“When opportunity knocks.” You’ve heard the saying. That’s how Kai Waters, a 23-year-old American graduate student, describes his decision to spend six months studying in Japan. What he doesn’t know is that they will be the most arresting, challenging six months of his life. He will be swallowed up in the world of the Yakuza. He will be marked for death. He will fall in love. He will see first hand about the pressures of living in the most unique society on earth, a place where failure comes at the ultimate price.
In SumoLand, he travels an extraordinary road that melds personal discovery with inner conflict and the beauty of friendship with the pain of loss. He does so in a country where modesty and “saving face” are as important as civic pride, honor, and duty, a very dangerous combination.
In the end, the questions that remain unanswered are as important as what he learns. In the end, the people he meets and the realities he is forced to accept lead to the most difficult decision of all: to stay or to go.