ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the changes in martial arts within the Japanese society during the second half of the twentieth century. After the Second World War, Japanese martial arts projected public distance from military views and became connected to the global sports figuration, both within the amateur (jūdō and karate) and the professional (MMA) versions. Nonetheless, traditional disciplines (such as koryū and aikidō) that avoided the blend with sport or that developed as an autonomous ‘national sport’ (sumō) remained as containers of the central core of Japanese traditions.
