Ukiyo-e are popular pictures of the everyday life of the urban class in the Edo period. Originally the word ukiyo was used to designate one of the Buddhist categories and could be translated as "world of misery" or "world of sorrow". At the end of the 17^th century ukiyo came to mean the modern world, the world of earthly joys and pleasure. The creation of Japanese ukiyo-e prints reached its heyday at the end of the 18^th century. The main figures in ukiyo-e prints came to be representatives of the third estate: courtesans, actors, sumō wrestlers, characters from Japanese plays and legendary heroes.

Apart from the pleasure districts and kabuki theatre, contests between sumō wrestlers became a popular entertainment for town-dwellers in the Edo period. Sumō wrestling emerged as a special type of sport in the 17^th century in the Kamigata region, where large towns such as Osaka and Kyōto were situated. This type of contest appeared in the city of Edo in the mid-18^th century and its heyday was at the end of that century. The development of this genre, like that of the actor print, began for practical purposes in the form of posters and programmes. As in the case of kabuki theatre, a special style of calligraphic script emerged in the posters and programmes for sumō wrestling contests which has lasted to this day.