Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.
“We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport,” says Julia, 34.
“From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it,” Cezar, 36, adds.
Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.
“It’s the only sport we watch,” explains Julia – so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.
“We found Italian groups, English groups,” says Julia.
“Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport,” adds Cezar.
AloJapan.com