This Great wooden Buddha sculpture, representative of the Showa ear, was produced by Masaki Abe, a member of the Nitten art exhibition and judge of the Nitten art competition, who used the then 15-year-old future grand sumo champion Kitanoumi as a model.
Produced at the Suiundo head office workshop, our president, Yutaka Yamaguchi, remembers when he was a boy, Kitanoumi-Zeki spent 10 days at Masaki Abe’s studio posing for the Nio statue.

Our Nio statue at Soji-ji Temple was featured on the memorial programme for the late Kitanoumi in the ‘Information Live Miyaneya’ (Nippon Television Network). (December 2015)