabuchi’s sentiments regarding the JSA’s claims of Yokozuna Asashoryu’s “associative disorder,” (“JSA dissociated from Asashoryu’s reality,” August 24t, 2007. If Asashoryu arrived in Japan from Mongolia with a mental condition that was undiagnosed or untreated, it indicates either incompetence or abuse by the JSA of its wrestlers. And, if the JSA is just inventing the diagnosis as a smokescreen - a very plausible explanation in this country - it is morally obtuse in a long tradition of Japanese moral obtuseness.
Let us suppose for argument’s sake that Asahoryu does have a pathological mental condition, one that was not apparent when he arrived in Japan and took up the Sumo sport. My conclusion is that the Japan Sumo Association is the kind of organization that drives sane people mad, just as the Imperial Household Agency has done with a once sound-minded Crown Princess.